24 Things Learned as First-Time Start-up Founder in 2024

Left a Cozy Job for the Fragile Unknown of Entrepreneurship; Here’s What I Learned.

This year I exited as diplomat at the U.S. State Department to launch my own decentralized science (DeSci) venture in Japan called Merito. Probably was insane to build a complex research funding marketplace as a first-time entrepreneur in a foreign country where I’m functionally illiterate in the local langauge. The only upside is that anything else I do in life will seem easy. And just compiled the surprises I noticed this last year. May it lessen the nerves and amp up the motivation of those thinking to make the founder jump!

From Left: With our first client, the Fukuoka Governor’s Office; On a trip in Vancouver to work in-person with my great co-founder Vinay; Lucky to have generous people like Taruho-san from Takeda Pharma.

1. Founders are utterly fragile. For every 6 reasons we think of to quit, we often think of just 2 to persist. The internal resistance is huge.

2. You have to enjoy the business genre enough to gladly work 7 days a week on it. Or else the day will be a grind.

3. Being founderall about finding product-market-fit (PMF) of what goods/services people will actually buy.

4. Trying to find PMF is like being blindfolded in a huge dark warehouse and clumsily attempting to find possible treasure that might or might not be there.

5. Being founder is about juggling — Chief Product Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Finance…