My first startup journey was a rollercoaster – a wild ride that began with a spark of an idea.
Drawing from my experience at Google Brain, I had a strong instinct that combining human feedback using reinforcement learning would significantly improve the experience of LLMs in dialogue. I started to explore this idea to build an assistant for knowledge workers in 2021. My gut told me there was a big opportunity in the space, but I wasn’t sure when the mass market would recognize it. Later, it turned out that this was one of the fundamental ideas behind ChatGPT.
However, everyone said the space was tiny back then, and potential investors and peers saw little value in my concept. As a first-time founder, the unanimous skepticism I made me doubt my vision. I ended up wasting a lot of time and getting distracted by other directions.
I eventually pushed forward, though not fast enough. We launched in September of 2022, right before ChatGPT was released. When we launched, we were amazed by the positive feedback and delight we got from customers. However, within months, ChatGPT’s release completely transformed the landscape. Suddenly, customers began to have much higher expectations and hesitated to sign contracts.
It was obvious that we had to build more to make ourselves stand out. However, the process felt like a constant chase of whimsical hope. We tried to tackle different parts of our customers’ workflow. Customers told us they liked our AI capability but missed features they longed for from their existing vendors. We tried to build those, but existing incumbents would quickly add AI capabilities similar to ours, making our new solutions seem redundant.
I ended up starting a new startup in a completely different space. But I learned three crucial lessons from the first startup journey.
You need to trust your gut.
I wasted a precious year that could have helped us build a more defensible moat and establish ourselves as the market leader, better preparing us for when ChatGPT’s storm hit. A few months of lead time is not enough—you often need more. When everyone says your idea is impractical, it is the best time to build your competitive advantage. Innovation rarely comes from following the crowd. It emerges from the courage to pursue ideas that seem impossible—until they aren’t.
Unique insight means nothing without a defensible moat.
Consider your competitive moat early on. While talking to customers helps identify valuable problems to solve, it doesn’t guarantee that your solution will be the only one customers choose. You need to figure out why customers would pick your solution over alternatives.
Technology is not a silver bullet; it is actually a very poor moat because ideas diffuse naturally.
At the beginning, the only competitive advantage of a startup is the time you get because of the ignorance of big players. But you need to turn it into an actual moat — reasons why customers should use you, not other players. For B2B companies, the reason is often data or customer relationships. For B2C, the reason is often branding or better user experiences.
Plus, you need to make sure you have the resources to build your moat, which requires strategic planning if you are already in fierce competition. (Unfortunately, it often creates conflicts with the customer-first culture in B2B).
Don’t be afraid to restart from zero.
If you’re facing strong headwinds and haven’t had time to build a moat, take a step back. Rethink what other valuable problems exist that you believe in but others haven’t yet recognized.
My story isn’t unique – it’s a microcosm of the startup ecosystem. Innovation isn’t about having the perfect idea from day one. It’s about resilience, adaptability, and the willingness to transform setbacks into insights.
Ultimately, I started a new venture in a different sector, carrying these lessons like a compass. Each “failure” was actually a sophisticated learning experience, and helped me transform into a true entrepreneur.
Jing Conan Wang 