I haven't told this story before, but I decided to share it now. About a year ago, I was invited to be the marketing director at a student edtech startup. At first glance, everything looked great: a few hours of work per week in exchange for a stake in the business. Moreover, investors were already on the horizon.

And I believed in the pretty picture. I genuinely believed that if I didn't get in now, I'd miss out on a promising opportunity. So I quickly joined and started working.

But then what happened? The entire team was working for equity, and they had gathered about 20 people. After a couple of months, people started to leave. Meanwhile, I was talking to the founders and increasingly realized they had absolutely no business experience and were doing all sorts of nonsense. And then the investor suddenly vanished...

In the end, a weak product was made, marketing for such a product didn't work well, and I realized that the role of CMO is definitely not for me. It's infuriating when you're not in charge and have to put up with stupid decisions made by others. Naturally, there was no profit to speak of, so I essentially bought myself experience with my time (luckily, I didn't invest my own money, though I was offered to!).

After this whole story, I reflected and realized that the red flags were there from the very beginning, but the feeling of FOMO completely overshadowed them. Thanks to this experience, I was once again convinced that before any partnership, you should make sure your co-founder is competent and an expert. Such a cool story!

Drop a ❤️ if you've had something similar in business/life — let's see how many of us there are 😂

My channel: Ilya Kramnik