I never imagined how difficult it would be to share that Huma (Formerly Shake) is shutting down after two years.

We’re incredibly grateful to the customers who supported us, the thousands of students from around the world who signed up, the investors who believed in us and the advisors who guided us.

Arran McCabe, Thomas Cullen, Dee Murphy and Kevin Holler (Huma Team)

Three weeks ago I was faced with my toughest decision yet as founder and CEO: Put my health at risk and fly back to San Francisco in an attempt to raise additional funding or put my health first and take time off. Two years of blood, sweat and tears hung in the balance and for the first time, I needed to put myself first in the decision process.

“If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.”

I was staring founder burnout in the eyes as I struggled with depression, anxiety and panic attacks, each exacerbated by mental and physical exhaustion. I no longer recognised myself and it was time to face reality.

An important realisation was that my burnout was a symptom of our failure, and not the cause. We shipped our MVP a year too late, we waited too long to raise funding, we didn’t raise enough when we did, we were clueless about marketing, our go to market strategy wasn’t solid, we rebranded two weeks before official launch, etc…

Rebranding to Huma, April 2016

Mistakes like this create additional work and obstacles for the team, and can easily take your startup off course. As a result we never emerged from the “struggle” during those two years. There is only so long you can operate in survival mode when the responsibility falls on one person, and unfortunately it took its toll on me.