Lessons from building bitsCrunch: trust, team and starting over

For more than five years, I built bitsCrunch, an AI-powered blockchain analytics company headquartered in Munich. We raised more than $12M from investors including Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands and Crypto.com Capital, and built a team that spanned from China to Spain.

Now that I'm starting again with HeyUla, here are the lessons I'm carrying with me.

1. Culture is built on trust, not perks

Everyone wants fancy offices and high salaries. We started with a small remote team and no fancy anything. What held us together was trust:

• Open communication, even with interns
• Full autonomy for people to own their work
• Small rituals like weekly team games

When people feel trusted, they bring their best without being asked.

2. Look beyond the CV

Early on, I almost rejected a candidate because of a different educational background, a ten-year career gap and family responsibilities. Something made me pause. I gave her the chance.

She went on to become one of the most valuable people on the team, and that decision changed how we hired. It also pushed us to rethink policies like maternity leave and returning to work. Some of the best people are the ones a filter would have rejected.

3. Fluency is not the same as ability

We once interviewed engineers whose technical skills were outstanding, but whose English wasn't perfect. It would have been easy to reject them. We didn't. Communication can be coached. Deep problem-solving ability is much rarer.

4. Meet in person, even when you're remote

We once moved a team meeting to Goa. It was planned as two days of fun and three days of work, and we flipped it. Between beach cricket and late-night conversations, we discovered things about each other that no video call ever revealed. We came back closer and faster.

5. Rejection is feedback

Our first investor pitch was a disaster. Investors laughed at our deck. That rejection taught us more than any accelerator could have. Every "no" contains information if you're willing to listen.

What I'm doing differently now

• Talking to users before writing code
• Raising money when we don't urgently need it
• Protecting the team's time and weekends from day one

Second-time founders don't make fewer mistakes. We just make new ones, hopefully faster, and with a little more humility.