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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#701

Post by tracker1 »

didip wrote: post #647
pavlov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem with Nordic model is that they are too successful in taking care of the people. Very few are “hungry” and “hunger” is an important ingredient to startups

I don't know that I agree. As much as I lean towards a Libertarian, anti-establishment PoV for the US, I do think social systems can work in smaller communities/countries. It's much harder with a more diverse (distance and politic) country because there's much more "other" that will disagree and see favoritism and corruption. It also becomes a cycle.

I've worked in/around govt that I'm not a no government mindset, but definitely feel that more government tends to be worse than a very limited one at the scale of the US... and would favor letting states/counties have more independent creativity in solutions.

Re: I am done. I give up

#702

Post by jcoletti »

Maybe your journey was meant to include some type of cold turkey exit from entrepreneurship to force you to step back, reevaluate things, rebuild mental health, etc., and maybe it's all temporary and you'll be back, better and stronger. Or maybe it'll give you the chance to find something else more fulfilling. Wishing you the best of luck either way.

Re: I am done. I give up

#703

Post by squid322 »

Mezzie wrote: post #358
jacquesm wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sucks. I know quite a few stories like that. I'm more active as an investor these days than as an entrepreneur, the projects I still run are more for fun than for income (or even potential income) and I can't tell you how happy I am that that pressure has abated somewhat. It's annoying that even the successes tend to screw over the employees and more often than not the founders as well. Typical dilution by the t…

> no outsider is going to jump in giving away their product just to grow market share I wonder how much innovation is being stifled by this practice. I know I have at least one very viable idea (I've shopped it around) that could result in substantial improvement to the overall Internet experience, and I'm doing nothing with it because the minute I make it available, a Big Tech company will either steal it, try to bu…

I hear you, and still:

How many Einsteins perished in the fields or trenches? How much innovation and genius is stifled through lack of access to food, water or education?

I think that would be an area where improvements would be more impactful than trying to prevent copycats.

Re: I am done. I give up

#704

Post by rapind »

> 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. They make it seem like building a successful startup is easy and anyone can do it with the right mindset and a few key tips.

This is just startup porn. It’s the same in any category (make money flipping houses!, crypto!, etc.) As a rule of thumb, assume 99% of influencers are full of shit. Stay off instagram.

Running a business is definitely hard. I don’t think it’s for everyone. You need to handle failure, long hours, lack of balance, and disappointment in a sort of irrational way. Kind of like a fanaticism / religion of self. Ultimately it’s probably not healthy!

I don’t recommend persevering due to FOMO. See if working for others scratches the itch so you have something to compare it to.

Re: I am done. I give up

#705

Post by tracker1 »

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #682
pavlov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. That is a false romantization. The reality is if you live in Copenhagen you need a full time job to to pay for expensive rent, food, and of course tax. That is not true in Berlin where rent, food, and taxes are cheaper. On average the price level in Berlin is half of that of Copenhagen.

Not to mention a social norm that prides work ethic.

Re: I am done. I give up

#706

Post by lairv »

_448 wrote: post #523
lairv wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do that with no connections, no money and no privileged background ? Do you just cold message people asking what they need ?

Cold email is a hit and miss approach. Just go talk to people face to face. Initially it seems like a non-scalable approach but it works wonders. The silicon valley, VC preached mantra of hyper scale is what muddles the minds of most entrepreneurs. Everyone starts thinking of million of users rather than 100s of users. There is a very interesting presentation from YC startup school 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

I consider "just talk to people" to be in the "connections" category

Re: I am done. I give up

#707

Post by ericmcer »

Take a break, also you are on the front page of HN with this post, maybe add some links to your three failed products and you can get some traction, or at worst some advice.

Re: I am done. I give up

#708

Post by flir »

romeros wrote: post #602
ETH_start wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Travis Kalanick (Uber's founder) collected unemployment while working on his startup.

Oasis (and lots of other British bands) got dole money while honing their craft. I think it's one of the reasons Britain tended to hit above it's weight in the 80s/90s.

Re: I am done. I give up

#709

Post by tracker1 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #612
hcks wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, and this explains largely why most of the massively successful startups we all know comes from the Nordics and not from places with poor social security like the USA

Sarcasm noted. Seriously, though, this is somewhat easy to explain. Much of America does have an amazing "safety net": generational wealth. There's a reason why startups tend to spring from elite schools like Stanford, MIT, Yale, etc. Those kids have the brains, yes, but also the family connections and the parental safety nets and the connections to capital investment. These kids don't have to worry about food securi…

I grew up in a lower-middle class household and although my grandfather had money during his life, it wasn't passed down (swallowed by medical bills the last decades of his life). My parents were definitely working class. I'm doing okay, but that came from a lot of self-study and self-driven interests... I put my first computer together from parts scrownged up over the course of about a year... at a time where it was far more expensive to do than today (early-mid 90's), where today you can definitely find something usable for free.

Today it will largely come down to the investment of time... that doesn't mean you will succeed... I spent my time on knowledge growth, others will spend it on building a business. Most will simply waste it and complain that they spend too much time working.

I saw a lot of this when I was single in the last decade. So many people want a relationship, too few would actually take the time to make it happen. Most won't even take the time/effort to go out on a date on a work night.

No, it's not easy. There are no guarantees... but it's mostly laziness that stops people from getting things done in life.

Re: I am done. I give up

#710

Post by mrbuttons454 »

kybernetyk wrote: post #208
jlangenauer wrote: post #5

Why do "indiehackers" want attention from and create products for other "indiehackers"? As a group they seem the people with the least amount of money to spend on products, and are some of the most cheapskate people on the planet. Here's some advice: if you want to make money selling a software product, sell to people who are able and willing to spend money on it.

This. It's the "developers trying to sell products to other developers" conundrum. You know the development workflow. You came up with a great tool to increase productivity for developers. You set a low price of $50. And yet no one is going to buy it because "lol I could do this in a weekend". Developers are cheap bastards (I'm still fighting over whether I should shell our $99 for Panic's Nova editor or not - even t…

Nova is fantastic, btw
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