I Am Everything, Including the Weak Point

A very honest look at what happens when life interrupts a one-person mission

If there is one thing about being a founder that I used to think was a myth, or at least an exaggeration, it is the idea that you stop working 9 to 5 and start working 24/7.

Turns out, that one is kinda true.

Especially when you are a solo founder.

When it is just you, everything depends on you. The emails, the decisions, the users, the partnerships, the content, the follow-ups, the maintenance, the ideas, the troubleshooting, the momentum - all of it. There is no second person in the background quietly picking up the pieces when life demands more time. There is no one you can hand things over to when your brain needs rest, your body gets sick or your calendar suddenly gets swallowed by something else.

It sounds obvious, yes, but living it? That’s a bit different.

I think many founders are ambitious people by nature. Maybe that is part of why we start building things in the first place. You need a certain level of internal drive to look at an idea, believe in it enough to make it real and then keep pushing even when nobody is asking you to. So when that momentum is interrupted, especially by something outside of your control, it can mess with your self-perception more than you would expect.

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That is what happened to me over the last couple of days.

First, I had an event that pulled me out of my usual rhythm. As most of you know, I am building Pool Match on the side next to a full-time tech job, which means most of my weekends are spent working on my own company. That is not a negative, I love that. In many ways it feels like a hobby, so I do not mind spending my Saturdays and Sundays building, writing, planning and trying to move things forward.

Still, life happens and so do friendships (thank god!).

Last weekend, I had the wonderful privilege of going on a bachelor trip for a friend that I have known for over a decade. This was one of those moments where you want to be fully present. The trip lasted the whole weekend, we were out of town, traveling, doing activities and spending time together with a larger group.

I wanted to focus on that, I really did.

At the same time, there was this constant little voice in the back of my mind going, you need to do this, you need to answer that, you still have to follow up there. Things were developing in the background, so there I was checking my emails once in a while and replying to some messages here and there. The last thing I want to be is the person that can never put their phone away, but I knew no one else was doing it.

That is the tricky part…

I cannot really tell users, partners or collaborators, “Hey, I’m out of office for the weekend, let’s talk Monday,” in the same way a corporation or a bigger team could. There is no team and there is no backup. There is only me, trying to be present at a bachelor trip while also mentally keeping one eye on the thing I am building.

That was tough enough, but it did not stop there.

When I came back home I thought - alright, now I’ll catch up, I’ll simply give 120% and we will be right back in the rhythm.

Instead, I got sick.

Photo by Eslam Mohammed Abdelmaksoud

I don’t know whether it was the travel, the lack of sleep or simply being around a lot of people, but I came down with a cold almost immediately after returning. That challenged me on several levels. I was not performing as well in my day job, Pool Match work slowed down, messages took longer, tasks stayed open and plans shifted.

Also every time I am sick, there is also the fitness side to it.

I have dropped hints here and there that I am pretty active these days, to the point where I wonder if I have optimized myself into a bit of a corner. I have a pretty involved fitness routine that I genuinely enjoy, but the flip side is that when I cannot work out or go for a run for two or three days, something in me starts spiraling. Suddenly my brain says, you have fallen out of your routine and it is all downhill from here.

I know that is not true and I know balance matters. I am well aware that my self-worth is not connected to how much I work out, but knowing something does not always mean you feel it. Why are humans like that?

My routines are so deeply ingrained that when they fall apart, even briefly, I struggle. So being out of town for the weekend and then being sick for a few days afterward slowed me down in almost every area of my life. Work, startup, fitness, writing (this post is delayed as you may or may not have noticed haha).

That is when the solo founder reality hits hardest.

If you are a one-person show and everything depends on you, then everything comes to a halt when you do.

Solo entrepreneurship has a lot of perks. It is exciting, because it is fully yours. You can follow your instincts without needing to convince a room full of people first. If something works, that success feels incredibly rewarding because you know exactly how much of yourself you poured into it.

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Well here is an ad for the startup I keep talking about:

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At the same time, it becomes brutally challenging when things go off track, because when things fall apart, it is also on you to pick up the pieces - just you.

Unfortunately, life does not care about your content calendar.

The core message is this: Entrepreneurship is hard and solo entrepreneurship may be even harder. I am not trying to win the “who has it hardest” Olympics, but there is a specific kind of pressure that comes with knowing there is no one else behind the curtain.

Maybe this is a small cautionary tale for people who want to do something similar.

I am not saying don’t do it, but simply be aware of the challenging parts.

It doesn’t have to be that way forever. Maybe eventually someone will join the team. It could be someone technical or someone with marketing expertise, or simply someone who can help drive this forward while I have a cold.

For now, it is still just me on a mission and most days that is wonderful.

Some days, it means I have to admit I am not a machine.

Thank you for being here and checking in, even when the schedule slips. Hopefully, we can now return to our regularly scheduled program.

After all, this is a big part of the founder story: Sometimes the mission keeps moving, and sometimes the founder needs to lie down.

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