Bouncing Back From Storya's Shutdown and Rekindling Our Creativity

When our startup Storya shut down after two years, we experienced the emotional whiplash familiar to many entrepreneurs. Our journey went from lofty dreams to pragmatic restraint almost overnight.

We both found our creative engines stalled once the intensity of our startup ended. Praveen Kumar (CTO) stopped drawing and writing stories. “It just feels like an emptiness,” he shares. Paolo Danese (CEO) has struggled with writer’s block for years, and the pressures of running a startup as founder and CEO didn’t help.

How do you reignite creative work after pouring your all into a project, only for it to fail? It’s a question we and many entrepreneurs, creators and artists face. Burnout is real, but inspiration still calls.

We agree that fear plays a big role.

"Fear is what is driving us trying to find the perfect time, perfect thing to get started again," notes Praveen. After boldly swinging for the fences, it’s tempting for us to play it very safe the next time. But in caution there is also creative atrophy.

“Maybe we just need to find a way to aim for the middle ground,” suggests Paolo.

We recognize the need for a much more pragmatic approach in any new venture. As Praveen observed, we initially had "very big ideas" with Storya, but ultimately lacked the grounding in practical business considerations needed to translate that vision into reality.

However, while pragmatism is crucial, we don't want to entirely abandon vision either. As Paolo reflected, "If there is no dream, it's going to be hard for us to be inspired." Some dose of idealism is still needed to drive creativity, innovation, and passion.

We aim to achieve more balance by starting with practical steps grounded in market validation. As Praveen suggested, we will "start with something small" like a simple landing page to engage potential users, rather than jumping into launching and scaling a full product upfront. Small, iterative steps first.

But we also want to allow some room for envisioning future possibilities. Paolo advocated for finding a compromise between unrestrained idealism and overly cautious pragmatism. We can retain some bigger vision for where we hope to take an idea long-term, without letting it get too far ahead of reality.

In short, practical steps first, but with a touch of idealism for that creative spark. Iterative development initially, but with a bolder vision held lightly to inspire us forward. By blending pragmatism and vision, we aim to build something meaningful, scalable, and fueled by imagination. Our past and present selves will both contribute to this balance.

We debate AI’s role in creative work, too.

At Storya, we built several AI tools aimed at helping fiction writers in their creative process. For example, we offered AI-powered illustrations to bring writers' stories visually to life, and we used AI for automated translation of works into other languages.

However, we grappled with whether these AI tools crossed the line from augmenting creativity to potentially replacing human creative roles. As Praveen pointed out during one of our conversations, "Why in the world is AI solving creativity? I mean, that's the only thing that humans have."

He further explained his perspective: "When AI is trying to solve creativity, then who is actually going to do the mundane tasks? We want AI to do mundane tasks so that we can sit, think, and then create."

Paolo echoed some of the concerns, acknowledging we faced a "moral conundrum" in claiming to help writers while also providing AI tools that could disrupt professions like illustrators.

"I think the trick is really to reanalyze the writing process and the publishing process," he suggested.

Our debate addressed our doubts about AI's ideal role in creative fields. At Storya, in our enthusiasm, we aimed very broadly at first in applying AI across multiple facets of fiction writing. But creators like Praveen rightly challenge us to focus AI only on augmenting areas where humans fall short, rather than substituting outright for human imagination and artistry.

As we continue exploring the intersections of technology and creativity, we carry this debate forward, aiming to innovate thoughtfully and ethically around AI as a creative collaborator versus replacement. The human creative spirit endures, and we believe AI is best used to support it.

Striking the right balance will continue to be a journey for us. But reframing failure as learning and letting some dreams slowly back in seem to be lighting the path forward. Our story is a reminder that even after a setback, creativity and balance can still be found.

As we continue processing the lessons from Storya, we hope to spark discussion and community among other founders and creators who have dealt with failure. In an upcoming newsletter, we plan to share some of the creative prompts that helped us reflect on and reframe our journey.

Stay tuned for more as we open our story and learnings to the broader community still walking this path. With compassion and creativity, may we all find our way forward.