Building a Startup: The Real Grind Behind the Scenes
Starting a tech company is often glamorized as a fast-paced journey filled with instant wins and viral moments. But the reality, as experienced by the founders at Clover, is far more grounded — a blend of steady progress, problem-solving, and relentless iteration. Here’s an inside look at what goes into building a startup, from coding challenges to customer calls, and balancing work with life.
What is Clover?
Clover is a powerful tool designed for media teams and filmmakers. It allows users to search through hundreds of hours of footage using natural language queries. Whether you’re looking for “happy moments” or a “coffee mug,” Clover helps find the exact clips without spending hours manually sifting through content. This startup is all about saving time and making video editing more efficient.
The Early Days: From MVP to Massive Data
The team has already processed about 200 GB of footage from initial customers to gather feedback and improve the app. Now, the challenge scales up: processing terabytes of footage, including complex formats like RED footage—a high-end camera format used in Hollywood movies. Handling such advanced data formats requires constant technical adjustments and learning, demonstrating the unpredictable nature of software development.
Stress and Growth: The Emotional Rollercoaster
Building a startup is stressful, but it’s the "good stress" that comes with growth and opportunity. The founders reflect on how their stress has evolved—from uncertainty before funding to the excitement of having numerous ideas and possibilities post-funding. Despite the pressure, they embrace the hard work, coding late into the night, and continuously engaging with potential customers.
The Power of “Dogfooding”
One of the most valuable practices the team shares is “dogfooding” — using their own product daily. This not only helps identify bugs and usability issues faster but also keeps the team closely connected with their users’ experience. Iterating based on personal use accelerates product improvement cycles.
The Startup Lifestyle: Building and Balancing
Their daily routine includes coding, customer calls, content creation, and community involvement at places like Founders Inc., where they collaborate with other entrepreneurs. This environment fuels creativity and motivation, although balance is essential. For example, basketball serves as a crucial outlet to reduce anxiety and live in the moment, which ultimately improves productivity.
Fundraising and Expansion
Recently, the team successfully closed an oversubscribed fundraising round, securing more investment than anticipated. This influx of capital is a significant milestone, enabling them to expand the product and team further. Meanwhile, they continue to work on exciting new features, like adding chatbot capabilities to interact with video documents, enhancing how users engage with their footage.
Marketing: The Experimentation Continues
Growth is not just about great technology but also effective marketing. The team has been experimenting with cold email campaigns and content marketing, learning that startup marketing is an ongoing experiment. Some channels show promise (like SEO and content creation on YouTube and Twitter), while others require tweaking. The key mindset is to view every effort as a test rather than a failure.
The Reality Check: No Overnight Success
Behind the scenes, the grind is real. Long coding sessions, late nights before demo days, and the constant push to ship products and content can be exhausting. Yet, the team finds joy in the process, focusing on consistent effort brick by brick, understanding that significant breakthroughs come from persistent daily work rather than sudden leaps.
Community and Collaboration
Being part of a supportive community like Founders Inc. offers not only resources but also camaraderie. The founders highlight working alongside talented engineers and creatives, sharing the journey, and celebrating small wins together. This sense of belonging reinforces their commitment and keeps the momentum going.
Practical Takeaways for Aspiring Founders
- Embrace Iteration: Start with an MVP, get feedback, and improve continuously.
- Use Your Own Product: Being a user yourself accelerates learning and improvement.
- Balance Work and Life: Find activities that reduce stress and increase focus.
- Experiment with Marketing: Try different channels and view results as data for learning.
- Stay Consistent: Success comes from showing up and doing the work every day.
- Build Community: Surround yourself with like-minded people for support and growth.
Final Thoughts
Building a startup like Clover is a marathon, not a sprint. It involves technical challenges, emotional highs and lows, and a commitment to constant learning. By sharing their authentic journey — the stress, the excitement, the setbacks, and the wins — these founders provide a refreshing, realistic view of what it truly takes to build something meaningful in the tech world. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, remember: it’s about persistence, adaptability, and passion every single day.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Clover team as they continue to grow their product, tackle new challenges, and share their story with the world.