Hi there! It’s been too long since my last post. The truth is that the Antler experience started taking more and more time and headspace, including on the weekends. I tried to use all of the down time to rest and recharge, but now weekly posts are back on.

In this post I’ll cover three things:

  • 🅰️A quick summary of my Antler experience
  • 🗿Personal update: How’s it going, Stefan?
  • 🧠Next steps

Let’s jump right in!

🅰️Antler summary

While the first two weeks of the Antler program were full of scheduled programming (presentations, workshops, etc.), the weeks after were about short bursts of time trying to start projects with different people in the program. I officially formed a team (yes, Antler asks you to declare your team) three times, and tried forming one with 2-3 other people.

cohort

1st team: Medical coding

In the first team (week 4 of the program), we were trying to work on automating medical coding (transforming medical diagnoses and procedures into codes to facilitate communication & payment between doctors and insurers) with Artificial Intelligence. My cofounder is a Machine Learning superstar, and he had previously worked on medical coding automation.

I got excited by the huge potential for transforming this industry, and encouraged by the fact that I could easily understand both the business and technical side of this project. Also, my cofounder had already made some progress both technically and in terms of business development.

However, as we started working on the project, we realized that we wanted to do things quite differently, both in communication and in execution. After two weeks, we decided to break it off, and try other things.

2nd team: ???

With my second team we had a different approach to starting the project (week 7 of the program). We were three people in the team, and we had been discussing project ideas as duos since the start of the program. As we didn’t have a “problem-to-solve”, we began with a 3 day ideation, where we tried to brainstorm or copy problems and ideas that we are interested in.

We learned quickly that we couldn’t all agree on an area or industry to tackle. Our common interests as duos didn’t translate to a clear overlap in the trio. Additionally, we had discovered that our different communication styles prevented us from making quick progress. I decided to track out (break up) and try again.

3rd team: AI therapy chatbot

Week 8 was the last week of the program when we could officially form teams. Since time was running out, I decided to pursue the problem that interests me most - Mental Health. I shared this with the Antler cohort, which led to forming the team I’m in now.

Two weeks was too short to make enough progress to stay in the Antler race (i.e. be allowed to participate in the investment committee). However, we decided to stay together after Antler, and keep working on the project. We’re very excited about building the next generation of emotional support app.

Lessons learned

I didn’t end up getting the Antler funding within the 10 weeks of the program. However, looking back, I’m very happy to have been part of this experience. Here’s a few things I (re-)learned in these 2.5 months:

  • Fail even faster - don’t be afraid to jump in and back out of things if the gut feeling is not right. However, once committed, give everything you can. Start from hypotheses and try to actively prove/disprove them.
  • Perception is reality - fake it till you make it is real. Especially, when things are just getting started, conviction and trust is based on clear and confident communication of vision and potential.
  • Take all the feedback - don’t discriminate who is giving the feedback, and try to get feedback from as many people as possible. Then use it. At least until you find a well-defined segment of users and supporters that really matter.
  • Increase your luck surface - when things are ambiguous, it pays off to try a lot of things and talk to a lot of people. Also, it’s well worth it to be as helpful as possible whenever you have the chance.

That’s it for now, but I’ll bring this section back in future posts.

🗿Personal update: How’s it going, Stefan?

Antler has been physically, emotionally and cognitively demanding. It made me push my limits, which is one of my core values. However, pushing boundaries like this doesn’t come for free. It was a sprint in the marathon called entrepreneurship.

On top of that, while doing the program, I visited Macedonia for a week for a friend’s wedding (both the wedding and Macedonia were simply amazing). In Macedonia, I sprained my ankle, which could mean that I’ll need to postpone my marathon plans. After that, my mom and grandma visited me in Paris.

All this means I really needed some time for myself to recharge and find my way back to a healthy rhythm. I think I’m there now, and I’m really excited for the next phase.

🧠Next steps

Antler is over, but I’m still working on the project I started before Antler ended. With my confounder (an amazing UX researcher and designer), we want to help solve the ongoing mental health epidemic. I will share more about the project next week, but here’s a teaser: our brand new landing page.