Starting a startup resembles babysitting a toddler experiencing rapid mood swings. When you remove the budget entirely, it becomes managing multiple chaotic situations simultaneously.
We cycled through multiple team iterations before finding people who collaborated effectively. Initial team configurations felt more like experimental arrangements with shared spreadsheets than high-performance units. Eventually, we established defined roles, delegated tasks, and introduced accountability. That part took longer than we'd like to admit.
Welcome to the "Office"
We established our workspace in Viktor's grandfather's apartment rather than a commercial office. We organized the space strategically — management occupied the area nearest the restroom (a humorous reference to excessive talking), while development worked near the kitchen where coffee production happened at industrial scale.
It was exactly as glamorous as it sounds. We loved it.
The Pink Screen of Doom
Viktor experienced a catastrophic MacBook failure — a pink kernel panic screen — while returning from a Croatian island. Using a Linux PC as backup, he promised a quick return to functionality. Instead, video calling, the product's core feature, became unavailable.
After a full day of research, Viktor delivered an unconventional solution: "I'm implementing WebRTC. We'll have better video than Zoom." He rebuilt the video call system in six hours, creating something unexpectedly superior to our original design.
Crisis turned into upgrade. The chaos had delivered.
One Does Not Simply Commute
Days later, the car failed. We began walking to the makeshift office daily, bonding over shared frustrations while gaining unexpected health benefits and fresh air. Some of our best product decisions happened on those walks.
Scrambled Eggs & Strawberry Cake
The startup journey involves unpredictable transformations — attempting one objective while accidentally creating something entirely different. That's been our story from the beginning.
Act early. Adapt fast. Trust the chaos.
The broken laptop became better video. The dead car became daily walks. The grandfather's apartment became our first real office. None of it went according to plan. All of it worked out.