Zero money, zero sales, zero product

April 22, 2025 · translated from Russian

My founder story, part three. January to autumn 2023.

I did not know how to build. I knew how to burn.

2023 started.
I was living in Bali, trying to hold on.
In February we came back.
In March my account hit zero.

Zero money. Zero sales. Zero product.
One of my advisors sent me money for food.
It was exactly enough to survive until the next injection: $10,000 of investment.

With that money I bought tickets to the US.
With that money I also stayed alive.
Until I had to cash out a Google share.
Until the moment came when I left,
not because I knew where to,
but because I no longer knew where else.

Before that there was another round of attempts.
January. A new technical partner. Two weeks. Gone.
April. A friend from Tbilisi. Came over. Two months. Gone.
Then my former manager from adidas.
We partnered. Almost a year together. But with no technical foundation.

We put his money into an agency.
The MVP came out weak and broken.
I pushed. I pressed. I sold air.
And then I went to Burning Man.
Because I badly wanted all of it to still have been worth something.

After I came back, everything stopped.
Physically. Mentally. Financially.
I lived at my uncle's. I was ill.
Paralysis. Anxiety. Zero movement.
But the team shipped. We put the MVP out.
We asked the whole Armenian community for help.
We launched on Product Hunt.

Second place.
Over 2,000 users. 42 teams.