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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#81

Post by TAForObvReasons »

hef19898 wrote: post #71
vineyardmike wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. And for anything with bigger ambitions than a lifestyle business, don’t forget connections. Most founders are still men from Ivies or Stanford. Just look at the “PayPal mafia” to see how inbred tech investing can be. Not that most entrepreneurs need or should expect VC funding, but this is HN, run by a VC. You can totally run a business and be…

Personally, I have a problem with the term lifestyle business. Without plenty of VC money, building and running a business is hard . VC backed up start-ups fit the "lifestyle" business definition a lot better, IMHO. One can play CxO, or chief engineer or whatever fancy title one wants to hold without putting the effort and years in, without actually worrying about those nasty things like profitability, cash flow or a…

VC-backed startups have a very different "lifestyle" from bootstrapped startups. Building the business is harder but running the business is much easier since you don't have the weight of exit strategy bearing down on you. Those external pressures are now showing up thanks to rising interest rates and investors asking questions.

You can't be coerced to make business decisions like selling out to a competitor or aggressively raising prices if you own the company.

Re: I am done. I give up

#82

Post by jacquesm »

hef19898 wrote: post #71
vineyardmike wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. And for anything with bigger ambitions than a lifestyle business, don’t forget connections. Most founders are still men from Ivies or Stanford. Just look at the “PayPal mafia” to see how inbred tech investing can be. Not that most entrepreneurs need or should expect VC funding, but this is HN, run by a VC. You can totally run a business and be…

Personally, I have a problem with the term lifestyle business. Without plenty of VC money, building and running a business is hard . VC backed up start-ups fit the "lifestyle" business definition a lot better, IMHO. One can play CxO, or chief engineer or whatever fancy title one wants to hold without putting the effort and years in, without actually worrying about those nasty things like profitability, cash flow or a…

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with a life style business to begin with, the negative stigma is there only because certain VCs feel that you are a horrible person for not cutting them in on the action so they can diversify their portfolios.

Re: I am done. I give up

#83

Post by vineyardmike »

cies wrote: post #55
vineyardmike wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. And for anything with bigger ambitions than a lifestyle business, don’t forget connections. Most founders are still men from Ivies or Stanford. Just look at the “PayPal mafia” to see how inbred tech investing can be. Not that most entrepreneurs need or should expect VC funding, but this is HN, run by a VC. You can totally run a business and be…

> Most founders are still men from Ivies or Stanford Is that also true for YC startups? I felt like YC (while still playing the capitalist's game) was providing a more equal opportunity to start-up "luck" by just looking at the numbers :)

No idea but I’d love to see data…

Eg - academic breakdown of founders

- % founders that already knew a YC grad personally

- founders that knew YC investors

- etc

Re: I am done. I give up

#84

Post by simple-thoughts »

First of all, you are not alone. Most people who try to become entrepreneurs do not succeed. Thankfully, you are self aware and willing to face the facts of your reality.

A lot of people will say that success in entrepreneurship is primarily driven by luck. But what they leave out is that it’s input luck, not output luck. Inputs like a “small” $10k gift from a family member. Clean water and high nutrition during childhood that lead to above average intelligence. Literacy, citizenship, family wealth, and more. Not to mention having no mental or physical illnesses and a high capacity to endure stress.

I completely agree with your last sentence, “It’s ok to admit defeat and move on.” In life, you got to play with the hand you were dealt and not the hand someone else’s. It’s unfortunate that some social circles encourage self damaging behavior in pursuit of some idealized lifestyle that can never be accessed by everyone, and it wouldn’t even be good if it was.

Re: I am done. I give up

#85

Post by rmetzler »

I tried to be my own boss, but I was really bad at acquiring new clients. I was broke and then really learned to appreciate being a salaried employee. It’s much easier to build something when you don’t risk homelessness or something similar.

You seem to be really bad at marketing. HN frontpage and you don’t say anything about what you tried and what your skills are.

Re: I am done. I give up

#86

Post by robertlagrant »

Konohamaru wrote: post #35

It's a Darwinian world out there. Success is not up to you to produce. Telling people that it's all up to them and their free will is the most destructive lie you can tell, because it's not and the end result is that people start harming themselves with guilt because it's "their fault". It's not "your fault" and it's not because of your "free will". Guilt is an extremely destructive and evil emotion. Excise it from y…

This is too far the other way. Hard work and good ideas are necessary but not sufficient. That's all.

Re: I am done. I give up

#87

Post by totalZero »

chaosbolt wrote: post #58

>3 x failed attempts => spending time institutionalized >anyone can do it with the right mindset Those are contradictory, I would guess the right mindset is one where failure doesn't destroy you to the point you get institutionalized. Here is my stupid advice (won't work, it's a case of someone who knows less giving advice to someone who knows more, I have never started a company or anything, but as Gandalf said "Why…

  Also you failed, maybe
  you're just 5 feet 6 and can
  never ever become a
  professional basketball
  player no matter how hard
  you try
Muggsy Bogues is 5'3" and played 14 seasons in the NBA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggsy_Bogues

Re: I am done. I give up

#88

Post by redleader55 »

ralphb wrote: post #74

> It's also the constant stream of digital nomad influencers on Twitter who sell extremely distorted, rosy, and often times false dreams to indie entrepreneurs like myself. I believe that all sales are about selling into peoples dreams. I am sure that the false dreams you refer are an extremely good business and a willing market, because - who doesn't want to buy the dream of being a successful entrepreneur? Ironical…

I a have a feeling that most influencers live off the story, not off the actual product they built. They sell coaching for how to live the great life. this works well, but in the end is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme or MLM scam.

Re: I am done. I give up

#89

Post by hef19898 »

jacquesm wrote: post #54
seydor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rate is the cutoff at which people give up entrepreneurship altogether? I wonder how big has the opportunity cost of monopolies been in the past decade

That depends on the person, really. When you are younger or have rich parents you can afford yourself larger risks and that in turn has a positive effect on your chances of success. When you get older and have more responsibilities unless you have a prior success you tend to become more risk averse and so less willing to start new companies and/or make the kind of decisions that would lead to either success or comple…

+1 on the nest egg. That's how I "bootstrapped", unsuccessfully, during Covid. And I got that close, some better timing and I might be running my own fleet of two leased feeder container vessels by now (seriously so, I already had offers for those). Bad timing kicked in, my prospective launch clients project fell through, and being bootstrapped meant I didn't have anything else in the pipeline. Which brought me to the single pivot I had budget for, and that resulted in, at most, a single person consulting business. I didn't want that, realized I like running operations much more than running a company running operations, burned the allocated nest egg and went back to employment. I am almost happy ever since!

Re: I am done. I give up

#90

Post by tacker2000 »

I was lurking for a while on indiehackers and i noticed it being a closed off, somewhat “toxic”, self reinforcing bubble where the main goal seems to be to sell stuff to other “hackers”, or maybe it just evolved this way…

Many of the products target other indiehackers, like courses how to grow a saas, “masterminds” to speak to each other, resources for being a digital nomad, etc.

Most of the actual business ideas presented there are micro saas, like basic online tools to send notifications or some form generator.

Most of the people talk about being on twitter in the indiehacker scene, as if retweeting and liking each others posts would make their business grow.

But in the end its a bubble where theres a lot of talk and “nothing gets done”

Instead of concentrating on being looked up on in the “community” these people should go out and talk to actual customers and solve real problems, thats where the money is.

But of course this doesnt sound cool like being a “digital nomad indie hacker” sitting on a beach in bali and coding away.

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