“What does it mean? — It doesn’t mean anything. — Everybody falls the first time.” Those are the lines I remember most after watching The Matrix 9 years ago. It has been so true in many cases, either with me or with people I have met, that in order to master something, falling at some point along the way is unavoidable.

Yes, I want to admit right here, right now in this post: the fact that I’ve made quite a few mistakes being an entrepreneur in the last 1 year.

Failures… It does feel a bit embarrassing to talk about this topic. But I think for any one of us, admitting that we screwed up and thus learned valuable lessons is much better than hiding the truth and pretending that we never fail. So here goes, some hard-earned lessons I’ve got from my first year being an entrepreneur:

Prepare the pitch, plan the talk, so the best can be shown.

One of the biggest mistakes I made from the very beginning was being too carefree with personal impressions. First time meeting with a VC in Finland, I dressed up casually and talked about my business only on impulse. As a result, I got my first rejection, along with some really harsh words.

Being informal is not always a bad thing. Sometimes there are people who can see potential through your rough appearances, and they are definitely the most pleasant ones to work with. But many others can’t. So we take the risk of losing valuable partners with poorly planned presentation.

Anyway, the little embarrassment in the past inspired me to improve my presentation skill. It took me 3 months to learn pitching/ presenting our business in a professional manner. I studied the 30/20/10 rule of Guy Kawasaki, I understood the respectable formal dress code, I practiced pitching before important meetings… and it was all hard work.

October last year, we won the MindTrek start-up competition. A lot of amazing start-ups were there, with really interesting presentations. I learned that dreaming big is great; but being able to show others your dream and inspire them to have the same dream… it feels more than great. My next goal is to be able to deliver good presentation like Mohamed, CEO of Muxlim.

Communication is essential.

I learned, in the hard way, that no matter how tiring things can be, communication must be maintained at all cost. In the past I couldn’t manage my time (and also health condition) well enough to ensure the information flow. Hence we lost 2 talented team members, and some potential investors, simply because they didn’t have enough information to understand and believe in the situation.

The thing is, without continuous flow of communication, people tend to become anxious. And in the case of start-ups, insufficient communication is a fatal mistake. The stress, doubts and uncertainty can build up very fast, like fire spreading wildly without enough water in the air. No harsh word of a VC can make me feel more depressed than having a team member left for an opportunity elsewhere.

Again, it took some time to repair the mistake. Now, we are investing more time to communicate through various channels and update important news as soon as possible to interested parties. To our ex-team-members, I wish them best of luck. And to our current team members, I promise to always give you guys the latest and most honest news.

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And even though things are still rough ahead, I believe in the path we are walking on. There are many opportunities and we are making the best out of them. I hope that this entry is of help to everyone. Let us all look forward to the upcoming challenges and succeed together.