Primož Erjavec

Hey Product Hunt! I'm a designer, full-stack developer, and entrepreneur with a passion for building all sorts of products. Over the past few years I've built a real-time collaborative map tool, one of the most popular flowcharting libraries

Having co-founders is a double-edged sword. What's your experience? Here's my story If you re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you ve launched too late. This is a famous quote by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. In November 2019, we had closed our first B2B deal before the production was even ready. However, later in December, when the first version of our Carpio wrist rest actually came out of the factory door I thought it was a piece of sh*t. Reid can say whatever he wants, of course I didn t want to launch that thing. When we actually delivered that order, I felt like a scammer. This was one of those moments I wished I was a sole founder so things could have gone my way. This is hard to admit, but luckily, my other two co-founders Primo and Amadej saw the situation with different eyes. Because in reality, the product did its job - it was good enough. Our customers didn t even notice all the flaws that I did. I was just suffering from a disease called perfectionism (I don t recommend). In fact, if I was running DeltaHub on my own, we d probably still be perfecting it, instead of doing business. In that case, who knows if our company would even exist today. And that would be a shame. We d miss out on all the learnings - how to sell, ship worldwide, manage the supply chain, hire and grow a team. But most importantly, we d miss out on feedback from actual customers that helped us understand what really needed to be fixed. This is one of the reasons why the second version, Carpio 2.0, that we launched in July 2021, was so well received. So looking back on this, even though dealing with my co-founders is often far from enjoyable (mildly put), I ve learned our different views are essential for growth (I do recommend). It s just my ego that doesn t like being challenged. Now that I m not embarrassed anymore, we re launching Carpio 2.0 on ProductHunt haha :D

Lately I have been thinking that the start/stop/start process is tough for us. Rather than saving time (as we hope), it really costs time (and mental energy). What do you think?