The tunnel of building
Building a company is not glamorous. Most days it is me, a screen, and the work. Hours stack until the rest of life blurs. When you are in the tunnel, the product becomes the only horizon. I love that state of flow. It is honest and intensely alive. But it is not free. It taxes your health, steals time from people you care about, and replaces stability with a roulette wheel of dopamine and doubt.
The opportunity cost is real. Every yes to one more build sprint is a no to sleep, to dinner, to calm. Founding does not negotiate. You say you will balance it, but you are always making trade offs and hoping you chose the right sacrifices. Some days I get it right. Some days I do not. The work keeps coming either way.
Keeping the team functional
Keeping a founding team functional inside that pressure cooker is its own job. Hard calls arrive daily. What to cut, where to bet, when to slow down even when momentum begs you not to. Clarity is not a gift you receive. It is a fight you show up for together, especially when you disagree. The only way I know is ruthless honesty, tiny feedback loops, and decisions that age well even if they hurt now. We argue in the open, we commit once we decide, and we protect trust like a core asset.
Funding and reality checks
Then there is money. Venture capital does not only add fuel. It adds complexity. Timelines, optics, expectations, all stacked on top of the build. We have not cracked it yet. Every no stings. Maybe each one is a step toward a yes. It still means another late night in Excel, stretching the personal runway, mapping bootstrapped paths that keep the lights on and the vision intact.
The hard part for me is communication. I see the product in my head. Others need to see de risking. In the investor world it is not only what you are building. It is proof that you can deliver, with milestones that compound and a plan that survives contact with reality. I am learning to speak that language. Real traction over ambition. Leading indicators over adjectives. Specific dates over vibes. I am learning to start earlier as well. No one expects a shipping ready product. That is my perfectionism talking. What they expect is momentum, signal, and the willingness to show your work before it is pretty.
Adjusting the approach
So I am adjusting. Ship smaller, sooner. Share the roadmap, not just the demo. Turn we are working on it into we ran the test, here is the result, here is what is next. Open the door to feedback before I feel ready. Tell the truth about risks in plain words and show the plan to reduce them. The lessons are expensive in time and pride, but they are making me a better builder and a clearer founder. If the yes takes longer, fine. Utably still moves forward.
Responsibility is the piece that does not leave my mind. I hold the majority of equity. That is not a trophy. That is a weight. If we ship the wrong thing, if we drift from our values, if we burn trust, I own that. The learning curve is steeper than anything I imagined. If I had known at the start how hard this would be, I might never have begun. Now that I have seen what is possible, I cannot imagine walking away. It is intoxicating and it is painful. Both can be true.
Health is a ledger
Health is the price I notice first. The body keeps a ledger even when you refuse to open it. When I lock into the tunnel, days become identical meals of code, reviews, and caffeine. Autopilot is efficient and dangerous. The fix is embarrassingly simple and stubbornly hard. Sleep like it matters. Move your body. Eat real food. Schedule time with people who pull you out of your head. Not because it is nice, but because the work is better when I am not running on fumes.
Relationships need structure or they break under the strain. I am learning to put guardrails around availability and to keep promises that do not ship a feature. A call I do not cancel. A walk I actually take. Boundaries are not walls. They are how you stay in the game without losing yourself in it.
Taming perfectionism
On the product, perfectionism still shows up in a suit that looks like quality. I can rationalize any delay as a standard. The truth is simple. The product needs daylight to improve. Users cannot react to what they cannot see. We keep the bar high where it counts, like privacy and reliability. Everywhere else we aim for useful now and better next week. That is how we learn faster than our fear.
Why we built Utably has not changed. Job hunting should not be a slot machine that pays out only when you know the secret buttons. People deserve tools that see more than keywords. A place to turn scattered effort into a clear plan and measurable progress. On the hardest days, I come back to that. We are not building a toy. We are building a system that helps real people move forward with clarity instead of luck.
What I would share
If you are building too, here is what I would share from this stretch. Take care of your body before it makes the decision for you. Guard your relationships with the same focus you give your roadmap. Do not let perfectionism silence your progress. Share earlier. Decide faster. Apologize sooner. Keep the promise you made to yourself on day one, and forgive the version of you that did not know how hard it would be.
We are still at the beginning. That is exactly why it matters. The work is harder than I hoped and better than I expected. I am still here, still learning, and still choosing to build.