Why is now the right time for me to leave Lingumi?

The last five years and four months has been an incredible journey, raising a pre-seed round in 10 weeks flat from Local Globe back in 2016, reaching near bankruptcy in 2019, to then finding Product Market Fit, raising our Series A, scaling revenue affordably by 360% (4:1 LTV:CAC) and scaling the team by >6X in <12 months (10 to 60+). So why when things are going so well did I decide now was the right time to leave?

We found affordable and scalable Product Market Fit

Hire people better than you, provide the context and get out of their way

What a fucking incredible journey it’s been, and one that I’m mega proud of! Straight out of university, Toby and I embarked on this mission to reduce the wealth gap between the rich and the poor by providing the world’s best teaching experience to pre-school children around the world, through technology. Great teaching comes at an expense, often costing between £30-£50 per hour for a good teacher. However, a majority of people around the world cannot afford this, and with the rise of technology, it doesn’t need to be the status quo. Over the years, we found Product-Market Fit and have laid the groundwork for this mission to become a reality. We built a culture that attracts mission-driven, intellectually curious, humble, ambitious and hard-working new team members to Lingumi. We were attracting on average 150 applications per role and internally our employee NPS score was averaging 80 for the past 6 months. We scaled the team from 10 to 60+ in the last 12 months, and now we need the team to execute on the great groundwork that we built over the last 5 years. Now we need functional leaders who have seen great success and know what incredible looks like to take this to the next level, and most importantly, help this mission become an even bigger reality.

Financial freedom

For those that truly know me, one of the reasons I started Lingumi was to get my family out of the financial difficulties they got themselves into. My parents were faced with debt from their beauty salons not doing well, and on top of that got hit with about £200k worth of fraud which to this day still troubles them to some degree. Three salons suddenly turned to one, and during this journey we nearly had our last house repossessed by the courts — one that thankfully didn’t happen. Lingumi has allowed me to support them not only financially, but emotionally. I am one of Lingumi’s biggest shareholders and as the business grows from strength to strength, that shareholding will increase in value (I hope!). If the team continues to execute well, I hope to have set my family up for financial freedom in the future. They worked so hard for me to have a comfortable life and tried to give me everything I wanted. Now it’s time for me to repay the favour and look after them properly. I’m only 27 and this journey has taught me that when the going gets tough, if we focus, anything is possible. From Lingumi nearly running out of cash in 2019 to now (and my family’s near bankruptcy moment), we made it, and it is this mindset that will help me conquer any goal I put before me.

Love turned to clinginess

Looking back over the last year, we’ve been on an incredible journey and I put the business ahead of everything else, including my mental health. The truth is I burnt out, didn’t give myself a break, even when it was clear that I should have. I loved the business so much that my love started to turn toxic and I found myself getting agitated over small issues. I felt like I wasn’t myself and that I was becoming bored — bored in a function that I wasn’t passionate about. Yes I love people-first business that are aligned on expectations and focused on achieving the mission, but I’m not passionate about scaling the People function up through the next phases. I found myself getting questions on payroll, contractor issues and benefit reviews, something that while I value, I personally do not want to be working on. To deal with this, I promoted a really passionate People person, one that while she doesn’t have a lot of experience, has a huge growth mindset. I also hired an incredible Head of Talent who has scaled teams at top UK startups. Effectively within the People function, I made myself redundant. I taught them all I know and it is now up to them to take my vision and strategy, and make it come to life while adapting it to what the business fundamentally needs.

Could I have gone back to the COO role? If the business wasn’t growing as fast as it is, and I didn’t need a break, then possibly. However, we are building a world-class global business, one where we are now bringing in leaders who have done this previously. As a shareholder and someone who puts the mission before my ego, I would love someone to come in who has done this before, but has a passion for our mission. Someone the team can look up to and learn from. I am a fast learner, read a lot and have really great mentors and thought leaders that I speak to regularly. Technically while I believe I could have done a great job, physically and mentally, I am exhausted and need a few months to recharge, reconnect with my loved ones (including myself) and do things that I always wanted to do before starting my second chapter.

Developing myself — Therapy anyone?

I started my first therapy session last week and the question that came to mind was “Who Am I?”. Beyond the business, what type of person am I? After school, I started university and after that I started Lingumi. Over the years, it got to a point where my identity got blurred with Lingumi’s that I thought I was Lingumi, and that’s all I was. This mindset did not do good things for my mental health and the day I left, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

The first therapy session helped me understand what I value:

• Family; friends; physical health; honesty; respect; authenticity; kindness; creativity; clear communication; focus; humbleness and passion

However, I am someone whose thoughts can get hijacked and I become:

• Angry; selfish; inconsistent; all talk no action; rude; anxious; unreliable and feel like a little boy who still feels like the need to prove himself

I am someone who does suffer from self-confidence issues, often seeking external validation to make myself feel good. Over the next few months, I will be working closely with my therapist and spending time with myself to build up this inner validation in myself and stay consistent with my values.

Deciding on the next move

What a lucky position to be in ey? The world is my oyster and I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished by 27. Now I need to take the time for a well deserved rest (Fifa anyone?), spend time with my loved ones and to be honest, chill the fuck out. In the next few months, I’ll be open to the following:

• Coaching and advising early stage companies searching for Product Market Fit
• Coaching and advising early stage companies on culture and developing people-first businesses
• Working as a COO at early stage companies implementing the playbook that I built at Lingumi — You can watch the video here
• Angel investing (if and when I release some liquidity! 😉)
• Anything that presents itself as opportunity that aligns with my values and puts me in a learner mindset
• Co-founding another mission-driven startup (only if the opportunity is greater than startups already out there achieving wonderful things)

Goodbye for now

Mission accomplished! I am 27 years old and in a position I never thought I would see myself in. With my co-founder, we managed to take an idea and turn it into a near profitable business, one that generates significant revenue, affordably, with great user economics, with a culture that the world’s best talent wants to work and stay at. We’ve changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children from around the world and I cannot wait to see what Lingumi achieves with new leaders that have built billion dollar businesses in their given functions. I will be cheering them on every step of the way as a co-founder, so that one day Lingumi reduces the wealth gap between the rich and the poor, and provides every child with the critical skills they need to succeed in life. Toby and I still remain great friends and I will now be acting as an advisor to him where he feels necessary. Personally, I am excited to just chill the fuck out, relax and reconnect with my loved ones. Professionally, well let’s give that a break for now and come back to it in a few months 🙂 . For now, I want to thank Lingumi for giving me the opportunity to change my life and those around me, my mentors and coaches who have supported me every step of the way and most importantly, my loved ones who have had to put up with me during this crazy journey 🙌🏼.