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I am done. I give up

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Re: I am done. I give up

#211

Post by kubb »

noduerme wrote: post #197
kubb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the privileges people don't often think about is being able to afford to fail. If you don't risk destitution after your startup fails, you can try and fail many times, learn and try again. It's like continuously rolling two dice, and you only need to get double sixes once, and after that it's private jets until you die. One of the many reasons the rich get richer and the poor, well you know how it goes.

The average American watches 4 hours a day of TV. Most startup founders work other jobs while building their project - if they can afford to fail, it's because they have that other job. But they're spending those four hours (and many, many more) on labors of love. Sure, there are some trustfund kids who get to play founder and have the odds stacked in their favor, but that's neither the soul nor the joy of starting y…

The TV numbers are surely skewed by retirees?

Who built their billion dollar company while working a day job again?

Re: I am done. I give up

#212

Post by _davide_ »

indie entrepreneurs?? this is not an hobby! either you are all in or do something else! prepare to fail! you should fail, if you are not failing you are not pushing yourself enough, and it's painful for everyone.

I saw the evolution from a tiny 3 people company to a 150+ and growing, my boss and friend went from one struggle to another, as elon musk put "it's like staring into the abyss while eating glass". It's that hard and gets emotional right away.

indie entrepreneurs? influencers? really? it's an insult to everyone that put their soul into it, it makes my blood boil. There is no half measure, if you think this way you won't succeed.

Re: I am done. I give up

#213

Post by szundi »

fragmede wrote: post #146
hef19898 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even with VC money, running a business is hard. Just look at all the VC-funded startups that go bust! The term lifestyle business is useful because it frames and contrasts a VC-funded business that must have explosive growth and then IPO or be bought out or else die, and a business that's fine just existing with no need to take over the world, ever. A lifestyle business is one that can be trusted because it didn't ta…

I think they meant was that if one of these VC backed lifestyle businesses fails, the CxO guys running the show just shrug and go sink an other one, who cares.

Re: I am done. I give up

#214

Post by bovermyer »

What is your "entrepreneurship dream?" Being able to build startups for the rest of your life? Building a single successful company? Building a company that earns you enough to live?

Re: I am done. I give up

#215

Post by psychstudio »

Been there, done that. However, the worst position to find yourself in is partial traction. A few customers, giving you that slight bit of hope to keep grinding. Then after 5 our more years, you've made 20K and are stone motherless broke. Or maybe that's just me. Chin Up dude.

Re: I am done. I give up

#216

Post by drstewart »

pavlov wrote: post #200
kubb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the privileges people don't often think about is being able to afford to fail. If you don't risk destitution after your startup fails, you can try and fail many times, learn and try again. It's like continuously rolling two dice, and you only need to get double sixes once, and after that it's private jets until you die. One of the many reasons the rich get richer and the poor, well you know how it goes.

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. Unfortunately it's rarely discussed in society as such. The political parties that built these welfare states have traditionally been associated with worker unions, and entrepreneurship isn't high on their agenda. The Nordic right-wing parties got ideologically married to Thatcher-style neoliberalism and pref…

[flagged]

Re: I am done. I give up

#217

Post by wgx »

jurmous wrote: post #10

A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. Luck of finding the right idea, the right market, the right timing, the right connections, the right customers, the right employees, the right financing. The basic fact is that most startups and most entrepreneurial dreams fail or get consumed by another for their talent/clients. And as an entrepreneur you fight against all odds. Most will fail…

100% agree. In fact most all of the successful-in-business people I know owe a huge amount of their success to luck. They’re also the often last to acknowledge the part luck played in their story. This, coupled with survivorship bias of startups who win, leads to people thinking it’s more likely to build a successful company in tech than the reality.

Re: I am done. I give up

#218

Post by chaosbolt »

Fargren wrote: post #126
totalZero wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There was once a time when I would have written a comment like this one, but now I'm down-voting it. There are two ways to read this message, and both of them are not something I would encourage, of different reasons, and being ambiguous between them is not in it's favor either. A. You are trying to highlight that the poster is technically incorrect, so that they learn a new fact. That is mostly fine, but it doesn't…

There are people like this everywhere I just learned to not answer them, you will say something that's true for 99% of the population, instead of reading between the lines and understanding that I was trying to say "people are different and the difficulty isn't the same for everyone", they'll instantly jump on the 1% for who the thing you said doesn't apply and reply telling you how you're wrong, there people argue to argue, to get a dopamine hit (they'll reply to tell me it's some other neurotransmitter at work here) and satisfy their ego, radio has static noise and the internet has these people, just ignore them.

Re: I am done. I give up

#219

Post by ETH_start »

pavlov wrote: post #200
kubb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the privileges people don't often think about is being able to afford to fail. If you don't risk destitution after your startup fails, you can try and fail many times, learn and try again. It's like continuously rolling two dice, and you only need to get double sixes once, and after that it's private jets until you die. One of the many reasons the rich get richer and the poor, well you know how it goes.

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. Unfortunately it's rarely discussed in society as such. The political parties that built these welfare states have traditionally been associated with worker unions, and entrepreneurship isn't high on their agenda. The Nordic right-wing parties got ideologically married to Thatcher-style neoliberalism and pref…

My intuition is that effective entrepreneurs generally have a strong conviction that they won't fail, and in any case wouldn't want to fall back on taxpayers if they did. They will also disproportionately be averse to paying social democratic tax rates once they, in their mind, inevitably succeed.

Re: I am done. I give up

#220

Post by szundi »

I just exited my first one, bought up by a listed company.

I think the main reason a lot of startups fail is that it is started out as "I want to have a startup just now at once", and not the reverse direction.

All my high school and university life I was just open all the time, and every other week/month some good opportunity came with people holding money in their hands. My father was kind of a guy who everyone called if had a problem, he was the channel of these. One day this idea came that with years of work we can have this recurring revenues and this is even cool, started it with friends, win.

Point is: the agenda was not to have a startup, but I had gigs with open eyes. And I was picky to stop and choose this, I can tell you.

Just my 2 cents.

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