What problems do you face as an early-stage founder?

An entrepreneurial journey is one of a marathon, not a sprint. And as with everything else in the world, there are many phases you go through as a founder.

You start off as a visionary Padawan in the early stages, you slowly level up upon achieving product-market fit, you scale your business at an exponential rate and then you hit the mark where you feel confident enough to show the world you’re doing it right.

However, life is not a bed of roses.

Getting to your seed fund is not easy

You typically kickstart your business bootstrapped-style, eager to look for mentors, venture capital and connections for advice. You raise a seed round, you steer your business towards revenue positive, and you then go on a raise bigger and bigger rounds. You get the gist.

But we all know it’s not always easy to get money from an unknown stranger-investor when you are literally starting from zero.

Cameron Priest, co-founder & CEO at TradeGecko, said that funding has been one of the top issues he faced during the early stages of TradeGecko.

The key is to start reaching out to investors and building your presence early on, even before you actually need money.

“(We) built deep relationships with VCs before we needed money,” he said. Priest successfully raised a $1.2 million seed round in 2012 and $6.5 million Series A in 2015.

Knowing about your industry can be a steep learning curve

For some, you start a business in a particular vertical because of your domain expertise and experience. You basically know how exactly you should maneuver in the field and win the game.

Others may not have it that easy. Jonathan Low, co-founder at HonestBee, said that his knowledge in the subject matter was a personal challenge for him when they first started out.

“I felt like I required more knowledge in ecommerce and logistics than I had at the start,” he said. “I made it a point to hire people that are amazing in their field. People with high growth potential who could replace our roles and be more effective in it.”

Figuring out product-market fit

Pretty sure many of us have heard this countless times, “Be where your users are.”

Focusing on your users in the beginning is extremely crucial. Heck, it should always be your number one priority. You don’t start with marketing to find who your users are, you figure out who your users are first before you do targeted marketing.