It’s been almost exactly a year since we started the adventure of building Trendi, raised money for the first time, and joined Platanus Ventures. After three iterations, we built an education program and a community of 145 professionals and founders across 13 countries. All of that happened in 2022—a year in which I made plenty of mistakes. I’ll talk about them here.

Three quick notes

  1. Everything written here is incomplete and biased—you’re only getting one side of the story (my perspective). Massimo and I have no personal issues, and I’m sure he sees some things differently.
  2. Everything here is something I openly discussed with Massimo; I’m not trying to “blame” anyone.
  3. Sharing this isn’t comfortable, but I believe being open can help someone else (I’ve learned a lot from others’ stories).

Why did we shut down Trendi?

Short version: Massimo and I mutually felt we didn’t work well as a team to push Trendi—or any other idea—forward. We’re fine personally, but the cofounder relationship didn’t work.

An early-stage startup is its team. If the core is broken, everything else will be too.

It wasn’t sudden. After a year working together—and four months actively working on the cofounder relationship—we improved, but we still felt disconnected as a team.

Spending 8–14 hours a day with that feeling is hard. Beyond wasting personal time, we were also wasting the time and money of people who trusted us.

We considered one of us continuing with Trendi, but the most sensible decision was to return the remaining capital to Platanus Ventures (our only investor).

Mistakes and lessons

Before starting Trendi, I tried to prepare with founder programs (YC Startup School, etc.). We still made the classic mistakes: launching late, not doing unscalable things, not talking to users, and so on.

There’s already a lot written on those topics (and you’ll only truly learn them by living them), so I’ll focus on what felt most pivotal for us.

Cofounder(s)

“First-time solo founder” is a red flag for many investors—for good reason. Entrepreneurship is a psychological game, and the urge to quit is real. That’s why some people pick any cofounder just to fit the playbook. I fell into a version of that—twice.

Choosing a cofounder really is like marriage—maybe more intense, since you’re together at least 8 hours a day, sharing a lot of emotions.

In 2021, when I left my last job, I didn’t have anyone in mind but felt I “should” start with someone else. Bad reason. Teamwork has advantages, but choosing lightly is a mistake.

The best advice I got in 2021: “If you don’t have someone in mind, start building solo. The right person may show up later—don’t limit yourself, and don’t start a company with just anyone.” Ideally, you’ve worked together before and know each other’s styles.

Communication

Early on we did a “flaws” chat, but I downplayed mine. My big mistake: not voicing disagreement. I misapplied “disagree & commit”: I’d commit without ever truly disagreeing out loud, just to avoid conflict—then stew internally.

Communication is a core startup tool, and it grows from mutual trust. Building that trust must be a priority. In Trendi’s case, we had some openness, but with filters—you can feel that.

In hindsight, outside help (coaches, founders, investors) would have helped us handle it better.

Fundraising

One mistake and one win:

  • Mistake: During Platanus’s acceleration program we obsessed over “the metrics to raise” (whatever that means). It was exciting—build something that grows fast with capital. But someone told me in Nov 2022: “You want to raise first and then figure out what to do. First define what you want to build—then decide if you need capital for that vision.” I had started treating fundraising as a goal. That’s common—and wrong.

  • Win: We could’ve taken angel checks from day one. We didn’t. We skipped Demo Day (July 2022) because we were a mess, and we didn’t want more people trusting us with money we weren’t sure how to use. Later, things improved, but we still didn’t raise more: we had no clear vision. Not taking checks just because we could was one of our best decisions.

Growth starts with mission & values

I’ve read and taken growth courses (Reforge, etc.), and I still missed this: growth begins with the company’s mission and values.

Our first six months were chaos. We launched three products with no traction because we had no shared mission/vision or clear ICP. You can try N “growth hacks,” but if mission/values aren’t aligned, you won’t grow.

Burn rate

Confession: here I’m split. Early 2022 still felt bullish, and we got this advice (which I both agree and disagree with): “You should burn more to grow faster. That’s what the money is for… you still think like employees.”

Our burn was ~$5,500/month for 3 people + 1–2 freelancers. Reasonable. Burning more doesn’t correlate linearly with outcomes. But we also sometimes over-saved, doing tasks we should have outsourced to “save money,” ignoring the cost of our time.

Some of that frugality comes from middle/working-class conditioning: save everything. Net: the burn was healthy, we were right not to hire more full-time—but we also shouldn’t over-Optimize Every Peso.

Momentum

Momentum was hard at first—because we weren’t aligned on mission. Once we aligned, we launched a content-creation program/community and grew organically to nearly $15K in 5 months (not a venture-backable model, separate topic).

Some wins:

  • Sell with a landing page: If your value prop is strong/clear, you can validate and even sell from a simple page.
  • Content-Led Growth: Founder content is underused—especially with UGC leverage. We’re not famous creators, and still, content brought clients and partners.

Where we failed:

  • We let momentum die and drifted into zombie mode due to lack of team grit. Content-led growth wasn’t enough, but early success biased us to keep doing “what worked.”
  • We were making some money—enough to extend runway—but not enough to be interesting. “The only thing worse than not selling is selling a little—because it gives you hope.” Our program was a vitamin, not a painkiller, and we didn’t push new ways to grow.

Thank you

In 2022 I met 300+ people and spent countless hours learning in virtual meetings and in-person events.

Thank you to Trendi’s customers, mentors, and especially the Trendi team—Massimo and Eli—for the highs and lows.

And thank you to Joaco, Paula, Andrés, Agustín, and the Platanus Ventures community for trusting us and supporting us. From day one to the last, one sentence was always true: “Whatever you decide, we’ll support you.”