MapalaNet: Vanilla startup or harsh hardcore?

Hi, guys! It is @lehard speaking, and today I'd like to talk about our blog's format and share the problems we face.

We are not the first or last people who decided to run a blog and talk about what we do. Reading most of such blogs, I can see them saturated with success. It seems that if you touch the screen, you will be a success yourself. Every one with MacBooks, every team member is a genius and a daring Zuckerberg.

But is it actually like this? I took part in many projects, and from my experience I can say that any startup, business or any kind of endeavor does not look anything like a series of successful events. It's completely opposite thing. Entrepreneurs are like gold miners - they have to screen gold out from tons of mud. 90% of the actions lead to mistakes, most of the decisions are wrong, and only 10% of them push the project forward.

When a business grows, becomes mature and abandons further growth ambitions in favor of stability, the team becomes more efficient, because it gets to its experience zone.

That is why I don't want to talk only about our success, because there is no use in it for our readers. It seems to me that it is more interesting and useful to read about failures, what lessons the team learned from them and how it copes with emerging challenges.

The first difficulty we face is money. At the moment, part of our team went all in and devoted all their time to the project having abandoned momentary pleasures for the sake of a better future. Others keep their jobs and try to find the time and do something good for the project. None of the strategies are sustainable in the long term.

That means that if the project does not start generating cash flow soon, "glowing prospects" will take a back seat, and we will face the grim reality. Someone will need to pay for the apartment, someone's girlfriend, mother or friend will told him to stop wasting time and come down to earth to do something that is worth it.

The second challenge is that we don't have any efficient system of teamwork. There are 11 of us, but only 3-4 people actually work. I finally realized that there was something wrong with our work, when I heard from @natalibrit that she didn't understand how to join the process. It made me seriously think about this issue. We do everything openly, but still not every one can navigate in this flow of information and find his own place. I understand that if we leave everything as it is, it will remain the project of several people, and we will never reach any decentralized organization that we dream of. So, that is how it is))

Good weekend to everyone! ;)