I got into an accelerator — and still failed

Hey everyone

I didn’t think I’d get into an accelerator. I had no team, just an idea, VertoX. And then I got accepted. So I did what felt right at the time: I started building a team. That turned out to be my mistake.

I spent around 3 months trying to build a local team. Around 8–10 people joined and left during that time. Some did very little, some did nothing, and overall progress was almost zero. At the same time, the accelerator expected fast results, but VertoX is not a simple product; you don’t build real-time voice AI in a few weeks.

In the end, I didn’t pass the accelerator. But I learned something important from that experience. Early decisions matter much more than you think. I was limiting myself by focusing only on local hiring, and that slowed everything down.

So I changed the approach. I started working with people globally and focused on strong engineers, not location. That’s when things finally started moving forward.

Sometimes it’s not the idea that fails, it’s how you execute early on.

We’re still building VertoX, and now we’re starting to open early access for a small group of users. If you’re curious to try it and share honest feedback, comment “VertoX” and I’ll reach out. 🚀