When we started gaining users, we realized we needed to focus on managing our servers and operations, which led us to take time off from school.

We decided to stop working on our initial business model and pivot to something else, which involved a lot of difficult decisions, including letting go of our team.

After facing significant setbacks, we took back control from our investors and focused on learning from our mistakes to develop a better product.

We got through tough times by taking a long-term view on our mission and ensuring it improves users' lives in a meaningful way.

It took three years before we had a product that was actually used to solve problems, and during that time, many team members were exhausted and close to quitting.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we had to pivot quickly. Instead of laying off our team as advised, we chose to be transparent and asked everyone to take pay cuts to weather the storm together, which ultimately helped us find our product-market fit.

After a month, we pivoted to create products we wished we had, leading to the development of Optimizely, which simplifies A/B testing for users without technical resources.

When things aren't going well, many founders try to work harder to solve their problems, but I knew we needed to take a break and hope for an 'aha' moment.

The decision to shut down was influenced by the realization that our initial hypothesis about the business model wasn't panning out as expected.