Things I underestimated as a founder

I made quite some mistakes as a founder. Some were small. Others kept me up at night for years.

I worked on products nobody asked for. I treated raising money like winning. And I let my whole identity collapse into the company, until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. None of it felt like a lesson at the time. It just felt like a job to be done.

But here is the strange thing about hindsight: the things that hurt the most are the things I now understand the best.

Sitting on the other side of the table

These days I (also) sit on the other side of the table. Part of my passion is to mentor and advise founders through AustrianStartups, the TU Wien Innovation Incubation Center (i²c), tech2b Inkubator and Founder Institute. And I keep noticing the same thing: the founders in front of me are about to walk into the exact situations I once walked into blind.

What this series is about

So I started a series. Each part covers one thing I underestimated as a founder – the misread, the blind spot, the thing I wish someone had told me before I learned it the hard way.

This is not theory, and it is not a set of frameworks borrowed from someone else's book. It is simply what actually happened, and what I now tell the founders I work with. If you are building something right now, some of these will feel familiar. That is the point.

The series

1. I got lucky: I built with people I'd known for years
2. We polished a product the market never asked for
3. Funding is fuel. Not the finish line.
4. As we scaled, I stopped looking after my health
5. Distribution beats product
6. I just wasn't coachable
7. Not my job. I did it anyway.
8. You don't build a wave. Only catch one.
9. I commented every pixel. Disguised as quality.
10. Early money isn't about valuation. It's trust.

To my fellow founders: what is something you underestimated when you started out?