I. 2016, When Everything Seemed Possible
In 2016, I jumped into the adventure of building a startup. Not because I dreamed of being a CEO, but because the technical idea was good, the market seemed ready, the mission felt meaningful, and someone had to take the lead.
So I did.
I didn’t see it that way at the time, but it’s clear now:
I became CEO because the role was empty, not because I was meant for it.
Still, the energy of those early days was real. The project was solid. The technology made sense. I knew the science deeply. For a while, that gave me confidence, the naïve but productive kind.
II. The Team, the Drift, and the Wrong Seat in the Right Plane
We were enthusiastic, motivated, and ambitious. What we weren’t… was, how to say, aligned.
Not dramatically just a bit misaligned in vision, pace, expectations and psychological readiness. Small cracks you don’t see until they grow into structural fractures. Startups are amplifiers like that, everything gets louder, including, what you’d rather not notice.
Meanwhile, I sat in the CEO seat trying to look like someone who belonged there.
But I wasn’t a CEO, not in temperament or in instinct. I’m a builder, a scientist, someone who wants understanding before action. The CEO position requires something radically different: decisions before clarity, confidence without all the data, and emotional leadership rather than an analytical, patient approach.
I was flying the plane, but it wasn’t really my cockpit.
I didn’t have the instincts for politics, complex negotiations, all the subtle human levers that hold a young company together. I wasn’t incompetent; I was simply in the wrong role.
III. The Silent Lessons the Startup World Doesn’t Tell You
Around us, the broader ecosystem played its own game. Coaches, business angels, incubators, all helpful and friendly; all speaking the language of support. But support is not always aligned the way you understand it. They have their own metrics, their own narratives and their own definitions of success. You become a portfolio item: a statistic or/and a potential success story. Your nights of doubt do not appear on their dashboards.
I had mentors as well, even a Yoda-style figure, but advice is always partial. People see fragments of your world never the whole map. They don’t carry your psychological load or your risk because at the center of a startup, you stand alone by design.
After that, the early clients arrived, I honestly thought they were validation. “Progress” or proof that we were going in the right direction. But early clients can pull you off course, asking for features and custom work that slowly bend your mission into shapes it was never meant to take.
I followed too much probably too fast. I didn’t see the drift until later and under all that a more profound truth was forming: one nobody prepares scientists for.
As scientists, we’re trained to understand the world. Entrepreneurs are expected, in certain ways, to bend it. Somewhere between those two identities, you must become someone else, a version of yourself capable of going through your own contradictions. I wasn’t aware for that transformation, and no one told me it was even part of the journey.
IV. Leaving, Watching: Becoming Someone Else
Eventually, I reached a point of clarity. Staying wouldn’t save the company. Leaving wouldn’t doom it. I had given what I could, and the role had reached beyond who I genuinely was.
So I left without resentment and without rewriting the story. A few years later, the company closed. But that was no longer my story.
What matters is what the experience shaped inside me. The startup didn’t make me a CEO.
But it stripped illusions, sharpened my judgment, revealed my limits, clarified my strengths, and taught me to read people as deeply as I read systems. It made me more grounded, less naïve, more selective and more aligned with who I actually am.
If I could speak to my 2016 self, I wouldn’t warn him. I’d say: “This will hurt a bit ;). Yet it will grow you a lot. And one day: you’ll be grateful.”
Everything I’ve learned now sustains my daily work and makes me way better.
Before the conclusion, I’m genuinely grateful to everyone I crossed paths with during this adventure: teammates, mentors, advisors, and early clients. Each brought something valuable and helped me sharpen my skills. This process would not have been the same without them.
The startup failed. I didn’t. That’s what really matters.
Photo by Clark Tibbs
