Reading about Dead Startups made me wonder three things:
- Who or where are all these startups that are looking for generalists?
- How can I meet them and make my-generalist-self known? And help them in a way that aligns with my values & priorities?
- Did my start ups die??!
We’ll see what happens with Questions 1 and 2 after I put myself out there. Question 3 had me puzzling, so here are some reflections.
How do we assess a startups success, life or death?
Do we measure this by how wealthy the founder became (or not)? How many investment rounds the business went through? Or that it became an incredible asset that was sold to another business for $millions?
Did it need to be another Xero, or life-changing health product? Did it give data insights, graphic design software or admin easier with an app? Did it serve or is it consumed by thousands of people round the country/world?
Did it die because none of this happened as planned or because it stopped sooner than was hoped?
My start ups are not dead
The three start ups I got off the ground were successful in their special ways and none of them died as such. They weren’t international products or made millions of consumers/users/dollars either. I can start talking about non-financial measurements but let’s not get into that today 🙂
What I learnt
I can exit start ups in different ways (intentionally), you also need to know when to let go,
visions and dreams do come true,
having core beliefs & values are vital (the why),
the people you serve, work and live with are important, and so is our personal well-being and rest…
and, last but not least, I’ve never ever regretted giving it all a go.
Having a supportive family is incredibly important too, mentally, emotionally, financially. But I’ve worried, stressed and disappointed them a lot. They also tolerate my antics and craziness (to some extent) and give me the bluntest feedback. We’re Asian and words of affirmation is not a typical love language. I love them deeply.
2006 to 2010: TheHinitiative fashion label
Designer streetwear t-shirts, showcasing up & coming graphic designers in Aotearoa NZ, providing alternative income streams to non profits and good causes, using fair trade and ethical suppliers. I started this while working full-time in finance, then moved to part-time. I finally quit the finance gig as had both a real human baby and business baby!
Exit? Bringing it to a close after running great campaigns, being incredibly busy, absolutely loving the variety and creativity, but not having the energy and organisational structure to make it bigger, more operationally and financially sustainable and keep it going for longer, while I was pregnant / with a new baby and burning the candle at both ends. Great learning as an adult. I don’t think an MBA can teach you this. And my dream of the business concept still came true.
2010 to 2012: Kaibosh Food Rescue
Kaibosh is Aotearoa NZ’s first food rescue organisation and still going strong today.
I was hired as the first staff, operations/general manager, to figure out how to do everything. I had to prove it could work. It was of one of my most favourite jobs ever. I was not the founder but was helping to make everything happen anyway! Wooo!
This baby is under the wings of an awesome team, and many many times larger than what I started with. Kaibosh has been and still is making such an impact. (It makes so much practical sense, do support Kaibosh if you can!)
Exit? Spent time working on how to scale/build capacity, I never planned to be there for long, we hired an amazing guy Matt Dagger to be the full-time GM and I had every confidence that he’d take it to new levels.. I left with a happy heart. And YES he did take it to ultra new levels! My dreams came true (and still are as they continue to venture into other things).
2014 to 2020: Ni Hao Children’s Community language school
This is what happens when two good friends meet, want to provide something new for their children, and next minute – a new start up. Nothing had been done in Aotearoa NZ or Australia in this way. It was a community-based language school for children and families to learn Mandarin Chinese as a second or foreign language. This was via learning by doing, physical activity and social interactions. It was heavily influenced by my perspective as someone who can’t speak one of my heritage languages and feeling foreign to it.
With my amazing team, we built a stair-cased 8 year programme and language education curriculum from scratch. It became all I wanted it to be for children and families, had great feedback, and real proof that the vision and education style could work and benefit others. Parents see me on the street and still thank us for providing such an enjoyable learning community for their kids.
Exit? Covid made it difficult and risky to be running in-person multi-generational sessions. Classes for babies to preschoolers was just not possible online. It was not as fun/social and quite ineffective for school aged kids online. And I was concerned about health risks to young ones, families, and often elderly grandparents coming along. I was running the school in addition to a finance job and solo parenting, so it was getting to be a bit much, when no one knew how Covid would pan out. The school was closed, but the concept is dormant and I continue mulling.
Again, this start up dream came true! I wonder if I can bring this back again now that Covid is mostly out of the picture. Making language education fun & social was a joy, as well as seeing the kids having fun, growing up, kids/adults making new friends via language, building a lovely diverse community. I enjoyed helping my staff with their own professional development journeys and trying to give them a space to shine.
Where to for 2025/2026 and beyond?
Maybe its time to work on one of the few ideas that I’ve been mulling on. Or maybe it’s time to work on someone else’s? Or all of the above??! Watch this space, we don’t know what’s around the corner 😉 But I do know I can help myself and others make things happen. It is no surprise that the Activator strength is in my Gallup CliftonStrengths Top 5!
Lì Líng Ho 