Not An Instant Success

2026-07-01

A year and a half ago I started a company with a family friend, Sameer. Actually about two years ago, maybe even two and a half years ago, I talked with Sameer about an idea he had for tracking the holdings that you have in a retirement account, like if your retirement account was 50% SPY and 25% BND and 25% VXUS. I worked on nights and weekends to see if such a thing was possible technically. We set up a meeting time once a week and did a sync about the progress of things. And then I started building a website where you could hook up an account and see the holdings.

And eventually we got enough confidence to quit out jobs, raise some money from family and friends, and build it full time. We hired really great partners and built a lot of things, talked with a lot of people, became an RIA company, got SOC 2 compliance. After full time work for about a year we launch our iOS app and have been trying hard to market it. Fast forward to July and we dont have the users number we need, we dont have the feedback we wanted, and I think we are a floundering business. Just a few days ago we decided to make it a part time job and to look for real jobs, I hope we can continue to do this on the side but the costs to keep the company operating are pretty high.

And I feel grateful that I got this experience, I would have regretted it so much if I didn’t do it. I really liked all of the people I have worked with, I liked the work. But I also feel a bit sad and little bit like a failure. I know those emotions will fade and I will have other opportunities. Most start ups fail, I have a lot of company in that way, but I was hoping to be the exception.

It is funny we (my lovely wife Sneha and I) watched a rom-com, ‘letter for isabel’?, which is a fine movie if you like rom-coms. I only watched the last fifteen minutes, but at the end (spoiler, not really) the main character quits her job and opens a taco truck. And at first she struggles, her truck malfunctions and she doesn’t know what she is doing. But one of her friends with some more experience comes to her rescue, fixes her problems, get her to the right spot, they make a ton of tacos, and she is successful. And I turn to Sneha and say, ‘I want a montage of success’. I think in movie success often looks like a bunch of short clips spliced together showing how you go from point a to point b. But alas life is not like that and I do not get a montage of success for free.

I will continue working on the project in the mean time, just as a side project. And with the rest of my time I will apply for jobs.

I guess I did learn a bunch about start ups though, and that was nice. For a start up you kind of do these things (this is only for software start ups, I have no idea how you do manufacturing start ups):

I am not super good about self promotion or shouting into the void. I like the building stuff part of it, but I realize being part of a start up is doing so much void shouting and if I want to be successful I should probably get better at that. I think about it a lot like opening a bakery.

It is hard, and tiring, but kind of fun, and I am glad I tried it. I will continue trying it on the side and see how it goes. If you are big on DIY investing you can check it out here: https://www.enrichfinance.com

-Gary