In early 2023, I was riding high on a fresh start. I had just sold my e-commerce business, giving me the freedom to dive headfirst into something new. Fueled by inspiration from studying Y Combinator and Antler company launches, and devouring Paul Graham's essays, I was determined to build my own startup. I called it E-Comm AI. The idea was simple yet powerful: leverage the newly unleashed potential of ChatGPT to solve real problems with code.
My first target? A pain point I'd battled while running my e-commerce business—customer service. I spent two months coding a full app from scratch, a prototype that automated customer support in a way I wished I'd had back in the day. It worked. I was thrilled. With the app ready, I crafted a script to message potential customers—people I'd painstakingly identified through data analysis and an algorithm I wrote to pinpoint the most promising buyers. I even threw in some cheeky marketing meme templates to grab attention, pitching a product that could save them time and boost efficiency.
Then, just as I was gearing up to sell it, reality hit. My Shopee account got banned. That script I'd so proudly built? It violated their rules. Overnight, the platform I'd loved—one that had driven years of sales for my business—turned against me. They issued a warning, and I froze. Terrified of losing my other accounts, I shut it all down. I don't remember much of what happened next—just the sting of rejection and fear. My big idea was dead before it even took off.
Dejected, I drifted to other projects. I tinkered with a "business for sale" platform and a few smaller ideas, but none carried the spark of E-Comm AI. They felt like placeholders, distractions from the failure I couldn't shake.
Fast forward to today, February 2025. Life's thrown me a few more curveballs since then—finishing National Service, traveling through China for inspiration, and leaving a job that sharpened my coding skills to a razor's edge. With the latest AI tools in my arsenal, I've been coding relentlessly for the past five months, iterating between projects, chasing that elusive "next big thing." Then, I spotted a need on X. Fired up, I coded an MVP overnight and spent a week fine-tuning it. Finally, I thought, this is it. I was ready to launch.
This morning, I woke up to a gut punch: another ban. My X account—gone. Just as I was about to put something valuable into the world, the rug got pulled out again.
Life is tough, man. It's a brutal cycle—build, believe, get smacked down, and somehow find the guts to get back up. Every time I think I'm on the verge of making it, something scares me off the path. But today, something clicked. I just finished listening to Nick Mowbray on the My First Million podcast, and his story hit me hard. The guy faced rejection after rejection—doors slammed in his face—and yet he kept going. It made me realize this isn't failure; it's normal. It's the game.
Then I remembered Tony Robbins' mindset: "I'm expecting this problem to come. Why did it take so long? Now the game begins." That's the lens I need. These bans, these setbacks—they're not roadblocks; they're the starting line. I've got the skills, the tools, and the drive. People need solutions, and I can deliver them. So, I'll dust myself off, tweak the plan, and charge back in. The scars? They're proof I'm playing. The bans? Just the warmup. Let's go.
And wow, I found a competitor immediately in the post that also solved the problem. how hilarious, our website look almost the same. is this another form of singularity? https://www.goalpostagent.com/