Founding a company ten years too early

LUP Technologies was ten years ahead of the market. What is a competitive advantage today was a death sentence in cash flow back then.

I founded the company in 2013. The idea was simple: a digital platform that gives the truck driver the right information before stepping out of the cab at an industrial site. Which rules apply. Which risks exist. Who is receiving the delivery. Basic coordination that was missing at most sites I had seen as a driver.

We got customers. Scania, SCA, SSAB, Ovako, Stora Enso. Those who used the platform reported 50 to 63 percent lower accident risk. We won Open Stockholm Award 2014. I gave a speech for the king and queen.

It looked good. The numbers beneath the surface were worse.

The market was not ready

Digitalization of industrial logistics had barely started in 2013. Most industrial sites still handled safety information with binders, notes and verbal instructions. The procurement processes assumed paper. The safety reviews assumed paper. The people on the receiving side had never been asked to log into anything before a truck arrived.

We were selling a digital tool to organizations that did not have digital processes. That meant every sale required us to not just sell the product but also educate the customer in a new way of working. We were running two businesses at once: a software company and a change management consultancy, paid for one of them.

That takes time. Time costs money. Money we did not have.

Five years without a real salary. I withdrew what I could, but it was not enough to live a normal life. I was around thirty. Wanted to start a family. Wanted to be able to support children. The money was not there, and the gap between what the business needed (more time) and what life needed (any income) kept widening.

Why I actually left

Eventually I faced a binary choice. Option one: kick-start the commercial side. Option two: get a paying job and move on.

It became option two. The decision was financial, not emotional. I felt no grief about leaving. I felt relief. My colleague Erik felt the same. The new CEO could support himself in parallel from other income, which made him a better fit for a company that still needed to be carried for a few more years.

I write this plainly because most founder exit stories are dressed up. The narrative is “we pivoted”, “we got an offer”, “we wanted to explore something else”. The reality is more often: the money ran out, and the founder needed to feed a household. I prefer the honest version. It is also more useful to anyone considering the same path.

What I learned

That timing beats technology. We had the right product. We had the right insight. We had provable results from real customers. The market still was not ready, and a market that is not ready cannot be forced. You can only wait it out, which costs more in time, money and quality of life than most founders imagine when they start.

That sunk cost is a thinking trap. Five years of work makes it tempting to continue just because you have already invested so much. That would have been the worst decision. The best one was to recognize that the timing was wrong and act on it, while the option of acting still existed.

That founder identity should not be confused with founder economics. Walking away does not erase the work. It just stops a business from quietly consuming the rest of your life.

Today, thirteen years later, what we built is a standard requirement at several of our old customers. The market caught up. That does not solve the problem of being there ten years too early, but it confirms the insight was right. Just not the timing.