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Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

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Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#1
My startup of about two years has failed. We were hanging on for the last couple of months in the hopes of getting a big break. We're out of money now. My motivation levels are also pretty low after so many repeated failures.

My question is, for other people that have been in the same situation: What did you do after?

Did you start looking for a job? Did you jump straight into your next startup. I'm also considering whether it's possible to pick up small programming jobs on Elance to pay the bills.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#2
What do you want to come next?

If you can constructively and reliably ship code to prod, you almost certainly have better immediate options than Elance.

Worst case, calling ten different web agencies in your area will probably get you enough work to pay the bills, likely at rates which are not unreasonable, and with far less pathological clients than you'd find on Elance. You might have to call another ten after that, if your luck is bad or if your sales skills are poor.

After that, what? Full-time job? Freelancing? Another startup? Get out of software and into the exciting world of fruit vending?

It's a wide world and you have skills that are in high demand. What do you want the next chapter in your life to be about?

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#3
Couple of things: Can you sell your code? If not consider open sourcing it. Either you get some money or you get some kudos in the community.

If you still want to work in startups, look at the post a few pages back for people looking for founders: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9795503

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#4
1. Pay the bills, save some money.

2. Take a vacation: "Me and my friends have been too busy sunbathing off the southern coast of St. Bart's with spider monkeys for the past two weeks, tripping on acid. Changed our whole perspective on shit."

3. Tinker: https://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#6
Did you start looking for a job? Did you jump straight into your next startup

I'm always curious about comments like this. Do you have enough personal reserves to go into startup mode again and still pay rent/mortgage, household expenses for another year, whatever?

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#7
post #4

1. Pay the bills, save some money. 2. Take a vacation: "Me and my friends have been too busy sunbathing off the southern coast of St. Bart's with spider monkeys for the past two weeks, tripping on acid. Changed our whole perspective on shit." 3. Tinker: https://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html

Cool story, Hansel.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#8
I was in the same situation as you at the end of last year. After 2.5 years working on a Techstars VC funded startup as a co-founder, we failed. Unfortunately at the time, I didn't have the extra cash to take time off, so I sent a few emails out (to the Techstars network) and a few weeks later jumped onboard another early startup as the first engineering hire. I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to join another early stage company, but they offered a nice salary (I obviously chose salary over equity), a nice bonus, + some equity. They were the perfect fit for me, so things worked out well.

If you have the $$ to travel before moving on, I would advise you to take some time off to relax and get your mind away from the startup world. Go see your family, it's amazing how much they care.

Lastly, you will experience many emotions for many months following, don't take it too hard. Life goes on, things happen for a reason, and good luck! It will all work out.

Re: Ask HN: My startup has failed. What comes next?

#10
If your motivation levels are pretty low, you may want to delay job searching for a bit. Looking for the right job is hard and comes with its own setbacks that you need to be prepared for.

I started looking for a job in May. It takes a lot of time finding the right kind of company, going through all the interviews, and determining whether there's a fit. It's very draining and, of course, rejection always stinks.

You probably have a lot of great skills you picked up from building your startup, but practically no interview judges you on that kind of experience. I've encountered two main assessments: the take-home challenge and algorithm coding. Honestly, algorithm coding punched me right in the face when I started looking for jobs. It took me a little while to get back into the algorithm mentality (leetcode helped a lot).

Take home challenges are frustrating. You can put in a whole days worth of effort with no guarantee of getting to the next step where you can talk about your awesome startup experience. What's worse is that you probably are interested in the company because, otherwise, you wouldn't have put in the effort in the first place.

If you aren't ready to face this yet, I recommend picking up small coding jobs for a bit to get your spirits up and work on interview prep.

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