A brutally honest story about ego, burnout, and expensive lessons that I now help other founders avoid.
I didn’t read about this in a book.
I didn’t learn it in a course.
My advice comes from painfully expensive, real-world experience — the kind you earn through time, money, and ego bruises.
And you know what? I genuinely believe lessons learned from mistakes are sometimes more valuable than the ones learned from success.
Because success can be circumstantial. Just because something worked once, doesn’t mean it’s repeatable.
But mistakes?
They etch themselves into your brain. They’re hard to forget, and because of that, you start doing things differently.
So if you’re an early-stage or aspiring founder, consider this a gift: my top three f*ck-ups — so you can learn from them before they cost you as much as they cost me.
Get your notebook out. 📝
💣 F*ck-up #1: My motivation was in the wrong place
I didn’t fall in love with the problem. I fell in love with the outcome.
Specifically: the idea of a tech-based, profitable SaaS that would “run itself.”
Sound familiar?
I thought I had a smart, unique concept (I did), but didn’t spend enough time gathering enough evidence to answer the question:
Is this solving a problem that is painful enough that someone would actually pay for it?
Or was it just a clever idea I was in love with, searching for people to agree with me?
Spoiler: it was the latter 🫠
I wasn’t trying to solve a real, validated problem.
I was trying to bring my clever idea to life and hoped people would see the value of it along the way.
💣 F*ck-up #2: I tried to do everything myself
I’ve been a designer for 16+ years.
I’ve built stuff, led teams, run my own profitable business.
So I thought: How hard could it be to launch a tech startup?
(Lol)
I did everything:
Design, UX, research, strategy, marketing, branding, copywriting, pitching.
All while managing a few volunteers and a small outsourced dev team, hoping that somehow it would all come together eventually.
But it didn’t.
It wasn’t a company. It was a beautiful road to burnout. 🌀
I didn’t build a team, let alone something that was sustainable long term.
I built an ego project that drained me in every way — financially, emotionally, and mentally.
💣 F*ck-up #3: I didn’t validate it hard enough before building
This one stings the most…
Because I knew better.
I’ve done UX thinking for years.
I’ve helped product teams avoid building the wrong thing.
I’ve watched other ships sink right from the inside.
And still… I somehow thought I’d pull it off.
Why?
Because I wanted the thing to exist.
I believed in it.
And I’d attached my ego to making it real.
I wanted to be right. So I charged ahead.
And yes, it cost me real money (that I’ll never see again 💸).
Lesson: Knowing something intellectually isn’t the same as building in a way that holds you accountable. Even experienced people need external guardrails. No one is immune from blind spots.
So… why am I sharing this?
Not because I’m bitter.
(Okay… maybe a little 😂)
But mostly because I want more founders to understand that getting it “wrong” doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re learning.
But most importantly, I want you to know that you don’t have to do it the same slow, lonely, expensive way I did.
I help them:
- Detach their ego from their idea
- Build clarity around what really matters, such as what evidence they need to get to validate each stage
- Get out of the spiral of perfectionism and into real-world feedback by talking to real people
- Actually validate before they waste time and money building a solution looking for a problem
Because if you want to build something that works, something that serves people, you have to learn to fall in love with the process — not just the product.
🧪 Want to avoid these mistakes?
Here’s what I wish I had done from the beginning:
✅ Talk to real people first. Not your friends and family. Actual potential customers with real problems.
✅ Treat your idea as a test, not a masterpiece. Build just enough to learn. Then evolve.
✅ Don’t do it alone. If you can’t afford a team, find peers, advisors, or someone to challenge your assumptions, not just cheerleaders.
✅ Ask better questions. Instead of “How do I make this work?” try “What’s the smallest version of this I can test today?”
If this hit home for you, that’s great. That means you’re already ahead of where I was.
And if you need someone to help you avoid these mistakes and make smarter decisions, let’s talk
Hi 👋 I’m Daniela, a Lead UX Strategist helping early-stage and aspiring founders think like designers, so that they can make stuff people actually want and achieve their goals faster.
I run creative-thinking and innovation workshops with founders to facilitate ideation, encourage experimentation and accelerate de-risking their ventures.
I also have a bunch of resources — both free and paid — on my website. Make sure to check them out!
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