London, Reunions, and Mishaps

Most of these discouraging comments come from fellow Chileans, not Estonians or people in Estonia. And I understand why. I’m a lawyer from a “prestigious” Chilean university, prestigious according to people in Chile, at least, working in Estonia not as a lawyer, but as a crazy entrepreneur.

I’m pretty confident that most of you haven’t been reading my articles, and I totally get it. You’re busy, and they might not seem interesting. That’s fine by me. I’m not writing to entertain but rather using these articles as a way to relieve some personal stress and generate LinkedIn content. In fact, I realised this when a friend who liked my previous article later asked me about something I clearly covered in it. So, no hard feelings!

Discouraging Words

As I mentioned in my first article, this journey has been incredibly challenging, but it’s been even more emotionally taxing than financially. It’s crazy how often I hear discouraging words: “That doesn’t make sense,” “You’re going to lose all your money on a failed idea,” or my personal favourite, “Why don’t you come back to Chile and work as a proper lawyer?”

Most of these discouraging comments come from fellow Chileans, not Estonians or people in Estonia. And I understand why. I’m a lawyer from a “prestigious” Chilean university, prestigious according to people in Chile, at least, working in Estonia not as a lawyer, but as a crazy entrepreneur. Meanwhile, others my age are already in law firms making good money or in government positions. The current President of Chile was a classmate of mine, just a few years older, so many of my peers are now in government. I get it; people who are discouraging probably want the best for me. However, it’s still tough to constantly receive negative feedback, not actually about FinKratt itself, but just about the idea of launching a business!

London Adventures

Now, onto what’s been happening these past couple of weeks. As I mentioned in my previous article, I spent a week in London with my girlfriend, which was awesome! Coming from Tallinn, London feels like moving from a small village to a big city. We explored some amazing and surprisingly affordable restaurants, enjoyed long walks together, and had lots of deep chats. I guess the trip to London was even better because we were together.

I also had the chance to visit a dear old friend, Valentina Palma, who’s finishing her studies at King’s College. We had long talks about life, the situation in Chile, and remembered our university days. It’s been over eight years since we graduated, and we still share some bitter memories of those times. Those were tough years for some of us, and I don’t remember them fondly, at least regarding the university itself. Of course, I made amazing friends, including Valentina, and if it weren’t for them, I might have changed universities.

The Microsoft Outage

Anyway, London was simply amazing! If it hadn’t been for the return trip, it would have been perfect. What happened, you may ask? Well, as expected, Windows suffered a massive outage due to a bug in a recent update. I wonder why there’s no massive movement to ditch Windows for Linux, but that’s another discussion. This caused all airline systems to crash for a while. This led to massive delays in most flights, including mine from London Luton, a great airport, by the way, easy to get to, despite what the haters say, to Tallinn. Our flight was supposed to depart at 4 pm, but we ended up leaving at around 10:30 pm. 6.5 hours of delay! It was insane.

However, since I was on the same flight as one of my girlfriend’s co-workers, Holly Kumel, the wait wasn’t too boring. At least I had someone to complain about the situation with! Additionally, I met a super cool couple from Australia who were also flying to Tallinn. We exchanged contacts and eventually ended up in Retroteek. So, despite the delay, it turned into a bonding experience with fellow travellers!

Exciting Developments

Now I’m back in Tallinn, working on FinKratt, and also on my side hustle, Call Brad. Regarding Call Brad, some people have reached out for free first consultations, but unfortunately, they’ve mostly been pre-launch startups with no available funds in the foreseeable future. Still, I provided them with basic guidance, from setting up their businesses to complying with GDPR. It seems word of mouth is working in my favor, and it’s gaining traction on its own.

As for FinKratt, we shared the exciting news that we have a developer! A couple of months ago, we were introduced to Oleksii Nikishkin, who has been helping us tremendously. We’re thrilled to have him join as a third founder. With his expertise, we’ll be able to launch FinKratt’s MVP very soon! We’ve all been working hard, and I’m confident that we’ll see the fruits of our labor in the near future. So, stay tuned. More exciting news is coming in the next few days!

PS: A Note on the Picture

The picture I’m using for this article is from a lunch I had at Borough Market in London. I had oysters and a glass of champagne. Yeah, it sounds fancy and all, but at the market, it’s actually very affordable. Since oysters are probably one of my favourite foods and I hadn’t had them in many months, I decided to treat myself. It’s also something I won’t find in Tallinn. If you like oysters and are in London, I encourage you to visit Borough Market.

Originally published on LinkedIn.