About this episode
“It was brutal. Having to let those people go was absolutely brutal.” - Alex Just
When Alex Just cofounded PapayPods.com in 2016, the vision was to digitize the entire rental housing journey and replace property management agents. From getting a lot of initial exposure, to presenting their startup at the WebSummit finals in front of 10’000 people, the beginning seemed glorious. From that moment on, everything seemed to go downhill.
In this episode Alex shares more about this tipping point, when everything stopped working as planned, how he had to let go most of his team, and how a new opportunity allowed the team to pivot and build a new positioning.
These are just a few of the awesome insights you’ll get from this episode:
What it feels and means to have to let your team go, from taking the decision to sitting in front of your team members, delivering the message
How to keep your positivity up, even when everything seems to go downhill
How to focus on your core problem and validate the most important hypotheses, e.g. by using landing pages like Wordpress (www.wordpress.com), Wix (www.wix.com), Unbounce (www.unbounce.com) or any other landing page builder out there
Not intrigued yet? Here are just a few of the bomb-shell quotes from this episode:
"I’m lucky enough to have failed in every single aspect, and these failure give context. It’s become so much easier to clarify."
"It was hindsight and being lucky enough to have made all these different mistakes, that gave that clarity."
“What we did was kind of like throwing spaghetti at the wall with different ideas, and praying something sticks, and the realization that this was not working was when nothing stuck.”
"I guess there’s always a little bit of insanity in everyone who becomes an entrepreneur.”
“If you’re naturally curious and enjoy learning…that’s kind of the mindset that I would be applying to this situation.”
“The more failures you have, the more experience you have.”
“Entrepreneurship is fun, it’s exciting, but it’s business at the end of the day."
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