What one founder learned from her first startup failure

Meha Agrawal was working full time at Goldman Sachs when she launched Bridely in 2016. Her goal: build a platform connecting brides-to-be with wedding vendors—drawing, in part, from her personal experience with South Asian weddings, which are known for their scale and complexity. But her first venture didn’t unfold the way it looked from the outside.

Agrawal spent years refining the product, gaining investor interest, and getting accepted into entrepreneurship programs. On paper, it looked like momentum. In reality, the business never quite made it down the aisle.

Today, she leads Silk + Sonder, a self-care and personal growth company. The experience forced her to rethink how she builds—from idea validation to customer demand. She wasn’t building the wrong product; she was solving the wrong problem. That’s when everything shifted.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Who was Bridely for, and what were you trying to build?

It was supposed to be this marketplace where you could discover vendors. I had this whole vision where I put my taste, my husband puts his taste, my mother-in-law puts hers, every family member would put their taste, and then you’d get recommendations. It would be like, “These are the vendors recommended for you, and this is the mood board recommended for you,” so you can share it with your wedding planner. So it was to streamline the detail-oriented pieces and the logistics of wedding planning.

From the outside, it sounded like things were happening. What wasn’t actually working?

The validation comes from getting interviews from Y Combinator. The validation comes from being accepted into an entrepreneur program because you almost feel validated on your idea and the business.

But I think the momentum really at that time came from ego-driven things, around how others were validating my business, as opposed to the true customer. And the customers themselves, I was interviewing people who were not in the middle of wedding planning, but who had already wedding planned, and that was also another mistake…The user should be someone who’s actually getting married.

Was there a moment when you realized Bridely wasn’t actually taking off?

There was clearly something off because I couldn’t quite see the path to leaving my full-time job to start this. By this point, I had moved home. I had studied for the GRE. I got into grad school. I then decided against grad school. I decided to go to Stitch Fix. My personal growth journey was happening and developing, which is the foundation for Silk + Sonder, while I was failing at my startup.

Then I realized it’s hard to break up with Bridely because I believe so much in the mission and the product that I’m building, but I don’t really see the path to launch without money.

What did you do differently when you started Silk + Sonder?

That was my first moment of like, “Am I working on the right problem?” [My notes] said, “obsess over the problem, not the product.” What I did differently is getting feedback from people. I did that immediately. Literally, it was a prototype, “breaking up with perfect.” I didn’t wait until the product was in a journal form. I literally took the PDF, printed pieces of paper, asked for people’s feedback, and then went back to design it well. Because it was a monthly cadence, when we started to get our initial customers in, I would make it very clear: “We’re a small business. This needs to be of service to you. What feedback do you have? What do you like? What do you not like?” I was talking to users every single day, and from there, we got to product-market fit very quickly.

What do you think founders get wrong about failure today, and how do you define failure?

The worst failure is being afraid to start or try…There is this fear of what others will think, or what if my product isn’t good enough? The reality is no one really cares.

It’s hard for me to even say that Bridely was a true failure, because there was so much to learn from it…What is the confidence you’re going to gain? Who are the people you’re going to meet?

I still have this issue where I’m scared of failure, so I don’t launch features or products because I’m like, “What if it doesn’t work? It’ll be a waste of time.” But I think really conditioning yourself to ask, “What might you gain by trying?”