About ambitious founders or how I tried to collect investments for a startup

I must say right away that I was neither the CEO, nor the founder, nor any significant leader in a tiny startup. I was a simple community manager and inspired by the idea, ambitions and opportunities. And no, no, no, this is not a success story. Just the opposite.

The idea is in us - if we try, give our best by 120% and bring results, then they will definitely notice it. There will be increases, good salaries, they will simply begin to appreciate you as a frame. But no, that doesn't always work.

I decided to share my story with young and ambitious people like me. That not always your efforts will pay off. And perhaps another person will record your results.

And also, in this story I want to tell how sometimes founders and CEOs relate to people who help them grow their business. Often, for them people are a tool with which they can climb the golden mountain of success. They no longer care who they work with and how their product works. It is important for them how much they can earn. In this situation, the affair itself suffers. Because when the goal is only money and success is a bad plan.

So, to the story

In 2017, by a lucky chance, I got into a startup with my friend. At that time I was desperately looking for work and when I was invited to work there, I was very happy. There I did not just work in a classy team and in a pleasant office - there I could start my career and do interesting things.

I think you already guessed what the startup was doing. In 2017, everyone was engaged in crypto and it seemed like something really revolutionary. In the first months, I did everything - I made small discussions, presentations for investors and partners, helped to make white paper, drove to conferences and did other small things, such as buying tickets and filing docks for visas.

Then we started actively preparing for the ICO and looking for investors. I was declared a community manager, simply because we needed him for a beautiful presentation, although in fact I didn’t even do it. Then I didn’t care, because my position didn’t bother me much.

And that was my first mistake.

The time for conferences has begun. At first we went to local events in Moscow and St. Petersburg, then there were Barcelona, ​​Helsinki and Tallinn. At these events, my main task was to look for partners, establish contacts, get to know people and so on. Classic networking.

And I was desperate in my actions. While our CEO talked with whales, I tried to catch a smaller fish. I talked with people who were not very interested in what I offered them. But patience, work and arrogance have borne fruit: in our pocket we have free media publications, a lot of business cards, emails, new acquaintances, offers of partnership and so on. For us, this was already the result.

In general, I honestly worked out as I could. Next was a trip to Israel, where I was sent alone to meet with investors. I do not know what they were guided by: I did not have much experience in negotiations, and indeed I had to ask people to take and lay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to us. But it was stupid to refuse such an experience and I went.

I arrived, of course, with nothing but a good relationship with potential partners. That's all. Winter began, our CEO and his right hand continued to drive to events, and I sat in the office and began to do what I was supposed to do. They told us a lot about how we are on the path to success, that we have a bunch of great partners and potential investors. We were sure that we would succeed.

I took up hidden marketing and began actively promoting our ICO company and developing our telegram chat, which brought together 7 thousand people. The business was moving well and in the crypto community they began to recognize us. We were not giants, but for us it was a good result. I gave a lot of energy to this project.

The time has come ICO. And no, we did not completely fail. It’s just that our bar was millions. But we raised good money for a small St. Petersburg startup. It would be enough to assemble a development team and launch the product.

Most of the investment came from my leads. And here the drama began . The fact that my actions bore fruit was simply ignored. Once they even made fun of me, saying that I simply could not do this. Next came uninteresting tasks, I began to deal with OSes, such as controlling bounty campaigns and other things. In general, everything began to deflate slowly.

It was amazing for me, because we had money. And we also had plans for further development. They continued to tell us that everything is super, we are moving forward and everything will work out.

Yes, by the way, we had no bonuses, additives and other things. We continued to work for our small salaries. A year has passed since I worked in the company and I asked to increase my salary.

And they even promised me that in a couple of months they would definitely increase it. But after a couple of months, one morning, they told me that they could not afford me. I was in complete discord. And not only because I didn’t succeed in this place. And also because I lost my job, I didn’t have any savings, I lived on my own without any help and I had to feed myself and my dog. And also because I considered these people to be my friends, and they didn’t even warn me of dismissal for a month.

And I didn’t want to pay my sn, I had to knock out this money. And of course, not everyone paid me, did I even have to talk about it?

Of course, I did not stay hungry. I quickly found a new job, from that project I had good friends and excellent experience. But I also took a very big step back. Due to the fact that I was initially declared a community manager and not given a higher position, I could not demand that they give me more interesting tasks. So, I remained in this position for a long time, and my other skills simply disappeared into the resume.

So that's what I'm all about . If you are young, green and willing
go to your goal - think about yourself. Assert your rights, demand that your position correspond to what you are doing, demand that you be paid every last penny and ask for employment contracts. Do not be afraid to argue and fight for yourself. Because you are just a tool and sooner or later all of your resources can be pumped out of you.

No need to lie, cheat and throw. Just go where your efforts pay off.

You will find more stories in my channel - t.me/podhodite