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Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

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Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#31

Post by rglover »

arduinomancer wrote: post #30
rglover wrote: post #6

Multiple times. The perspective I've adopted is to look at what you learned in the process of each failure and how that improved your ability to do a better job on the next venture. The truth is that many don't have the stomach for "sticking with it," doing whatever is necessary to keep going in the down phases (I highly recommend the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling and see if it resonates). You only truly "fail" when y…

> You only truly "fail" when you quit. Or run out of time? You don't have infinite time to keep trying things.

You have every second available up until your last breath.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#32

Post by rglover »

lhnz wrote: post #11
rglover wrote: post #6

Multiple times. The perspective I've adopted is to look at what you learned in the process of each failure and how that improved your ability to do a better job on the next venture. The truth is that many don't have the stomach for "sticking with it," doing whatever is necessary to keep going in the down phases (I highly recommend the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling and see if it resonates). You only truly "fail" when y…

> You only truly "fail" when you quit. If you can make the necessary sacrifices to struggle through the dark days, your chances of succeeding increase greatly. People give up when they realise that continuing a grind will require then to sacrifice more meaningful opportunities they have. It's not always good to keep going. Sometimes you're throwing your life away.

> It's not always good to keep going. Sometimes you're throwing your life away.

That's a conditioned response. "Throwing your life away" is subjective.

Edit: https://nav.al/kapil <-- Worth listening to.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#33

Post by mtnGoat »

erjiang wrote: post #7
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #2

I've spent the last decade doing this. Building up my savings, draining them on an idea. I put in 40+ per week for a couple years on my last startup in the real estate space. Poached some top level VP's from the biggest firm in our country, but we ran through our capital too quickly due to too many pivots and licensing costs, I could only do no salary for so long, tough when your rent is $2.5k/mo. Now I am back at my…

It's only a "failure" if you look at your net worth, right? It sounds like you have the experience, knowledge, and even resume of someone much older than 28. If you had instead spent ages 22-28 on a PhD, you'd still have no net worth, but people wouldn't see that as a failure.

im not so sure... IMHO if you spent 20+years in school and are up to your ears in debt and cant find a decent job... thats a big failure to me.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#34

Post by DrNuke »

You can surely supplement your own quest at global level with business/tech consulting at local level? Wherever you live, draw a 50-100km radius circle and sell your tips, tricks, life experience to business people who are way less active than you? They buy them time, you monetise your “failures”?!

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#35

Post by mtnGoat »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #2

I've spent the last decade doing this. Building up my savings, draining them on an idea. I put in 40+ per week for a couple years on my last startup in the real estate space. Poached some top level VP's from the biggest firm in our country, but we ran through our capital too quickly due to too many pivots and licensing costs, I could only do no salary for so long, tough when your rent is $2.5k/mo. Now I am back at my…

devils advocate... regret is a double edged sword. by sticking to one path that you have decided is the best, and turning your back to all others, you might ignore a great opportunity.

what is to say you cant work hard on something for someone else and be equally fulfilled?

all the most lucrative and fulfilling projects i have worked on, i was drafted into by others, not the other way around.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#36

Post by simonblack »

There is no law that says every project must succeed.

Edison was supposed to have said something along the lines of "Keep on experimenting and do not hope for success" - keep doing/trying something but don't be disappointed if it doesn't work.

Failure is also success. We've learned what doesn't work.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#37

Post by RantyDave »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #2

I've spent the last decade doing this. Building up my savings, draining them on an idea. I put in 40+ per week for a couple years on my last startup in the real estate space. Poached some top level VP's from the biggest firm in our country, but we ran through our capital too quickly due to too many pivots and licensing costs, I could only do no salary for so long, tough when your rent is $2.5k/mo. Now I am back at my…

Exactly the same story here, but stretched out over a longer timeframe. Trying to build a lifestyle business (pet1.net) for a market I actually care about. I have a piece of software (atomicdroplet.com) that I've been selling for years and is still returning - albeit in very limited quantities. In short: this is a valid and non-suicidal way of making a living.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#38

Post by alashley »

Between learning Android and actually getting it built, I created a social fitness app that never really took off after an initial influx of users:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrelashl...

I'm getting a second wind and might re-build it soon, as something that is more similar to tiktok. I may also need to put much more effort into advertising/marketing this time.

Re: Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on?

#39

Post by gyrcom »

Hey, I've done this several times. In the 90's I spent over 10,000 hours on a 2d real time board game similar to Starcraft for the Amiga. In 96 I gave up on the possibility of an Amiga comeback and spent a couple of thousand to build a windows development system to post the game to. Well it turned out to be impossible as the M$ system is so defective. Once used to perfection it is difficult to program a turd. Linux was so young that I did not go there and built an ISP instead. In 2000 I spent a year producing a website in Rebol to analyze the nutritional qualities of foods, did not go anywhere. In 2014 I started the development of an events website so that anyone can post their events for free, got it working just in time for covid, 7 years, which oddly enough destroyed events. Have a look at GIDOUT.COM if you like it drop me a line.
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