A year ago, I launched ETR, a startup aimed at disrupting sustainable heating and cooling. Today, I’m closing it. This wasn’t an easy decision, but in hindsight, it was inevitable. What went wrong? Let me break it down.
👨🏼💻👷🏻♂️ Losing a Co-Founder = Losing MomentumMy engineer co-founder, who was critical to our core idea, left the project. I tried to find a replacement, but I couldn’t. VCs always stress the importance of the team—and now I fully understand why.
Takeaway 1. A startup isn’t just a shiny piece of tech; it’s a team. When a key player leaves, you don’t just lose skills—you lose direction, energy, and trust. Without that solid core, it’s difficult to keep going. I learned that for early-stage startups, the team has to be 100% dedicated and located in the same place. We lived in different countries and worked on parallel projects, and it took its toll.
📝 Red Tape Is a Startup KillerOur solution required high legal overheads for every customer connection. Every single connection came with complex legal costs—time, money, and mountains of red tape. The result? Customer acquisition costs were too high to make the business viable.
Takeaway 2. If your startup operates in a highly regulated space like energy, make sure you understand the legal landscape inside out. Hidden regulatory costs can sneak up and derail even the best ideas. Spend the time upfront mapping out every step, every fee, and every possible delay before committing fully.
Building something great is hard, but it wouldn’t be worth it if it weren't. On to the next!