Execute Startup Journey

The Beginning

I met my co-founder on a matching platform. Within days, we’d agreed: I’d be the technical co-founder, they’d handle the vision and go-to-market. The idea was compelling—a “Strava for social justice initiatives.”Track your volunteer hours, see your impact, compete with friends on making the world better. Gamification meets activism.

Three months later, we were pitching at Chicago Booth’s New Venture Challenge. We’d beaten out over 100 startups to make it to the semi-finals. We had 1,000 people and 20 campus organisations on our waitlist.

What We Built

The tech stack was deliberately simple enabling us to build the MVP in four weeks.

The core product: users log their volunteer activities, set goals, and see their impact visualized over time. Social features let you follow friends, join challenges, and celebrate milestones together.

The Competition

The Polsky Center’s BUILD Accelerator and the New Venture Challenge track aren’t easy. You’re up against teams from UChicago

What got us through:

• Clear problem articulation: People want to volunteer but struggle with consistency and motivation
• Existing traction: 1,000 waitlist signups validated demand
• Simple, working product: We had an MVP

The Creative Differences

Here’s what’s harder to talk about but more important: creative differences aren’t always resolvable, even when the startup is working.

My co-founder and I disagreed on fundamental things. Product direction. What features mattered. How to prioritize the roadmap. Who our users actually were.

In the beginning, I thought good co-founders could work through anything. That’s partially true. But there’s a difference between healthy debate and constantly pulling in opposite directions.

Neither of us was wrong. We just wanted to build different products.

What I Learned

Co-founder chemistry ≠ co-founder fit. We got along great initially. We could riff on ideas for hours. But building together revealed incompatibilities that initial conversations couldn’t.

Success metrics can mask problems. External validation (competition wins, waitlist growth) feels good but doesn’t fix internal dysfunction.

Simple stacks are underrated. The technical decisions were the easiest part. Boring technology let us move fast and focus on what actually mattered.

Knowing when to leave is a skill. Walking away from something you built is hard. Doing it before resentment sets in is harder but healthier.

What’s Next

Execute continues without me. I genuinely hope it succeeds. My co-founder is talented and driven, and the problem space matters.

As for me, I’m taking time to reflect on what I want in a next venture and, more importantly, in a co-founder. Technical skills matter less than I thought. Aligned vision matters more.

The Polsky BUILD Accelerator taught me that building fast is valuable. SNVC taught me that external validation isn’t everything. Execute taught me that sometimes the most important decision is knowing when to close a chapter.