{"id":1146,"date":"2023-03-09T16:46:19","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T16:46:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-06-20T10:03:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T18:03:24","slug":"startup-founders-get-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-raluca-crisan-etiq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/startups\/blog\/startup-founders-get-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-raluca-crisan-etiq\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup founders, get comfortable being uncomfortable \u2014 Raluca Crisan, Etiq"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uncertainty is a natural part of founding a startup. Questions about market demand, economic stability, and whether you\u2019ve put together the right team can keep you up at night. While it can be a source of stress, uncertainty can also be an important driver of innovation and creativity, as it forces founders to think outside the box and come up with new solutions to problems. Navigating uncertainty is an ongoing process and sometimes it\u2019s incredibly hard. But a healthy approach to uncertainty encourages experimentation, fosters resilience, and leads to new opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s this lesson that <a href=\"https:\/\/etiq.ai\/\">Etiq<\/a> co-founder and CTO Raluca Crisan was only too happy to share when I spoke with her recently as part of our Techstars conversations, and it\u2019s something she hopes will inspire other startup founders. Founded in 2019, London-based Etiq builds tools to help companies validate their data and test their machine learning pipelines. After getting her start as a data scientist and spending some time in the corporate world, Raluca began to feel constrained by that environment. It was time for a change. But with change came a few surprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI thought I kind of knew how founding a startup was going to play out,\u201d Raluca says, \u201cbut that\u2019s not really what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Etiq.AI - Starting the company\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/Q5306vOGBkE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Making the leap to the startup world<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPrior to Etiq, I was working for consultancies and doing projects for different corporations\u2014some mid-sized, some really large,\u201d Raluca says. The drawbacks she encountered in her corporate career helped nudge her towards something different. For instance, she found \u201cit\u2019s actually quite hard to get something that works well into production. Someone would make a small coding error and we\u2019d waste weeks trying to find out what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Making the leap to co-founding a startup and serving as CTO was a learning curve. The new business moved much faster, and Raluca had to wear a number of new hats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI started off with a specific area: data science,\u201d she says. \u201cSo I had to pick up the other tools in the toolbox because I just didn\u2019t necessarily have the experience with them. You start a company and you think you have all the answers. But I think if you\u2019re comfortable with just searching for things and being kind of uncomfortable all the time, then that\u2019s really all it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One area where Raluca had no doubts was Etiq\u2019s tech. The startup\u2019s solution ensures everyone on a team\u2014from business stakeholders to data engineers\u2014has the capacity to confirm their algorithms are performing as expected and reduce any inadvertent bias that may develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPeople use our tool because before they release their project in the wild, they need to test that what they\u2019re doing is going to work,\u201d Raluca says. \u201cWe started off with issues of fairness and bias and then made our tool more comprehensive to tackle issues including drifts, performance, data issues, and a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Etiq.AI - Finding community to support the founder\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/MZ-FN_uEUyg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Making the most of your relationships<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In times of stress and uncertainty, it\u2019s important to remember that no one needs to go through the process of starting a company all by themselves. Seeking out advice from experienced founders, mentors, or industry experts can help you gain valuable perspective on how to manage uncertainty in your startup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBeing surrounded by founders has made a big difference for me,\u201d Crisan says about the <a href=\"https:\/\/foundershub.startups.microsoft.com\/signup\">Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of advisors come from the community. The level of trust that exists in these relationships is incredibly important. If you\u2019re honest with them and bring them your challenges, you get a lot out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the end of the day, the way to deal with uncertainty may just be zeroing in on what\u2019s the biggest priority in the moment, Crisan says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCutting out the fluff and just getting to the point of what we need to focus on has been so important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Watch the entire interview series with Raluca over on the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCiIaRJRi67cRa1eegHhttvA\"><em>Microsoft for Startups YouTube Channel<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>To get started with Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/foundershub.startups.microsoft.com\/signup\"><em>sign up here<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Uncertainty is a natural part of founding a startup. Questions about market demand, economic stability, and whether you\u2019ve put together the right team can keep you up at night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ms_queue_id":[],"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","_classifai_text_to_speech_error":"","_alt_title":"","ms-ems-related-posts":[],"footnotes":""},"post_tag":[],"content-type":[201,730],"job-role":[],"topic":[],"coauthors":[473],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","content-type-founder-advice","content-type-thought-leadership"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Startup founders, get comfortable being uncomfortable \u2014 Raluca Crisan, Etiq - Microsoft for Startups Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Navigating uncertainty can be incredibly hard. 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