đȘ What Killing Our First Product Taught Me About Staying in the Game
On pivoting, resilience and mindset
March 27, 2025 was a very memorable day for my cofounder and I. We were walking around New York City, heading to Paulâs Series B closing dinner for Browserbase, looking up at all the beautiful buildings in ManhattanâŠand coming to terms with the fact that we were going to have to kill the thing weâd been working on for monthsâŠ
That was a tough realization. You have an incredible number of existential thoughts: âI canât lose everyoneâs money. We can figure something out, right? I am not willing to be a failure. Am I a failure? Only if I give up right?...â The dialogue is wild because that same day you can feel like a genius for any other reason.
We werenât killing our product because we were giving up, we were killing it because our initial hypothesis was fundamentally flawed and we had enough data to know why. It was a nice to have, very hard to quantify a return on and nearly impossible to sell.
Most importantly, we wanted to solve the most pressing problem possible for our customers and this wasnât itâŠwe were actually shown something much more compelling in our discovery process. That process is the beauty of starting a business.
You come out of the gates with a view on the world. A view on your market, the product that must exist and who you are going to serve. But then, you start to spend time with your customer. And only after youâve spent thousands of hours with them can you truly understand what they really care about. Empathy doesnât come from moonlighting, it comes from living and breathing a problem space and an industry. THAT is how we found our north star at Rely.
Iâve been approached by a number of other founders who all need the same advice on pivoting, staying in the game and just building resilience into their DNA. I am by no means an expert because this is indeed my first rodeo. Below are just some lessons I have picked up along the way.
Every no is one step closer to your yes. It is hard to describe just how much you will get rejected as a founder. Investors, customers, early employeesâŠoften youâre lucky if you get one single yes per day at the beginning. The noâs arenât a problem but how you respond to them really matters. Use it as fuel, as education and as guidance. From there you can start to adjust your heading.
Be shameless. I reached out to a high school ex-girlfriend for an introduction to a large real estate acquirer. It didnât work but I tried! Ultimately, if you donât ask, you donât receive so just keep putting yourself in the position to experience luck.
The people who succeed just stay in the game the longest. Behave like it. This is a marathon and it may not even be your only start up. Donât be discouraged by the little things and more importantly, donât burn bridges and act in a short-sighted fashion. Structure offers and deals in a way youâd want to receive them, work with good people and good people only, build a tribe, treat people wellâŠif you make decisions by trying to get someone to join you on your next mission, youâll treat everyone better. This isnât a zero sum game. So, to simplify this, be a good person.
Taking other peopleâs money is a great forcing functionâŠits way easier to stomach losing your own money. Oh and send them updates. They care! Iâve found this pressure to be healthy. It motivates me to want to always excite them. Investor updates are a great way to continue to foster the community around you and leverage your investor base when you need them. It creates accountability as well. These people bought part of your company so theyâre going to want to help. Said a different way, you let them buy some of your equity, why wouldnât you at least try to get something out of them. Lastly, share the bad news too. Just be honest.
Your attitude is contagiousâŠand if youâre not fooling yourself, youâre not fooling anybody. If you feel defeated, you are defeated and everyone else can tell. You arenât going to be able to convince anyone else to support you, join you, buy your product if you yourself donât believe in it anymore. That mentality will crush you until you figure out how to fix it.
Talk to literally everyone. You have no idea where your âa-haâ moment will come from so in discovery, cast a very wide net, be genuinely curious and ask each person you meet who you should talk to next.
If or when the time comes to put your first idea down, do it with pride. This moment is a hard realization but its so freeing. You probably knew it weeks or months before you decided it was time. So be free, move on and move on with confidence knowing youâre a bit closer to the right path than you were before.
Iâm sure there are a bunch of other lessons I missed but ultimately, you get in this game to build something of value. That thing of value has to be informed by the people you serve and if your first thing doesnât work, then just figure out what does. It isnât embarrassing to change direction, it is embarrassing to receive feedback and ignore it.
Hopefully this is helpful to people going through this journey as well. TLDR: be a good person, listen to others, stay in the game.