Moving on from Adludio….

When you start a business it becomes part of you, and one of the toughest things is to let it go & move on to something new.

In 2012 I started a company Adludio with Andy Williams & Jacques Kotze. The company has grown nicely and I’m incredibly proud of many of the things we’ve achieved there, including:

But I’ve decided it’s time to leave Adludio and move on to something new.

Here’s why and what’s next…..

The Journey….

We started Adludio (then called Future Ad Labs), with a small founding team with a big idea of revolutionising advertising (& those Captcha things). As the company progressed, the team grew, We added more products & started working with brands we only dreamt about at first.

It’s been an incredible learning experience. There was lots of ups and downs, and a fair share of both hiccups & high-fives. I made more than my fair share of mistakes, but I learnt a lot and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities given to us by our investors, advisors, team and clients.

As the business progressed we appointed a new CEO to the helm & he’s really taken the business to the next level. The company’s in a great position, has a strong team and will be announcing some big news in a few days.

The future for Adludio is very bright. I remain shareholder & their biggest fan. Excited to see what’s next for them!

My Decision….

They say growing a company is like climbing a mountain. Sometimes you get halfway up and realise that you’re on the wrong mountain.

When I speak to founders and they tell me they’re ‘not feeling it’ at their company, I think it probably has something to do with the business going through a rough spell. However when business going great for some time and I still couldn’t shake off the feeling, I knew I had to trust my gut.

I had been feeling for a while that the work I was doing wasn’t aligned with where I personally want to go anymore. So I decided to honour that.

It wasn’t an easy decision. Being an entrepreneur, your personality becomes incredibly intertwined with your business. It becomes who you are. So leaving that security is tough.

Taking a step into the unknown is always both scary & exciting. But life is short and when you get that feeling, I believe you need to honour it.

What’s next:

I intend to keep an open mind for a while as to what’s next. But I know a few things….

  • You’ve probably noticed I’ve been blogging more here. Creating content that would have helped me when I was on journey is something I love and will do more of. I’ll be experimenting with a few things here over the coming months, you can hear about this first by joining my growing community, just enter your email address below
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  • I started teaching Marketing, Growth Hacking & Personal Branding to entrepreneurs & creatives at General Assembly in my spare time back in 2012. I’ve now helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs & creatives grow their business & go to the next level in their careers, and I continue to get a buzz everytime I see the impact it makes on them. I’ve talked before about how I struggled at school, and education is something I’m passionate about. I’ll continue to do this, and I’ll likely do even more in it. Again to keep posted on what I’m doing, make sure to subscribe above.
  • I’ve been enjoying working with a select number of accelerators & startups for consulting, advising, mentoring. It’s probably not my long term thing but I’m enjoying working on fun projects, and I’m keeping an open mind to all opportunities. If you’re interested in working together, please contact me here or email me at howard (at) startupremarkable.com
  • I’m going to do some farming & buy a telescope

Conclusion

Adludio continues to grow and do great things in the world of mobile advertising. If you’re a client of Adludio you have nothing to worry about. If you’re not a client yet, you should check them out here, or feel free to ask me for an intro to the right person.

As for me, I’m excited about 2017 and jumping into what’s next 

If you have any question feel free to leave them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to respond.