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Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

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Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#41

Post by acconrad »

I started a PC tutoring business in high school that was 100% profitable and then a web design/development firm in college that was also profitable from day one. The only reason why they "failed" was because I wanted someone else to pay me a good salary and benefits when I graduated college. I'm working on a side project at the moment and that may be my first foray into running a business with people I hire.

Regardless, I would never consider these failures, and here's why:

Any venture you do on your own shows initiative and is practice for your programming and business skills - that already places you in the top 1% of software devs. What's the worst that could happen? You build your skills and work for a great company, because any company that fosters entrepreneurial innovation (e.g. Google, Facebook) would LOVE to have you if you built something significant.

So...build a successful business or boost your resume to work for Google/Facebook? Sounds like a win to me.

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#42

Post by nubela »

jawns wrote: post #37

I'm one of the people who posted a list of failed startups ("10 web start-ups (all mine) ... and why they failed"). I've been fortunate to always have a day job that I enjoy, and I've never really sunk big money into any of my side projects, so I'm not in debt. I look at much of the time I've spent on my projects as time that I would have "wasted" some other way, if I weren't working on them. Although none of my proj…

Link please? Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#43

Post by SudarshanP »

5 years. No Regrets. After 3 years at a multinational and 4 patents later, I quit and learnt a lot. Tried many startups. Burned out. Joined same company again and quit again after a year... and still exploring the landscape. I guess I am addicted. :). I wouldn't trade doing this for another 5 years even if someone offered me a job at a Goog or an FB. 5 years later my responsibilities may take precedence :).

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#45

Post by scottw »

mike wrote: post #29
scottw wrote: post #6

I've spent most of my adult life in failed startups in some form or another. Some were funded, most were bootstrapped. Probably 6-8 man-years if I subtract my dances with full-time employment (I'm doing contract work now and working on another startup on the side with a partner). I have no regrets. I've asked myself a couple of times if it was worth it, and to be honest I can't think of anything else I would have rat…

I think the quote is from Tom Preston-Werner's post "How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub" http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-3...

That's the one—thanks for digging that up.

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#46

Post by scottw »

mike wrote: post #29
scottw wrote: post #6

I've spent most of my adult life in failed startups in some form or another. Some were funded, most were bootstrapped. Probably 6-8 man-years if I subtract my dances with full-time employment (I'm doing contract work now and working on another startup on the side with a partner). I have no regrets. I've asked myself a couple of times if it was worth it, and to be honest I can't think of anything else I would have rat…

I think the quote is from Tom Preston-Werner's post "How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub" http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-3...

And how's that for serendipity: the original was posted exactly two years ago to the day.

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#47

Post by johnyzee »

scottw wrote: post #6

I've spent most of my adult life in failed startups in some form or another. Some were funded, most were bootstrapped. Probably 6-8 man-years if I subtract my dances with full-time employment (I'm doing contract work now and working on another startup on the side with a partner). I have no regrets. I've asked myself a couple of times if it was worth it, and to be honest I can't think of anything else I would have rat…

Another point to remember is that if you tried and failed, you'll know that you did what you could. If you never tried you will always have that "what if?" gnawing at your guts.

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#48

Post by photon_off »

petervandijck wrote: post #38
photon_off wrote: post #14

I spent probably 6 months to an entire year working on failed or unreleased projects. Some were just little things to learn the language, like a trojan written in VB6 that would do various annoying to the user (like "earthquake" their windows), to a couple of sites I've recently launched that are currently too complicated and/or just not valuable to anybody except me. My outlook at this point is admittedly pessimisti…

"People are generally incapable of abstraction. If you are the "x of y"" -> That's not abstraction, that's metaphor, and people are very capable it. In fact, it's how we do most of our thinking.

Is a metaphor not a type of abstraction? At any rate, you're correct, I'm probably not giving people enough credit. I'd say that if you can avoid "X of Y"-isms, you're better off doing so.

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#49

Post by photon_off »

dkokelley wrote: post #24
photon_off wrote: post #14

I spent probably 6 months to an entire year working on failed or unreleased projects. Some were just little things to learn the language, like a trojan written in VB6 that would do various annoying to the user (like "earthquake" their windows), to a couple of sites I've recently launched that are currently too complicated and/or just not valuable to anybody except me. My outlook at this point is admittedly pessimisti…

- It is far better to release a crappy implementation of something awesome than it is to release an awesome implementation of something crappy. Awesomeness in the idea is easier and more valuable than awesomeness in the implementation. Doesn't this conflict with the general sentiment that ideas are near-worthless unless implemented well? Can you elaborate? Are you referring to rapid iterations (i.e. have a 'good idea…

In terms of a product's success, ideas without implementation are as worthless as implementation of a shit idea. Granted, at least by implementing something you practice your craft and personally get something out of it, but if the idea isn't good to begin with, you're not likely to achieve success.

The awesomeness of your idea is like a multiplier. You can easily come up with an idea 10 times as awesome, and any implementation of that will be presumably be 10 times as successful. You can't as easily implement something 10 times better. This is all voodoo mathematics, anyway. You don't have to believe it if you don't want to.

Re: Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?

#50

Post by petervandijck »

photon_off wrote: post #48
petervandijck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People are generally incapable of abstraction. If you are the "x of y"" -> That's not abstraction, that's metaphor, and people are very capable it. In fact, it's how we do most of our thinking.

Is a metaphor not a type of abstraction? At any rate, you're correct, I'm probably not giving people enough credit. I'd say that if you can avoid "X of Y"-isms, you're better off doing so.

I'd say the opposite: if you can explain something in terms of "x of y", you probably should. Read George Lakoff's stuff :)
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