Ask HN: Solo founders, How do you deal with self-doubt and being overwhelmed?

Thanks for taking time and responding. Would you be open for a quick zoom call?

I see what you're saying. I am in the same boat asking myself how easy it would be to go back to a full-time job. Would you be open for a quick call with me?

Started my company, NoteToServices, as an official LLC back in 2015. I didn't want to keep creating products and putting my name, so now I had a company that "owned" all these products I was building. I've never made anything that actually has made me enough money to quit my day job, and I'm always going back and working or re-working my projects, and the never-ending ideas where I just keep building and building and I don't think it will ever stop.

However, the one thing that prevents me from ever having imposter syndrome: I don't make any of my programs for anyone else. I make everything for myself because I use it. I then monetize the services or offer them for free when I can and this way, I never have to feel too bad if no one uses anything I make because I'm my number one customer.

I use everything I build in my everyday life from my new program, artsy.sh, which is an AI art generator, to trackmybot.com which is a public version of ChatGPT, to CallMePrivate, which privatizes your personal phone number so no one ever knows your real number, to JustCounts which ... just counts website visits, and the list goes on and on with at least a half dozen to a dozen products I'm still developing.

Even after my server crashed and I lost almost all my products, I just rebuilt everything and kept going. One product I build was a pi app that allowed anyone who visited to generate their CPU to calculating the infinite numbers of pi and the next person that came along to use the service would start their count and it would just continue in the next spot. I think that made it up to a billion numbers or so. Hopeful on rebuilding that one again!

I look forward to the day when at least one of my products takes off and affords me "f*ck you money", but until that day, I just keep coding away. Keep going and don't lose hope. I'm a loner and the good thing about doing this all alone... there isn't any pressure except from my own clients who have feedback and suggestions.

Solo founder also here with a product that mixes software and hardware.

For me the big realization was that self-sabotage is mechanism that make up excuses to prevent future damage to your ego. It is activated when you feel uncertain about outcomes and in risky terrain.

Knowing that, the trick is starting stuff you are unsure as an experiment, so you can see how can you get there instead crossing items in a to-do list.

In my case I got to feel really guilty about wasting days and weeks without any advancements. Stuck in complex issues (in my mind) and swimming in circles.

Progress in the only cure, and only reframing your day to day it get easier.

How was the quality of the work they gave you, and how much did it end up costing you?