The Startup Advice Nobody Tells You
A $100k Expensive Lesson from a Second-Time Founder
Look, startup advice is everywhere, like ads in Times Square: "Move fast and break things!", "Find product-market fit!", "Build an MVP!" (Add "hustle" somewhere and you've got a LinkedIn bingo).
Are these bad advice? Nah. But they're like telling someone "just be successful!" Thanks, very helpful.
After building and selling a startup, and now building Movestax, I've got some truths to share. Including how I just burned through $100K making rookie mistakes. Yes, as a second-time founder.
Because here's the thing nobody tells you: Experience doesn't make you immune to founder delusions. It just makes you more creative at justifying them.
Think of it like getting food poisoning twice from the same restaurant.
The first time? That's on them. The second time? Yeah, that's on me.
So let me save you some pain (and maybe $100K)...
The Brutal Truth About Your Idea
"But my idea is different!" - Every founder, including me, ever.
Here's the reality check nobody wants to hear:
Your groundbreaking idea? Someone's already tried it.
Your unique approach?Someone's already built it.
Your revolutionary solution? Someone's already failed at it.
And that's perfectly fine.
Because here's what actually matters:
WhatsApp wasn't first in messaging
Slack wasn't first in team chat
Stripe wasn't first in payments
They were just the last ones standing.
So, my first advice is: “stop worrying about being first.” Start focusing on being better.
Because history doesn't remember who did it first. It remembers who did it right.
The Psychology Nobody Talks About
Want to know the real difference between successful and failed startups? It's not the product. It's not the market. It's not the timing - well, timing might count.
But, tbh, it's the founder's ability to hear "no" 500 times and still show up the next day.
Yes, building a startup is like getting punched in the face repeatedly and still showing up for the next round.
Yo Adrian! I mean, founders... The difference between Rocky and us? Rocky knew who was punching him. We get hit by:
Market changes
Customer and Investors rejection
Failed features
Unexpected competition
Random AWS bills
But like Rocky, the secret isn't about not getting hit. It's about getting up one more time than you fall.
Real story: A founder I advised got rejected by 40 investors. Investor #41 led their round. Today? $10M+ revenue.
The difference? They adjusted their pitch 40 times. They didn't defend their idea. They learned from each rejection.
The $100K Lesson
Let me get vulnerable for a moment: At Movestax, we just burned through $100K. Building features nobody asked for. Yes, me. A second-time founder.
What did I get wrong?
Built what users "might" want
Trusted my "experience" over validation
Spent too long without real feedback
Focused on technology, not problems
Wrong GTM decisions
The irony? I'd sold a startup before. I'd advised others about these exact mistakes.
Yet here I was, making them again.
What's working now?
Staying embarrassingly lean
Talking to users daily
Building only what people ask for
Validating everything twice
Result? More traction in 2 months than in the previous 6.
The Customer Lie We Tell Ourselves
"Users will love this once they see it!" - Me, before burning $50K on features nobody wanted.
Here's the painful truth about customers:
They don't care about your technology
They don't care about your features
They don't care about your vision
They care about their problems.
And most founders are building solutions for problems that don't exist.
The Technical Trap
As a technical founder, this hurt to learn: Better technology rarely wins.
What I saw win over and over:
Worse technology with better distribution
Buggy products with amazing customer service
Simple features that solved real pain
Google wasn't the best search engine. They just made it impossibly convenient.
The Real Metrics That Matter
Everyone obsesses over:
GitHub stars
Social media followers
Email signups
Website traffic
But only three numbers actually matter:
Cost to acquire a customer
Revenue per customer
How long they stay
Everything else is vanity metrics.
Want a real example?
A friend's startup with:
100K GitHub stars
50K Twitter followers
0 paying customers
They're not in business anymore.
The Marketing Truth
"If you build it, they will come" - Founders who failed.
Reality:
Building = 20% of success
Distribution = 80% of success
What actually works:
Create content that helps your users
Build in public (show your journey)
Be present where your users are
Help people without expecting return
I got more customers from answering questions on Reddit and X than from all my paid ads combined.
The Money Reality
VCs aren't impressed by:
Perfect code
Beautiful design
Complex features
Your passion
They're impressed by:
Revenue growth
User retention
Unit economics
Market size
But here's what nobody tells you: Most successful startups never raised VC money. They just found customers who paid them.
The Competition Myth
Two red flags I see constantly:
"We have no competition" = no market
"The market is too crowded" = validated market
Let me tell you about Vercel.
Every pitch I do, someone asks: "How are you better than Vercel?"
Wrong question. We're not trying to be better. We're trying to be different.
Think about Uber: They could've said: "Taxis already exist." But they asked: "What if getting a ride was radically different?"
Same market. Different experience. Different approach. Different customer.
Vercel is amazing at what they do. But does that mean there's no room for a different approach? For a different type of customer? For a different kind of experience?
That's like saying in 2008: "Why build Slack? We have email!" "Why build Notion? We have Microsoft Office!" "Why build Discord? We have Skype!"
Here's what a crowded market actually tells you:
There's real customer pain
People are paying to solve it
Current solutions aren't perfect (they never are)
Different customers need different approaches
At Movestax, we saw:
Everyone hates complex infrastructure
Everyone struggles with cloud costs
Everyone wants simpler deployment
But not everyone needs the same solution. Not everyone wants the same experience. Not everyone fits the same mold. Not everyone is a developer.
That's not competition. That's opportunity, imho.
Remember: Markets aren't winner-take-all. They're winner-take-different.
My advice? Build different.
What Actually Works
After seeing hundreds of startups succeed and fail:
Talk to Users Before Building
Not "would you use this?", but "show me how you solve this today"
Charge Early
Even if it's manual. Even if it's ugly. Even if it's embarrassing
Focus on Retention
Anyone can get users, few can keep them
Build Distribution First
Create valuable content
Build genuine relationships
Help people consistently
Become visible in your space
The Final Truth
Most startup advice focuses on mechanics:
How to build
How to raise
How to grow
But success usually comes down to:
Can you persist when others quit?
Can you adapt when things break?
Can you stay rational when emotions hit?
I've seen brilliant founders fail because they couldn't adapt. And I've seen average founders succeed because they simply wouldn't quit.
The Reality Check
As I said early, building a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly while everyone watches and tells you your technique is wrong.
But here's the secret: Everyone's just guessing. Even the experts. Even me.
The only real advice is:
Solve real problems
Get real payments
Keep going when it hurts
Learn from every failure
Stay humble enough to learn
The rest is just startup theater.
Cheers,
- Thiago