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Started a stupid company. Failed.

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Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#121
post #13

Hey, other comments are going to give you a few lines telling you to not quit, that you should hang in there, and that it'll be alright. That may be true, but to me it sounds like you're possibly not doing well enough to make any of that possible, and you probably need to find work fast. Here's what I want to do: 1. I have a little list of companies looking for employees that I'll send you. Not much just companies th…

Kudos to you Mr. Shaw. I enjoyed your books that you so kindly made available for free but this act just made me respect you tenfold. World needs more people like you.

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#123
post #13

Hey, other comments are going to give you a few lines telling you to not quit, that you should hang in there, and that it'll be alright. That may be true, but to me it sounds like you're possibly not doing well enough to make any of that possible, and you probably need to find work fast. Here's what I want to do: 1. I have a little list of companies looking for employees that I'll send you. Not much just companies th…

I've said it once before and I'll say it again... Zed, if YOU are ever up for it, I'd love to buy you a beer man. I live in the bay area and so meeting up should be of little issue. I've seen the comments from your fans AND detractors, and I must say, I've never really bought into the negative. I'm not surprised by this comment and your willingness to help another individual who has fallen on hard times.

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#124
post #13

Hey, other comments are going to give you a few lines telling you to not quit, that you should hang in there, and that it'll be alright. That may be true, but to me it sounds like you're possibly not doing well enough to make any of that possible, and you probably need to find work fast. Here's what I want to do: 1. I have a little list of companies looking for employees that I'll send you. Not much just companies th…

[deleted]

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#125
post #115
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It strikes me that Zed has been on the receiving end of way more bullying than he has given out (including being called a cock by you in this very post)

Speaking of cocks, the technical leadership at two well-funded startups systematically harassed Zed by adding him to github repos that contained nothing but ASCII cocks. I know this because they bragged about it openly, thinking it hilarious. Zed takes a lot of abuse for little reason. I debated naming the companies here, but they appear to be failing anyway. Probably because they hired the sort of people who find ha…

Reason: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#126
You are in an unpleasant situation, but not in a tragedy by no means. To put things into perspective: imagine you have successful company but got pancreatic cancer.

Your to-do list is pretty straightforward:

1) Put your failed startup aside.

2) Find a job ASAP.

3) Try to save your house. Your family would need it. Beg your bank to give you ~extra month until your next paycheck.

4) In about a year you may return to thinking about another startup. Take another year or two to think it over, accumulate some funds, do some part-time research and then jump into your new startup again... or not. Being an employee until you retire is also a good choice.

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#127

Hey Man, Husband and Father. I have a large amount of respect for you. My only suggestion is to apologize to your wife and family for not being able to provide now. The love and forgiveness that you receive from them will lift a weight off you that you may not know is there. Also, remember, you aren't the first Man, Husband or Father to be in this situation and that you are not alone. At this point, make sure not to…

Man you're making me tear up here. Guys more often base their SELF-worth on their usefulness in their career than women, so when a man fails in his work or can't provide he often feels worthless as a human being. This is a FALLACY and it's not even true for a second. OP said he wasn't even a man anymore and that's heartbreaking to me. We all need a support net, every single one of us!

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#129
post #13

Hey, other comments are going to give you a few lines telling you to not quit, that you should hang in there, and that it'll be alright. That may be true, but to me it sounds like you're possibly not doing well enough to make any of that possible, and you probably need to find work fast. Here's what I want to do: 1. I have a little list of companies looking for employees that I'll send you. Not much just companies th…

Thanks for offering this guy light at the end of the tunnel. This reminds me of a a talk i had with my cousin a while back. I said to him that he had it easy growing up with his dad being an entrepreneur(construction industry), he laughed and said no way, maybe my younger brothers. He says that one day he gets home from school, his mother is sitting outside crying and guy's are moving furniture out the house, creditors where seizing all their stuff. He called his dad but nothing could be done. To top this off, his dad would be gone by 4am get home late at night and he would hardly see him.

So, his dad borrows some money from family and friends, keep in mind everyone was talking shit about him now, both friends and family. He took them across state to a rural area and told them that a lot of construction was going to happen here and that he was going to setup shop here. He hardly saw his dad and he doesn't remember a lot about how his dad did it but things started getting better, his dad got a contract with a huge mining company and shit just took off. We were discussing this at his beach house, that his dad bought for him. He said that he remembers the hard times but his younger brothers, think that there was no suffering just happy times and the life they have now. My uncle is now retired and the business is totally family run, he spends more time travelling than anything else.

In tech, we honestly glamorize startups, but what about all the others, the 90 out of every 100 startups that fail or just stay in zombie status. My point is not to encourage the OP to dig in but to let him know that it is ok to fail, many do with families as well but he will bounce back with a good job or something else down the line. Zed has provided that ray of light and hopefully u can turn it into a rainbow!

Re: Started a stupid company. Failed.

#130

My wife cried reading all of your comments. I guess we were looking for some sign that someone somewhere is pulling for us. During the first hour this post was up I hovered over the delete more than once. It doesn't seem right to bring an entire ecosystem of ambitious and wonderful people a story of failure. I guess I learned that hitting delete would be worse. Thank you from the 5.3 of us.

These stories should be required reading. To that end the community would benefit massively from you documenting it.

Just as there are Journals of Negative results [1][2] so too should there be a journal of failed startups. Your detailing of what caused the failures could save thousands of man hours and potentially someone falling into the same traps.

Goal #1 for you right now is to get your family in order and steel the troops for tough times ahead as you get back on your feet.

In short order though you should start simply documenting the process that led to your company failing. Not only will you learn from it but it will help others.

If you are in the DC area don't hesitate to reach out to myself and my family. We have kiddos the same ages as yours so they would have a ball.

[1] http://www.jnrbm.com/ [2] http://www.jnr-eeb.org/index.php/jnr

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