How I Felt While Shutting Down My Company, NeuralSpace

I am shutting down my company, NeuralSpace.

In this post I will share, without filters, what it is like to shut down a company you spent five years building.

"I've failed my investors."

"I've failed my teammates."

"I've failed my customers."

"I've failed myself."

These thoughts haunted me relentlessly from the moment I decided we had to shut NeuralSpace down.

Before making the decision, there was constant anxiety:

"How will the board react?"

"How will our customers react?"

"How will my family take it?"

"What about my team?"

After countless sleepless nights, I finally gathered the courage to speak to our board. Surprisingly, that moment felt lighter than I'd imagined. Reality wasn't as harsh as the scenarios I'd replayed in my mind.

I'm grateful beyond words that they were incredibly supportive, especially Pablo from GoHub, who personally stood by me and my team through some really tough times 🙏.

Next: sharing the news with shareholders. They understood, but internally it brought a feeling of disappointment, like I'd let everyone down.

Then came self-doubt, impostor syndrome, and guilt, followed by fear:

"Will someone sue me?"

"What do I do next?"

"Will anyone hire me?"

"Can I even work for someone else again?"

By now, I'd probably read the stories of more than a hundred successful founders and listened to countless business case study podcasts. Everyone tells you that the key to success in business is to keep pushing even when the odds are against you. But sadly, no one tells you when to stop. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

I'm sure that there are many founders out there who've felt this immense pressure to never back down or never quit, until suddenly, you have to. Almost as if we're trying to prove a point to the world at the cost of your mental well being.

This was the toughest thing I have ever done in my life till date. I had no clue how or when it would end, and at one point, I just wanted to run away and hide.

🚀 Fun fact

When you hit rock bottom, people leave. In my case, I was lucky. Some stayed. Their loyalty gave me strength. I thought, "If my core team is still standing beside me, maybe I've done something right." That moment brought the first real sense of joy I'd felt in days 🌟.

Slowly, day by day, task by task, customer by customer, we started streamlining the shutdown process. We made a plan. We couldn't satisfy everyone, but we genuinely did our best.

Every day, I reminded myself of the good moments: the value we created, the innovative products we built, the best-in-class AI models we trained, and so much more. The key realization was that this wasn't our first time hitting rock bottom, and we'd risen before.

We're now down to six people, and every one of them has been with me since day one. When they said, "Ayushman, we'll stay until NeuralSpace closes," all the negativity began to fade away ❤️.

I finally understood why every success story repeats one lesson: "Keep pushing." We kept pushing even while shutting down, and surprisingly, help arrived from unexpected places. Gradually, anxiety and negativity subsided. I reminded myself of what motivated me to begin this journey: I'm driven by the thrill of building groundbreaking ideas. Especially those the world hasn't yet imagined.

I found my drive again. Despite still being in the shutdown process, I no longer feel like I've failed. Instead, I feel stronger, more energized than ever.

I've learned many invaluable lessons, met amazing people, built meaningful relationships, created a world-class team, and above all, realized the courage it takes to leap into entrepreneurship, knowing your odds of success might just be 10%.

🙇‍♂️ It's incredibly humbling.

Was it the right thing to do?

Whether shutting down was ultimately the right decision, I'm still not 100% certain. But here's what I'm sure about: as a founder, you need to stay grounded, stay honest, and trust reality more than your idea, even if it means making painful decisions without complaining. No one will tell you when to stop. You will be alone when you take that decision and believe you me, there is no good way to do hard things in life.

If you're a founder who has faced or is facing something similar: more power to you.

💪 Keep pushing. Reach out if you need help. We're in this together.

Thank you everyone who was apart of this journey.

What next? I am figuring out 🙂