Why this serial entrepreneur keeps going after 2 failed startups

It’s a statistic that’s almost universally acknowledged that 90% of startups are bound to fail.

Yet many founders continue to brave the odds and persevere. One such person is Michael Luhukay, who currently serves as the commissioner of Raiz Invest, an investment app for mutual funds in Australia.

Photo credit: Raiz Invest

Luhukay has built multiple companies – he even established two startups at the same time in 2010. While some of his ventures like luxury-car community Speed Creed are still standing, two of them – Gobann and Kartoo – were forced to shut down.

“I don’t see it as a failure – at least you know better now. Investors are now looking for people who have failed. The more often you fail, the better,” Luhukay tells Tech in Asia.

Here are some of the lessons from his experiences so far.

Timing is everything

Startup name: Gobann
Date of operations: 2010 to 2013
Pitch: A Fiverr-inspired freelance labor marketplace that charges users a flat rate of 50,000 rupiah (US$3.26) per task
Headcount: Eight employees
Traction: 35,000 users
Funding: None

Photo credit: Gobann

What went wrong?

1. No product-market fit, insufficient support from the ecosystem

Luhukay says at the time, the market had few payment system providers, and they were charging about 20% for transaction costs – a relatively high amount. Nowadays, payment gateways such as Xendit and Doku offer below 5% in transaction charges or a flat rate of under 5,000 rupiah (US$0.33) per transaction.

To make the margins work, Gobann had to charge a commission of 8,000 rupiah (US$0.52) for each freelance job worth 50,000 rupiah (US$3.26), generating a 16% take rate and leaving a mere 41,000 rupiah for service providers.

2. Failure to obtain funding

Watch your runway

The golden formula