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Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

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Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#31

Post by staunch »

After a previous failure, my co-founder (and co-brother) and I are moving to the bay area this month, from LA. We're keeping our expenses low and plan to drive for Uber part-time as a way of avoiding day jobs.

Even though I'm married and have a newborn, we're sharing a place and living like (healthy) college students. We've both turned down huge salaries to work together indefinitely.

I love creating products for people. I love solving problems and I love writing code. The stress of a startup feels like a small price to pay to create something great. And I really want to create something great.

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#32

Post by jjoonathan »

meelooo wrote: post #8
monksy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you think you went wrong and who do you think you can avoid that in the future?

The first time I picked the wrong co-founders (friends and all were engineers). The second time I picked the wrong project. The third time my co-founder died. The fourth time I wanted to do it alone but I almost burned out before my family started to send the signal that it was time for a change but I still think the tech and project are excellent though.

> The third time my co-founder died

Wow, don't see that one too often (fortunately)! Was it a kinda-sorta-expected thing (cancer, age, etc) or was it out of the blue?

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#33

Post by n_coats »

clamprecht wrote: post #30

While I was working on my own (small) startup, I took a contract at a job search engine in 2004, called Indeed.com. I ended up joining as employee #1, and stopped working on my own startup about a year later. Fast forward to 2012, Indeed.com was acquired for a cool billion. After that, I started Searchify.com (still going), and I'm currently living in Argentina, traveling through Patagonia at the moment.

How is patagonia? Heard the wifi isn't so abundant there.. Congrats, I hope to make it there one day!

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#34

Post by tomasien »

I kept creating stuff, learned to code, ended up being on the front page of the website that taught me to code, made a website that was in Time Magazine, and started another startup that is now well funded and growing rapidly.

Just keep making stuff, stay afloat, and manage your mood - stay healthy, stay happy, but PRODUCE AND PUBLISH LOTS OF WORK!

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#35

Post by arjunrajkumar »

8 months since I stopped working on the failed startup. Learnt how to code in Ruby on Rails by building small side projects in the evenings/weekends & also worked full time in the last 8 months. Going to start working on something again from this week. Life has brought me back to where I was before - but with a few lessons learnt, better skills & more humility than last time.

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#37

Post by kartikkumar »

staunch wrote: post #31

After a previous failure, my co-founder (and co-brother) and I are moving to the bay area this month, from LA. We're keeping our expenses low and plan to drive for Uber part-time as a way of avoiding day jobs. Even though I'm married and have a newborn, we're sharing a place and living like (healthy) college students. We've both turned down huge salaries to work together indefinitely. I love creating products for peo…

Doing a startup with a sibling, that's always intrigued me. I've thought about talking to my brother about it a few times. Just feels like it might be incurring too much risk to the personal relationship. What is your experience of that aspect of doing a startup like?

Kudos got knowing what you want and going for it.

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#38

Post by kartikkumar »

jeremyriney wrote: post #36

I went and lived in a monastery for a little over a year. Then started something new. Couldn't stay away for long.

Wow, where was that? Sounds like a fascinating experience. Did you cut off from tech altogether for that period?

Re: Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?

#40

Post by nostrademons »

http://diffle-history.blogspot.com/2008/12/aftermath.html

Spent 5+ years at Google after that, worked on a bunch of cool projects, finessed my technical skills, learned how to push through difficult projects until completion, rebuilt my confidence, and recently left to try again. We'll see how it works out this time.

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