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Ask HN: and now what?

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31–40 of 93 posts

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#31
A lot of people here are suggesting dealing with the burnout/fatigue/frustration first. That seems like good advice.

Sounds like you can/are supporting yourself with a half time job leaving you lots of other time. That in itself is an awesome asset, really awesome. Use it. Take some time at a lower work rate. Put that energy into something unrelated for 6-10 weeks.

One option is to spend more time socializing, with family and relaxing. Another is to pour time into something unrelated. Learn a sport, instrument, theatre, etc. Get a little obsessed if you're that kind of person. When/if you get back to putting your mind on startups again, it will be a new round, like boxing.

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#32
This is common -- and even founders who exit their company encounter this feeling of being lost after leaving their last startup.

One thing that's been useful for me is to get off the startup founding train for a while, go get a job or consulting gig in a larger company in an industry that you think is worth learning about, and then rebuild your savings and sanity while looking for new problems to solve. You may spot an opportunity to productize a solution for your client that they are willing to pay for and beta, and this will help you avoid wandering around testing abstract MVPs in the market since you will have your first customer on board on day 1.

I don't think a month off is going to help you feel better or accelerate your trajectory in the right direction. You'd rest a lot better knowing that your next 6 months are figured out.

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#33
post #7

Seems like you've been going at 110% for a long time. My recommendation: take a break. A month at least, and just explore passions that you never had the time for during your adventures. Build something fun (I like go-karts and mini bikes), read about something totally new and unrelated to programming (history, evolutionary psychology, fiction), and challenge yourself physically (strength training and endurance). It'…

This is beautiful advice - take it. I am experiencing a situation semi-analogous to the OP's. I've killed myself and my health over the last 7 years to get a startup "going". While our traction is decent, scale and growth aren't easy. And since we are a difficult to scale business, we find ourselves not easily raising good, inexpensive money. So we've been bootstrapping it for a long time and my health and my relationship with my family have taken a hit. I thought having strong revenues would alleviate alot of the pressure, but as they say, "more money - more problems". Meaning, more clients = more needs, more support, etc. And we have an anemic team to do this. I had become very moody, grumpy, unwilling to listen - a bit of a nightmare. It wasn't coming from a bad place, but I just wanted to get shit done and didn't have time for any extraneous chatter or "unimportant" details.

After fighting intermittantly with my cofounder and my wife, I decided I didn't want to be that way. I've burnt the candle on both ends long enough and I was out of wax. While I can't take the full month off like FD3SA is recommending, I significantly scaled back (for me) to only working 5.5 days a week and putting a big effort into working out at least 4 days a week. Also, spending quality time with my family, not just being in the same room while I stared at a laptop. Keeping a high priority on work, but also a similar priority on fun and on life in general. I've only been doing this for a couple of months and have seen a significant improvement on my productivity, a more harmonious working and family life, and just a better overall outlook on life.

There are a million great opportunities out there, especially in the tech space - but if you are burnt to a crisp and you are physically/mentally not in a good place, it's easy to not see them or to feel too defeated to want to tackle them. Take care of yourself - you'll appreciate it.

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#35
Where are you located? Will you help me with my project?

I am 29 and moving back to my home state because I failed to get funding out here and want to go be with my parents.

I have worked on the same project for most of my 20s and invested everything into it.

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#36

Is English your second language? Maybe the informal nature of forums brings this out but your grammar is pretty poor and for better or worse, English grammar has quite a bit to do with how people perceive us as individuals.

Indeed, I'm French and I'm really bad in English. Sorry for destroying your language so much.

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#37

Sounds like you were in industry from 2000-20007, right (just backtracking your timeline)? Those were some grueling years, and then the mobile/freemium avalanche hit. You likely have a lot of native code experience, and probably dealt with annoying hardware issues, right (PowerPC, whatever)? Try getting a gig with somebody targeting embedded systems, or take some time off. Live life for a bit, stop programming, and m…

I think your reply is interesting because you're advising taking specific useful experience and kind of like, just working on selling the experience (which is absolutely worth something) rather than continuing pushing the 'next best thing'.

Reading tech news sites all the time kind of makes me feel like unless you're pouring your heart and soul into your job or startup or whatever you're just a useless asshole. Maybe that's not the case and experience is worth something, enough to coast along and be useful while you find new direction or new inspiration.

I don't know!

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#38
Don't most startups end up failing? A few make it and I guess that is what we all hear about.

I felt the same way about a project I was working on. It sucks when you think you made something cool, but no one else does.

Maybe that is why most people just stick with the corporate job. I think hope along with greed might be the two most powerful human emotions. You just can't give up that hope.

Re: Ask HN: and now what?

#39

Firstly it seems like its time to take a break. When you disillusioned you need to stop for a bit. Perhaps do a while of "normal" work. Secondly I would advise a frank and in depth post mortem. Find out really what when wrong and when. Perhaps it was just bad luck but more likely there are mistakes you can learn from. "Each partners I meet seems too newbie to work with." This phrase stands out. Perhaps its just becau…

Thanks. I think I should do that, take a break and do depth post mortem. But I have no clue on how to do a good analyze of myself :/
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