After seven years of bootstrapping businesses as an entrepreneur, I was no stranger to the highs and lows of the startup world. Last summer, however, I hit a new low. My latest solo venture was failing, and my finances were dwindling. At the same time, my personal life was accelerating. Nearly two years after meeting my now-wife, a Russian living in France, we needed to get married quickly due to visa issues. I was faced with an impossible choice: abandon my startup dream or give up on a wedding. I couldn't afford either.
Desperate, I turned to my social media community of entrepreneurs and posted a raw admission: "I have to find a way to pay for my wedding. No idea how I'm going to do it." The minimum cost, I calculated, was €4,000. The response was immediate and unexpected. A famous entrepreneur friend offered a €4,000 loan with no strings attached. Then, someone joked, "If you really need help, just put my logo on your suit." In our world of self-promotion, the comment was a perfect blend of humour and hustle. Embracing the entrepreneurial mantra to "try crazy shit," I decided to take the joke seriously and posted, "Let's do it."
My fiancée, however, was horrified. She only saw the initial jokes and mockery on social media. To win her over, I had to reframe the entire concept. I explained that this wasn't about selling out; it was a unique way to bring my community, who had supported me for years, into our celebration. This perspective changed everything. She agreed, but on one condition: only companies I genuinely loved and respected, mostly indie businesses from my network. This made the "sale" much harder, but also more meaningful. I ended up selling about €10,000 worth of logo spots on my suit at an average of €300 each.
With the funding secured, I became obsessed with making the suit a statement of quality, not a gimmick. I hired a talented, albeit expensive, stylist who designed a high-quality, beautiful suit. We opted for elegant embroidery over printing to ensure a premium look and feel. The result was stunning. In person, it didn't look like a joke at all, and our family and friends adored it. For me, it was more than a suit; it was a tapestry of my journey, with each logo representing the face of a founder I knew and respected. Many of the 26 participants even told me to just keep the money, seeing it as a wedding gift between entrepreneurs.
On the wedding day, I was surprisingly stressed—not about the marriage, but about delivering on my promise. I felt a deep sense of obligation to the people who had supported me, and I was determined to ensure their logos received proper billing in all the photos and videos. This experience was a crash course in the entrepreneurial journey: first, they think you're crazy, and then, suddenly, it seems obvious. I spent months fighting for the idea, often feeling like the only one who saw its beauty. The suit was a testament to my life as an entrepreneur, and I wanted to do right by everyone who believed in me.
The most surprising outcome came afterwards. The co-founder of a company called Comp AI, who had been one of the participants, had been following my journey. Impressed by my sales and marketing hustle in turning the suit idea into a reality, he reached out with an unexpected offer: "Let's get you a sales job." After years of identifying solely as an entrepreneur, I had never considered another path. But the suit, born from a moment of financial desperation, had inadvertently showcased my skills in a way that a resume never could. Without that crazy idea, I would have never landed this new job, marking the beginning of a completely new chapter in my life.