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Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

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Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

#1

Post by throwaway487 »

Hello HN!

Let me give you some background info:

- I'm 29 years old, computer science graduate. - I founded two startups. First one failed after 4 years. The second one was acquired 3 months ago but do not take it as a success. We had to sold it to one of our competitors at a price of one tenth of the our series A valuation. Basically, things go bad so fast, it was our best option. I've left the company as a part of the deal. - In both of the companies I've founded, I had to wear too many hats. As a result, I have not excelled in any particular skill, rather I've gained medium level of experience in variety of skills from development to product design to finance. - As a result of the recent acquisition I've some money in my bank account which can cover my expenses for a year from now. - I was mentally exhausted, so I decided to keep things slow for a while and that's why I've not been doing anything for the last three months. - Doing nothing made things worse, since I'm constantly thinking about my future and I can not find anything that I want to do. - I've decided to apply for some jobs but I'm not sure which position I may fit in. - I'm feeling like a huge failure.

What should I do with my life now? Has someone in here ever experienced something like this before? I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks!

ps: posting this from a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I hope you don't mind.

Re: Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

#2

Post by plehoux »

Experiment, create and take on fun/small projects just for the fun of it. You like music, experiment with music. You like games, code small demos/prototypes. You like science/data visualization, do that. Find the joy, don't be too serious.

In 2010 I barely knew how to code, was a bit depressed. I started doing small JS/C experiments/art projects for a few months... changed me forever.

Re: Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

#3

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Take time to mourn. If you haven't been doing that in the last three months, do it now.

Take time to rest. If you haven't been doing that in the last three months, (try to) do it now. This means stopping worrying about your future for a bit. Give yourself a month to have fun and be lazy, without feeling guilty about it. (That is, try to do so. If you find that you can't, well, you can't.)

And then it's time to figure out the next step.

By the way, something like 90% of startups fail. You had two out of two startups fail. This shouldn't surprise you. It's the most likely outcome.

Re: Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

#4

Post by existencebox »

"Failure".

I'm about your same age. I have a carreer which, arrogantly, everyone I know considers "pretty damn good"

I've shipped a fraction of what you have in terms of end to end solutions, let alone piloting the ship as a founder would have to. I've learned skill sets deep in narrow areas, but this has left me wanting for broad exposure and heterogenous understanding.

Your experiences and _successes_ (you SHIPPED, even if it failed after N years, and that's not even including a fucking _sale_; how many engineers get even close to that far?) give you skill sets that I couldn't easily replicate from my entire peer network. Do not sell yourself short. Even if you HAD failed, and spectacularly (and both times!) that's still a remarkable amount of firsthand experience that, outside of any pathological decisions on your part I don't know about, may not say anything negative at all about your choices and decisions. (and even if it did, experience is experience, you make mistakes and learn from them, and are so much more valuable after. Did you see the HN lashback to the eng. getting punished for deleting prod? and that's a pretty damn overt failure.)

I can ramble on as the above well demonstrates, largely because I have a deep wellspring of reasons why you're being silly. Please don't take this to be a statement meant in insult, I'm sitting here amazed at your accomplishments as I'm reading, get to your conclusion, and go "wait what why huge failure no stop that".

Actionably, maybe go work for a bigCo/midstage/something more grounded for a few years. Keep yourself stable and sane, see what exists in the world and what other people have done. I hope it will help you see the perspective I have, which paints your accomplishments in a very favorable light. (more importantly, don't take my advice literally, I'm saying broadly, do something to keep yourself afloat, employable, and to give yourself time to unwind and just _do shit_ as you want. Some amount of stability and freedom has done volumes in my own life for regaining mental strength in periods of conflict.) And do this in the knowledge and confidence that this engineer would consider himself lucky to work with and learn from someone who has "failed" as much as you have :)

Re: Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

#6

Post by bpodgursky »

SirLJ wrote: post #5

Take a look into the stock market and try to develop trading systems... if it works out, you'll be set for life... good luck

Please don't do this. There are a lot of VERY smart people doing this with much bigger bankrolls and faster internet connections than you have. Build something in an area where you have interest or industry knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?

#7

Post by RUG3Y »

existencebox wrote: post #4

"Failure". I'm about your same age. I have a carreer which, arrogantly, everyone I know considers "pretty damn good" I've shipped a fraction of what you have in terms of end to end solutions, let alone piloting the ship as a founder would have to. I've learned skill sets deep in narrow areas, but this has left me wanting for broad exposure and heterogenous understanding. Your experiences and _successes_ (you SHIPPED,…

This is an excellent response. I'd like to add my support and voice similar sentiments for OP: I'm doing ok myself, and you've accomplished far more than I have. I know from personal experience that I'm my own worst critic. You may feel stupid, unskilled, or whatever, but when you begin interacting with people again, you'll find that you DO have plenty to offer.

A perceived failure is discouraging - but you've been gaining experience and growing along the way. This hasn't been a total loss.

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