I just sold Karisma
Kreator Letter #12. The founder letter I write for our Karisma community. The raw journey and the learnings.
Sort of...
Yesterday, I officially sold the coliving side of Karisma.
What? Karisma did coliving too?
Yes... coliving is how we officially got started in Barcelona.
And it’s also what’s been giving us financial stability this whole time.
Before then, I used to run retreats for entrepreneurs around the world until I lost €150K in a week, forcing me to move back to Barcelona.
But that’s a story for another day.
That first coliving space was the birthplace of the Karisma community.
It was the place where I started organizing events.
They weren’t even under the Karisma brand.
All I wanted was to meet like-minded people.
I had just returned home after 7 years living abroad.
A year later, I followed my intuition to go all-in into building community while keeping the coliving business on autopilot.
Connecting people was what I cared about all along.
Definitely not property management.
That was the pivot into the Karisma we all know today.
That’s great but... why sell the coliving?
This April, I had a real emotional meltdown. It was bad.
I had spread myself too thin and taken on more things than I could handle.
Coliving, general membership, Selekt, app, Nomio project in Montenegro, endless events.
It was too much.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
Something had to change.
So the team and I took a step back.
We decided to simplify the business.
App: postponed.
Nomio: ciao.
Events: quality > quantity.
Coliving: sold.
Membership: karisma.club 😉
Ever since we started simplifying...
I’m working less and I have more hours in my day.
But things are running smoother and my team is executing better than ever.
It feels like I’m cheating on my business but things have never been better.
Because we are giving now 100% focus to the things that truly move the needle.
Instead of 20% to this, 30% to that, etc etc etc – you get the point.
My biggest lesson: the best businesses do one thing incredibly well.
This meant goodbye coliving.
It is now in much much better hands.
Buckle up.
Big big BIG things coming.
This is only just the beginning.
Life is good,
Marc