Catalyst - A Year In Review

Big news yesterday with the official launch of Catalyst. I couldn’t be more thankful and proud to have finally achieved the greatest milestone in my life so far - launching an enterprise technology startup with my brother Edward and having it newsworthy enough to make it to the front page of TechCrunch which is something we’ve dreamed about since we were little and we couldn't have done it without our incredible team. 

While the article writes about the successes and bright future ahead, getting here was unbelievably difficult. When we first started, multiple VCs passed on us saying what we were trying to do was too hard or they didn’t get it. After we raised money, feeling at the top of the world, we made so many first-time founder mistakes, I lost count.

We made one bad hiring decision after another. People quit on us when we needed them the most. Some told us we didn’t know what we were doing. When it felt like we were about to close the perfect candidate(s), they took another offer. Months went by feeling like there was no progress. Going into work felt tougher as each day passed. And none of that tops the feeling where you’re watching a company you worked so hard to build, begin to crumble. What’s worse is when you watch good-hearted people you recruited worried about if we were going to make it. But make it we did. 

We ended up hiring amazingly talented people who will grow to be the future leaders of this company. We ended up getting an awesome office twice the size with personal conference rooms, so we didn't have to deal with phone booth squatters at WeWork (you know who you are!). We ended up launching a beautiful new website (getcatalyst.io) that our customers love. We ended up building a great product that is going toe to toe with other players in the market that have been around for 5+ years and have raised $100M+ in venture capital, and we’re signing up some of the most recognizable companies/brands out there.

To top it all off, we’re just getting started. 

Looking back, 2017 was tough, and I’m sure the rest of 2018 will be tougher but I’ve realized that being an entrepreneur is about diving into the deep end and if you want it bad enough, you'll figure out how to swim.