Was it worth it? — a short reflection on a long start-up journey
In 2011, shortly after I started my company Smove, I saw the above picture from Australian artist Andrew Baines in a gallery in Singapore. It pictured two old men sitting right next two each other (resembling the two characters from “Waiting for Godot”) and the title was “What was it all about?”.
For me it represented a very fundamental question: will what I’m doing right now be considered worth it by my older self?. I was picturing myself as an old man, sitting down with my best friend and looking back at our lifes with the question “Was it worth it?”.
I ordered a print version of the painting (I couldn’t afford the original painting) and had it hanging over my standing desk at the Smove office. I also had a version of it as the background picture on my phone. It served as a good reminder throughout the past nine years and I did ask myself that question on a regular basis: ‘do I think this is worth it and will I answer that question in the same way at the end of my life?’
While I still don’t have all the wisdom and experience I hope I will have at the end of my life, it has been helpful to reflect on this question knowing that my future self will be less about instant gratification and more about long term values, relationships and lessons learnt.
And honestly, I also want my older self to have something to ponder about, that includes failures, losses and growth opportunities. I don’t think I would be happy looking back at my life if I had chosen the easy path for myself.
Now that the Smove chapter has come to a close, and looking back at my start-up journey, I can wholeheartedly say that it was worth it, despite the failure of the business at the end.
Yes, there were many moments where I really wondered if it was worthwhile to continue; many moments when I felt I was getting screwed-over, when life seemed unfair or when the roller coaster ride became too volatile for my emotional & physical well-being.
But it was all worth it.
The time when a term sheet for an investment round was pulled at the last minute and we had to scramble to find a new lead investor within a few weeks;
It was all worth it.
The many mistakes I made along the way, making strategic errors that cost the company dearly over the years (like entering into long-term, non-cancelable leasing contracts at the height of vehicles prices in Singapore or expanding to Australia before the company was ready for it , or making hiring mistakes that were made because we had to hire quickly or we deviated from our own company standards). I take full ownership of those mistakes.
But It was all worth it.
When the team worked on a big product launch with Uber, with potential for massive positive impact on Smove’s future reach and revenue. But 2 weeks before the new product was scheduled to launch, we saw the Uber/Grab merger announced and our major partner exited the market almost overnight.
It was all worth it.
When my wife and I also had two kids along the way, at the time when Smove felt like a moody teenager and I battled the split between getting enough sleep/ rest at home, trying to be a good father and also scaling-up the business and fundraising at the same time.
It was all worth it! (with the caveat that I would do a lot of things differently now and my priorities are now husband, father, entrepreneur — I will highlight the healthiness of that order for entrepreneurs in my next post).
So yes, s**t happened on the startup journey, but I am grateful for all the lessons that I have learned along the way. They brought me here today, they made me the person that I am now.
It was all worth it.
I feel I have grown tremendously as a person. I remember the early days when, as an introvert, I struggled to make cold calls. Sitting on my bed rehearsing calls for hours and then screwing up the planned order in the actual call anyway. Being nervous meeting and pitching to investors or speaking in front of a larger group of people (that was more than 5 for me).
The experience of building a business from scratch is priceless. We were building our own hardware and software in-house, the first of its kind in Asia; and we were the first electric car sharing operator and first large scale free-floating rental scheme in Singapore. We also started with an integrated car, bike, motorcycle and shuttle service in 2012 only to realise that we couldn’t do it all at once.
I’m glad that this experience can’t be taken away from me. Smove was certainly not the financial success that some of the investors or I had hoped for, but in all other dimensions I feel so much richer.
It was worth it!
