Talking about burn out, the acquisition, interviewing, and new beginnings

It’s been one full year and I’m back with the newsletters :-) So many things have happened and all so quickly (2024 going by like 🏎️ 💨💨) I feel grateful that I’m finally at a place where my mind is at ease (it’s been a chaotic time). And with that, I can finally sit down and process my thoughts for my internet diary.

If you’re new here- hi, I’m Rina! This would be a good start to share a few things about me, my whys, and some recent events:

• Up until February of this year, I was building a $15M consumer fintech startup (@mooch.app) as Head of Design. We got acquired!

• I joined the founding team in 2021 and we built this app from the ground up to acquisition (some fav accomplishments: built a community of 500K, achieved a L90 93% retention, generated > $8M in transactions, awarded top 10 apps on Tiktok, Most Innovative Personal Finance App, L’ATTITUDE ventures fintech winner 2022…etc)

• I absolutely love the early stage startup space. There’s so much to consume, so much growth and you get visibility into all the bts of building a company.

• I obsess over this because 1) I’m just a naturally curious person 2) I’ve found that I love working towards acquiring both breadth and depth of knowledge 3) As a product person, I believe that product success stems from the combined efforts across the multiple verticals so I find it important to keep myself educated in what happens behind the scenes.

• I started this newsletter with the intent to build both products and myself in public while sharing my learnings of building an early stage startup and navigating life.

The one-year hiatus

So I went MIA on the internet last year. It was June of 2023, the start of one of the hardest periods at Mooch: we all took a severe paycut to extend runway, continuing to work all day and late nights, exploring multiple pivots…it was quite intense.

Mooch got acquired in Feb’24 and we winded down operations

As I look back and reflect, regardless of the acquisition, I see the decline stemming from what I see as a weak business model and implementation strategy, as well as the market conditions at the time. Fundraising was the hardest and most time consuming part but looking back, I believe we approached fundraising wrong. Generally, I think the decision of bringing in venture, and when to bring in venture capital should be made carefully - and this decision varies by startup.

All in all, the core product was successful based on a user success perspective, which is what we were acquired for. We made a product that people loved and used everyday, mitigating the fear of handling finances for people living paycheck to paycheck, which makes me proud. But at the end of the day, business is another subset of product success which I believe we failed at.

It was quite sad reading through all our partners’ heartwarming messages after they heard about the news but at the same time, I was happy to read that this product we built from the ground up made such a big impact on people’s lives.

What I’ve been up to since the acquisition

After the Mooch acquisition, I had some time to recover from startup burn out and took some time to understand what I wanted next - I explored school, and I also explored the job market. It was quite interesting and learnt a lot from being in the pipeline for companies like Duolingo, Eight Sleep, Discord, IDEO Tokyo D4V, M13 venture, Bobbie, Alinea, Gamma…etc 

Some thoughts about interviewing

other than the fact that it’s a full time job by itself - multiple rounds of interviews, last round virtual onsites, in person onsites, portfolio presentations, presentation designing and prepping back to back….

• It’s literally a skill set. It’s been years since I last explored the job market so let’s say I was very much humbled - the skills were rusty but it got better with practice.

• The main reason why I found it so uncomfortable was because one of the biggest parts of interviewing is that you need to pretty much gas yourself up. You’re essentially pitching yourself, which makes sense. But that definitely did not come natural to me.

• Pitching your work, showing the actual how of building a product and business, having a product conversation - my favorite part of the interview process. Pitching myself… needed work. Maybe it’s the asian upbringing engrained mentality to always stay humble?

• How I overcame the initial feeling of what I thought was icky in "needing to gas myself up” was to reframe my thinking: You’re solely communicating what you’re good at, what your favorite accomplishments are (which should be exciting), why you see yourself fitting in to X team/company well, how you’re able to bring value, what your track record is…etc

• It’s a really good opportunity to reflect: In order to interview well, you should be able to understand yourself, all your experiences summed up and the good + bad.

• It’s almost like a growth loop:

  • Doing the inner reflection work → Awareness

    → Understand you as a person and a worker

    → Mental organization of your past → Decouple each experience by accomplishments vs challenges vs what was lacking

    → Understanding what was lacking → Understand what you want next in your career → Gives you context into type of company or work that would possibly excite and fulfill you more.

  • I can keep going with this growth loop analogy but the tl’dr here is that you get more clarity and can make more informed choices based on what aligns with your needs 🙂 

• Overall, I see interviewing to be broken down as follows:

  • The skill to talk about yourself

  • The skill to talk about your work

  • The skill to verbalize your reflection

  • The skill to answer basic situational questions

Other exciting stuff that happened

• Moved apartments, still in LA though!

• More time for ballet~ took part in a few freelance ballet projects in LA and also collaborated with new photographers for some shoots!

• Travel :)) Tokyo & Shizuoka, Japan ~Daufuskie Island, SC ~ Lots of trips to SF and NYC ~

• Spent my birthday up at Big Bear!

• Gave a talk at Shopify’s design team onsite

• Helping startups in research, design, and advisor roles (for fintech, consumer AI hardware, and social startups, twas fun!)

What I’m up to right now

I recently accepted and signed a FTE offer! I’m diving into something completely different. But yes one thing remains- a founding role. I didn’t imagine going back to the founding startup space right after Mooch but this founder team is a powerful one and I didn’t want to pass up this direct learning experience from such an iconic founder team.

Though another founding role, it is however in a totally new space. It’s not consumer tech, we’re not catering to mass market, and yes, not fintech (gasp). I think it could be a refreshing change.

Hint: It’s in the realm of data, social, and entertainment/content leveraging generative AI and machine learning 👀 🤭 <333

It’s been a while since designing something from 0 again but we’re moving incredibly fast. We just launched on the content production side and we hit 14.8M views across all social media platforms in the span of 5 days (sep 25- oct 1). On the product side, we’re heads down and hustling in sprint mode. And we also spoke at the 2024 Brandweek main stage last week announcing the content launch. I hope to share more soon but this is exciting stuff and I can’t wait to keep building this up!!

If you want to (or already) work in startups:

You’re going to be working a lot in startups. Here are some reminders and basic checklist of what to know and look out for.

#1 Know what fuels you

Identify what energizes and sustains you, both in and outside of work. What keeps you excited and keeps you going on a day to day basis?

#2 Maintain “you-time”

Be intentional about blocking time for yourself—whether it’s workouts, classes, or writing. For me, journaling is essential. If I don’t unload my thoughts, it feels like a mental overload.

#3 Know your why

For everything you do, have a clear reason why. Know why this work matters to you, why you’re choosing that startup, that role, that career, that direction…etc

Your "why" can give you clarity into what your purpose is and make sure you’re doing what aligns with your goals, which will guide you through the chaotic times in startups.

#4 Have a good manager

In the chaos of startup life, everyone is stretched thin. That’s why I believe it’s crucial to have at least one person you can speak openly with—ideally, your manager.

My definition of a good manager is someone who knows how to support in the way you need to be supported (which should map to your goals) and has that emotional intelligence, empathy and compassion. It’s yet another skillset and something that some even go through official managerial training for.

#5 Burn out is real

I experienced the worst of burnout I’ve ever experienced during Mooch. It still haunts me a bit, and it’s one of the reasons I initially thought I wouldn’t join another early-stage startup (surprise now haha)

I remember during that time, one of my best friends/ now ex-colleague shared this analogy that really helped me. Just like how a car can't run efficiently without proper care, neither can a person. Ease off the gas and take breaks (however you define that) if you want to sustain your performance.

#6 You don’t have to be the “hero”

This is a common feedback I receive often. I tend to carry the weight of a startup’s success on my shoulders, believing I can control the outcome.

I think it’s an unhealthy mindset that contributed to my burn out at Mooch.

So this is my note to self (and to anybody that can relate): Keep working hard, do it out of passion and self-fuel but believing that your role alone dictates the fate of the company isn’t realistic.

I’ll admit that there’s a part of me that fears carrying this mindset into my new role, but I hope that my experience at Mooch has taught me the importance of setting healthier boundaries.

#7 Appreciate your friends

Iykyk. To the person that reminds you to breathe, checks in, listens, and makes sure you don’t lose yourself in the grind… hug that friend 🥹 

Thanks for reading and till next time! As always, feel free to hit up the inbox and say hi anytime ❤️ Linkedin | Instagram | X | Write on Beehiiv together