Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 90 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#31

Post by serial_dev »

Just sharing this as a different point of view that might help you get out of the rut, it's not meant to discourage you...

Hollywood, social media are all glorifying the hustle culture, keeping us all delusional that if you just keep working hard, in the end it will all be right. "Don't ever give up because you only lose if you give up".

That's all fine and dandy and makes for great movies, and YouTube videos, but in reality, some people should just give up, or at least instead of working longer and harder, they should really think about why they keep failing.

Maybe you need to touch some grass, find a hobby, be less obsessed with whatever it is you try building. Maybe you aren't listening to your customers, or you're terrible at sales, marketing, product, design, software development or all of the above.

Sometimes, the best decision is to give up and move on to new things in life, and do what you enjoy instead of hoping you'll be Mark Zuckerberg.

(based on personal experience: for so long I wanted to be a physicist because I didn't want to "give up", not realizing that I can just "write off" the university years in my mind, and move on with my life. The moment I did that, I felt free, doubled down on software development that I actually enjoy and I'm good at, giving up was the best decision in my life and I wish I did that sooner)

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#32

Post by geoffpado »

agluszak wrote: post #20

Why do you want so hard to start a business? Why not spend your precious time, money and effort on something else? If what motivates you is willingness to change the world - you can do so by working for a non-profit organization. If you want to earn money - you can be a regular employee. > Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you? It is NOT work. I try to work as little as…

Not the OP, but strongly identify with a lot of what they’ve said, so, my perspective:

> Why do you want so hard to start a business? Why not spend your precious time, money and effort on something else? If what motivates you is willingness to change the world - you can do so by working for a non-profit organization. If you want to earn money - you can be a regular employee.

For me it’s agency. I want the freedom to succeed and fail on my own. I’m sick of spending tons of effort on projects that are doomed from the start due to mismanagement. I’m tired of being micro-managed on every decision I make. It’s like some law of organizational structure: if you find the manager who won’t micro-manage you, the company will restructure until you get one who does. I don’t want to be the cog in the machine any more, but I don’t have the political skills to rise the corporate ladder into a position of actual decision-making.

Compared to all that, starting and maintaining a business completely from scratch seems like the easy option. :)

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#34

Post by coretx »

Work to live, don't live to work. Freely pursue, build and expand what _you_ value. This will make you happy. When you are happy, this will attract people who want what you have. Invest in yourself, next sell this value you have to those people. Everything you ever did was not in vain because it created who you are today. Invest in yourself - not material wealth or value for others - above all else. Don't undertake affairs that don't make you happy.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#35

Post by robust-cactus »

About 7 years ago now I'd say I had an identity crisis. Startup life is rough whether you're working for someone or on your own. I've done both. I wanted to find work life balance but that stressed me out more.

Ultimately, Jiro Dreams of Sushi kinda re-ignited that building passion for me. I read some books that made me realize I give to many F*s about things that don't matter. I have my day job and am doing things I'm proud of on the side and oh-ya I have a family and work life balance now some how.

I guess looking back, it was about finding the right mix of what I want to spend my time on day-in-day-out, and matching it with the right people and work around me. It was about seeking out and trying different things until I found the "happy path" for me.

I want to build cool stuff people use, but I hate feeling like I'm in free fall. I'll end up choosing the 30% risky path these days, and maybe that doesn't make a billion dollar startup but I don't really care. Or maybe it will because I'm just building stuff I want shrug

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#36

Post by voxl »

e40 wrote: post #16
imperialdrive wrote: post #7

Life is just hard. I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going. Someone told me that life and work and relationships are sometimes just pushing everything you have in a giant deep dark hole in the ground, and every n…

They survived in the past by having low expectations and knowing hardship was a fact of life. And also that life was unfair to the extreme.

I would argue that they didn't survive, unless they were predisposed to it. If you were depressed 500 years ago you died.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#37

Post by chrisaycock »

I spent four years trying to get my startup to revenue. I created something that I thought would be useful for its niche audience, but nobody wanted it in the end.

I was so burned-out from the experience that I had to stop for my own mental health. I got a normal job three years ago.

Since putting the startup on indefinite hold, I've been able to learn new sports, buy a home, and generally enjoy my life without the constant feeling that I had to be working more and spending less. My life got dramatically better.

So while I would have preferred that the startup succeeded, walking away after four years was far better than continuing down that path. And because the technology I had built was really impressive, it only took a couple months for me to get a job paying more than I ever had before.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#38

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

e40 wrote: post #16
imperialdrive wrote: post #7

Life is just hard. I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going. Someone told me that life and work and relationships are sometimes just pushing everything you have in a giant deep dark hole in the ground, and every n…

They survived in the past by having low expectations and knowing hardship was a fact of life. And also that life was unfair to the extreme.

This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot.

For most of human history life was extremely hard, tons of death during child birth and diseases running rampant. Not to mention you don't have enough food.

Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#40

Post by papertigerau »

If you have a strong enough “Why”, then you can tolerate any “How”.

Wanting to be your own boss, or having the ability to freely travel the world are both a great “Why” to create the activation energy to take the risk and start. But in my experience, it’s rarely a strong enough motivator to help someone persist through 4+ years without any meaningful wins.

The strongest "Why" usually involves serving something other than yourself. For some founders I’ve invested in, it’s a specific group of people (e.g. patients with a particular disease), or protecting something specific about the natural environment. Those people I have seen tolerate extreme suffering - to the point that I have had to physically bite my tongue in conversations where I wanted to tell them to stop and give up (but I never did - better a cut tongue than adding my opinion/ego to their burden). Some of those founders ultimately failed, others found enough wins and are still going (and suffering), a tiny number experienced wild success.

So if you want to persist, then an interesting question is "Who" or "What" are you serving besides yourself?

A separate but related question is how long can your personal cash flow sustain this?

Good luck!

Post reply on HN