Honest posting time: Founding a company is hard!

I started out with a dream and a vision in 2018 for a flying passenger car with a shared mobility business model, and it never left the back of my mind until I decided in 2021 to leave my job and move to Spain to make it happen. In spring 2023, I finally got to it, working a part-time job and freelance gigs to make a living, I set out to discover what this "founding" is all about.

For the first few months it was about growing discipline. I set myself the challenge to work on my idea for 100 days in a row, and to go to the gym 100 days in a row, doing 100 biceps curls (yes, I wanted to grow my biceps). After the 100 days were done successfully, I stopped going to the gym, but the project just started picking up.

In June, I encountered first investor connections and I was joined by my first advisor. I understood, I need a team, a product, and traction in order to be interesting for accelerators and organizations to work with me, so I set out on doing that over the next 4 months. I found marvelous people that joined me on my venture and until November we had built a first digital version of the product.

However, we had pivoted. We understood, that my vision has to be the long term, but in short-term, we will focus on logistics. Passenger aircraft innovation is just too expensive and risky to build (see Lilium...). The move was right but it took a toll.

Still in November, exhausted but determined, I founded the company. I did not know how to continue. I made contracts with my collaborators, I started filing taxes, I started working with lawyers. In January, the company joined its first pre-acceleration program.

In April, finally, I had my two cofounders incorporated into the startup and we set out to continue working on the product. We are completely bootstrapped as we believe that selling smoke is not the right approach. We want to have traction before we seek investment to avoid developing into the wrong direction.

However, this attitude is also super exhausting. I am still working my part-time job and freelance gigs, investing every other hour (and private money) into surviving as well as developing the company. My cofounders, and collaborators alike, all work full-time, either at companies or freelance. And so far, there is no land in sight to earn a salary through our hours that we are putting in.

We know where the ship is steering, we are part of the Logistics 4.0 incubator surrounded by other logistics startups, we have just launched out vehicle concept & designs to the public, we are preparing to seek public funding and we are currently seeking corporate collaborations. We also won the award of best aviation startup 2024 at the BNEW - Barcelona New Economy Week. We just had our first stand at a fair, ever, at the DeepTech Summit as part of the SmartCitiesExpo 2024. Good things are happening!

Pitching at the DeepTech Summit 2024

But I wont lie. Not being able to make money from the startup is tough. Not knowing the future is tough. Showing up every day with a positive mindset is tough. I need to have a life, social life, sporty life, love life. This is a long shot, this is a long-term game, this needs to be done sustainably.

If I had ever thought about how difficult it sometimes might be, would I have started? Is it ridiculous that I am talking about how difficult it is after 1,5 years? What have I achieved? One can ask these questions all the time, one doubts themselves until... I mean, does it ever really stop?

But the flipside is, I am going to bed on Sunday night with a purpose. I am not waking up on Mondays, wishing it was Friday. I set my schedule, I set my tasks, I get to create and I get dealt the cards that my company is then pursuing to play with. The other set of questions I am asking myself therefore are: What do I need to do today? How does my team feel right now? How amazing is it to be supported by so many great people? What would I rather be doing with my life than what I am doing right now?

Honestly, that last question should be a driver for life decisions. I wish I had sufficient money in my bank to focus 100% on building my company. This is the real truth. Aside from that worry, I would not choose to do anything else than what I am doing right now for a thing.

So, being an entrepreneur is like this article - it is a rollercoaster, going up and down, taking turns left and right. It is about staying true to yourself, talking about successes but also about the hardships, and it is about becoming the realest version that you ever imagined you could be. If you are reading this and you are en entrepreneur, you know what I am talking about. And if you are not, well, give it a shot - if you are prepared to suffer. It will the most amazing, longest, personality-changing and most exhausting journey you will ever be on.