Did you go back to a regular job? What was the transition like? Did you feel like your time was wasted or was your experience as a founder still valuable for what came after?
Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#2Not really a failed startup but we had a disagreement between the founders and decided to split the company and I and another partner left. We fought over money and the company for a few months and eventually reached an agreement.
Since then I got a job, moved countries and am working on the next thing with my wife :)
It was an invaluable experience and I would do it all over again.
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#3Not really a failed startup but we had a disagreement between the founders and decided to split the company and I and another partner left. We fought over money and the company for a few months and eventually reached an agreement. Since then I got a job, moved countries and am working on the next thing with my wife :) It was an invaluable experience and I would do it all over again.
Thanks for sharing. Did you feel like it was hard to get a job after you left the startup? I guess it depends what stage and size your startup was at, but did you have any problems trying to leverage your experience as a founder with potential employers?
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#4Not really a failed startup but we had a disagreement between the founders and decided to split the company and I and another partner left. We fought over money and the company for a few months and eventually reached an agreement. Since then I got a job, moved countries and am working on the next thing with my wife :) It was an invaluable experience and I would do it all over again.
Thanks for sharing. Did you feel like it was hard to get a job after you left the startup? I guess it depends what stage and size your startup was at, but did you have any problems trying to leverage your experience as a founder with potential employers?
Not hard at all. We were 3 years in and we had around 20 employees by the time I left. I was the CTO and since we didn’t have a big development team, I still coded every day so I was sharper than ever and with more experience not only in technology but also with raising money, accounting, HR, sales, etc so I had multiple offers to choose from.
That experience was super useful for my next/current endeavor with my wife and also for my next job since I had to learn and grow a lot in terms of management, prioritization and dealing with lack of resources. Skills which are super valuable to companies and teams of all sizes.
When hiring, I’m biased towards ex-founders and people who tried to launch their own products. I believe that shipping something and asking for money for it is the ultimate proof that a developer can offer in terms of how far and how much they can do/learn so I always favor people who done something even if they failed. Launching a product/company requires tons of different skills which, as I said before, I believe are super valuable in addition to tech skills.
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#5As someone who has both founded a startup (and failed), as well as took 18 months to go overlanding -- and who now has a normal engineering job -- I found that interviewers were more impressed with the travel than the startup. The co-founder label still has some sort of negative connotation with certain interviewers. It seemed worse the larger the company was.
I had no problem finding my pick of companies to work for however.
The transition wasn't tough necessarily, but neither is the desk job very fulfilling. There's a sort of manifest destiny when you're building YOUR thing, and building anyone else's thing is just nowhere near the same -- regardless of the token scraps of RDUs or options or company outings they throw at ya. You're riding on the bus, not driving it. It just ain't the same.
Like the other poster, I would do it all over again as well.
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for sharing. Did you feel like it was hard to get a job after you left the startup? I guess it depends what stage and size your startup was at, but did you have any problems trying to leverage your experience as a founder with potential employers?
Not hard at all. We were 3 years in and we had around 20 employees by the time I left. I was the CTO and since we didn’t have a big development team, I still coded every day so I was sharper than ever and with more experience not only in technology but also with raising money, accounting, HR, sales, etc so I had multiple offers to choose from. That experience was super useful for my next/current endeavor with my wife…
I wish "non-tech/well-rounded" were better valued or even understood in the mainstream. People mention them as cultural virtue-signals, but it's not part of any interview or screening I've been a part of, and I've done dozens in the last year.
I don't feel that "soft skills" are sought or even desired in an engineer -- I'm only ever asked about some certain framework or technique or algorithm (lol), not even tangential open-ended stuff like "hey how would you approach a customer complaining about X" or "How would you prioritize technical debt vs features in a product's lifecycle?" or, heck, even something fun and off the wall like "you've lost your wallet in a foreign country -- now what?"
I'm glad your startup experience was useful in your own search. Best of luck on your new endeavor! :)
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not hard at all. We were 3 years in and we had around 20 employees by the time I left. I was the CTO and since we didn’t have a big development team, I still coded every day so I was sharper than ever and with more experience not only in technology but also with raising money, accounting, HR, sales, etc so I had multiple offers to choose from. That experience was super useful for my next/current endeavor with my wife…
I wish "non-tech/well-rounded" were better valued or even understood in the mainstream. People mention them as cultural virtue-signals, but it's not part of any interview or screening I've been a part of, and I've done dozens in the last year. I don't feel that "soft skills" are sought or even desired in an engineer -- I'm only ever asked about some certain framework or technique or algorithm (lol), not even tangenti…
> I wish "non-tech/well-rounded" were better valued or even understood in the mainstream. People mention them as cultural virtue-signals, but it's not part of any interview or screening I've been a part of, and I've done dozens in the last year.
> I don't feel that "soft skills" are sought or even desired in an engineer
An engineer who can communicate well will never be out of a job.
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#8As someone who has both founded a startup (and failed), as well as took 18 months to go overlanding -- and who now has a normal engineering job -- I found that interviewers were more impressed with the travel than the startup. The co-founder label still has some sort of negative connotation with certain interviewers. It seemed worse the larger the company was. I had no problem finding my pick of companies to work for…
For the life of me, I can't figure out what RDUs mean. Help?
Also, I'm interested to know: Why do you think they were more impressed with the overlanding?
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#9As someone who has both founded a startup (and failed), as well as took 18 months to go overlanding -- and who now has a normal engineering job -- I found that interviewers were more impressed with the travel than the startup. The co-founder label still has some sort of negative connotation with certain interviewers. It seemed worse the larger the company was. I had no problem finding my pick of companies to work for…
For the life of me, I can't figure out what RDUs mean. Help? Also, I'm interested to know: Why do you think they were more impressed with the overlanding?
Likely a typo for "RSUs"
Re: Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
#10Went back to the real world. Senior front end engineer to engineering manager at last job. Managing a team at DocuSign now.