Darpan Munjal
Contributor
Darpan Munjal is the founder and CEO of Squadhelp.
I was ready to put my entrepreneurial hat to rest. I had spent years building what I thought was shaping up to be a fashion e-commerce giant for the Indian marketplace. We’d raised pre-Series A funding of $4 million, led additional rounds and saw four years of solid growth.
Yet, at the end of these four years, we swallowed the pill and shut down the startup for reasons I will soon explain.
Something unexpected and positive, however, was born from this experience. I launched another startup and bootstrapped it, because I had a strong crutch this time — the lessons from my first failed venture. Today, Squadhelp — my second business — is the world’s largest naming platform.
Here are the lessons I’ve learned that I believe can help any entrepreneur succeed:
Delay fundraising until you have a strong initial offering that has shown some level of success in creating happy customers with profitable marketing.
Early-stage funding …
