I've worked on bringing a few ideas to life over the past 3 years. None materialised, but I learned a lot. I've ranked these based on how far along we got, how scalable things could have been, and the most notable lessons learnt:
- Brade: a plug-and-play accounting tool for salons and other wellness services. We built Brade to make reconciling multi-channel payments, forecasting finances, and filing taxes 10x cheaper and 100x easier. People found the product intriguing, especially because it was AI-powered. Nonetheless, they either a) preferred one software for daily ops or b) trusted their human accountants far more; both are reasonable reasons. We explored licensing the API to existing providers, but this didn't work either.
- REN: a wearable ring for individuals struggling with addictions. Millions of people struggle with various addictions, and REN allowed users to discreetly seek help via touch sensor and BLE. This was short-lived, but my first time working on hardware. The clinical approach was based on Prochaska and DiClemente’s transtheoretical model of behavioural change, and the ring design was inspired by the OmniRing developed by a team of researchers at Penn State University.
- Banga: a WhatsApp booking agent for Africa’s restaurants, initially focused on the Nigerian market. Banga cut total booking time by 80% during testing (from initial message to email confirmations). The value-add and business model were clear, but it simply wasn’t picked up. We eventually pivoted to beauty and wellness businesses, but this wasn’t picked up either. Till date, I’m not sure if it’s because there isn’t a booking culture (hence no need) or because we didn’t execute well.
- Shora Health: a digital health platform connecting EHRs (patients) and EMRs (hospitals) for better travel healthcare. A lot of things were rather unclear here, but as expected for my first ever venture. I do suspect, however, that things would have gone much further along if I had co-founders.
- Pubbler: a self-learning writing assistant specifically for Substack writers built on Anthropic's Claude Sonnet model (due to its large context window). Despite very positive waitlist signalling, I decided not to launch for other reasons.
- Sasa: a ‘one-match-per-day’ dating app for university students with two modes (Good Time and Long Time). We pitched this at an ACS Valentine's Day event and got 0 signups. This was a real wake-up call.
- Soundtrack: a song-a-day social media platform. We thought this could work based on the tried and tested streak model by BeReal and Snap. Soundtrack didn't launch, but I assisted and advised on design, product, and GTM.
- Staycey: a swipe-to-book hotel search engine to i) find the best hotel rates and ii) book in the shortest amount of time. Staycey was built using Booking.com and Expedia's APIs and with Plaid embedded for easy payments. People really really (really) did not want this for some reason.
- Orchard: an anonymous online community for Gen Z users to get mental health advice without stigma. This wasn't a great idea, and as a result the business model wasn't either.
- Almanac: an AMA, Reddit-style forum for student alumni networking. This was merely brainstormed, but I think it could've done well if solely based on enterprise contract value, lock-in, and scalable potential. Despite this, we weren't passionate about possibly working on this for the next 3-5, and decided not to pursue.
It's uncertain why some of these didn't succeed as expected. In some cases, it was simply a matter of inertia. In other instances, I suspect we over-niched and were just 1 to 2 pivots away from getting it right.
Today, I'm working on something different alongside a team of co-founders who are equally committed. It's more personal this time, which has changed how we're thinking about building. Unlike these previous ventures where quick pivots made sense, this one will take time to figure out what works—precisely because it's personal. Some things are worth taking the time to get right.
All the same, my failed experiences provided compounded learning in a short amount of time. For this, I'm grateful.