Every first time founder has to find their own way – a mindset shift that changed everything
When I look back at the previous year, I realize it was the first real year where I was not just a web designer anymore, but also a first time founder who started leading a small remote team and trying to build something that can live longer than just me and my laptop.
Before this, my main job was simple, and that job was to build websites that bring results, something I learned after years of working with top web agencies in Europe.
But this year, the real challenge was not the websites at all. It was building:
- Systems so work does not break when more people join
- Tasks do not get lost
- Clients always know what is happening
- And results are tracked even after the website is delivered
At the same time, I had to learn how to build some kind of company culture in a remote world, where people work from different places, different times, and different moods, and that is much harder than it sounds when you have never done it before.
Framer Event, Copenhagen
But the biggest lesson for me was SALES.
Because when you are a small team, you do not have a sales department, and you do not have time for long sales processes, so you either learn fast or you stay stuck.
Every first time founder has to find their own way.
For me that way started with accepting that sales is now part of the job, even if it feels uncomfortable at first, and that reading and learning became a quiet support system during long days.
Books like Secrets of Closing the Sale (Zig Ziglar) and Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss) thought me that sales is not about pushing people, but about listening better, asking the right questions, and staying human when things feel uncertain.
The biggest lesson from this journey is that no one gives a clear path, you learn by trying, failing, adjusting, and trying again.. and over time you realize that finding your own way is not a weakness but a strength..
.. because every small lesson slowly turns into confidence, and confidence turns into progress, even when the road feels messy and unclear.
SEO Event – FinTech Lab, Copenhagen
A simple mindset shift that changed everything
At one point, I noticed I was spending too much energy looking at other agencies as competitors, and that mindset only added more pressure, so I tried a different way of thinking.
I asked myself:
What if instead of seeing other agencies as competitors, I start thinking about them as allies?
Every growing agency struggles with the same things, like delivering consistent work on time and keeping quality high, and that simple shift helped us turn conversations into partnerships and real collaboration, which created a steadier flow of work while solving real problems for real teams.
Because of that approach, we were able to deliver additional 48 projects this year, and what surprised me the most is that 16 of them happened in just the last two months. That was the moment I realized the systems we are building are slowly starting to work, not perfectly, but enough to show that this path might be the right one.
p.s. building something from zero is scary, messy, and exhausting, but it is also one of the most fun and meaningful things I have ever done, and I would not trade this learning for anything.
Let’s rock 🤘
