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I am done. I give up

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Re: I am done. I give up

#321

Post by saxelsen »

rahoulb wrote: post #297
fsloth wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a big UK startup? Nordic countries have the safety net countered with a mentality that is borderline entrepreneur-hostile and the law of Jante on top of that so safety nets may be the few pro-entrepreneurship things they have. Finland of the lot is also capital poor so no huge investor funds or such.

Off the top of my head; UK startups that have grown and been successful (although many have now been bought out - which I guess is the exit plan for many founders anyway) Just Eat, Deliveroo and The Hut Group; Monzo, Starling and Revolut, from another era, there's ARM. I'm sure there's fintech ones (not a sector I know much about) and the guy who sits near me in the office, who has an AI-healthcare startup, says the…

Just Eat was founded in Denmark.

Re: I am done. I give up

#322

Post by momeunier »

jusssi wrote: post #228
drstewart wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Conveniently forgetting some decently sized ones that actually came from the Nordics. At least in Finland, most of the stuff that would be big is sold early, the founders take the 10M and retire to their cottages in the middle of nowhere (edit: I don't mean this the bad way, I'd probably do it too).

Not so much lately. There are a ton of success stories in the making. I was at Smartly and we didn't settle for 10M. Then you have the likes of Supermetrics, Yousician, Aiven, Eficode, Oura, Iceye, Varjo, Wolt, Supercell, Rovio, NextGame, Enfuce, Ultimate, Swappie, Singa, Sievo, Framery and many more...

Re: I am done. I give up

#323

Post by Archipelagia »

This might sound a bit assholish, but I'm writing this to hopefully help others spot a crucial mistake:

Did you have anyone on your team with actual skill in sales or marketing?

Because from your post it seems you tried the same channels that everyone else does (writing blog, engaging on Twitter, setting up ProductHunt launch) without any specific strategy for how to succeed.

And this stuff is hard! There's a reason why good salespeople and marketers are paid so well!

You definitely can learn that, it's a skillset like any other. But treating it like a secondary concern is a death trap for your business.

If you are a tech founder, it's absolutely crucial you figure out a strategy for customer acquisition – find a sales co-founder, hire some good salespeople, get someone who can teach you how to do it – just do not treat it as something less important than tech, because then you are just counting on being lucky. And if you decide to sell yourself, expect that to be a difficult, time consuming job – don't be surprised if you spend more time chasing business rather than coding.

Re: I am done. I give up

#324

Post by joenot443 »

philippz wrote: post #57

You got a lot of good advice here. So I'll keep it short. I'm 32 now. I spent my last 12 years building companies. They all failed; I didn't earn a penny, and I didn't even get venture capital, and it made me feel like a failure. And I'm talking serious attempts. 6 years, 2 years, 1 year and in between a lot of research & freelancing to evaluate other ideas. I'm leading a 40 people team, and it's going well. How did…

Thanks for sharing. Always encouraging to hear stories of someone grinding for years and finally making it.

Is your 40 person team for a venture of your own, or are you working with a larger org now?

Re: I am done. I give up

#325

Post by ajju »

ajju wrote: post #308

It is ok to give up. It is ok to come back to entrepreneurship to it if you want at some point. It is ok to never think about entrepreneurship again. What matters is that each point you make the decision that makes sense to you. And if you choose to look back one day, you may find that despite failing being an entrepreneur for some time helped you in ways you may not have realized or anticipated. Either way, as you s…

Here’s a corollary that has worked for me and that I want to share - if, in general your startup feels like freedom - even if it has required you to work long hours for many years -(as all startups do for at least a while) - long hours that most people equate with chains - then it’s not only ok to keep doing the startup but it’s perhaps advisable - that at those inevitable moments when you do feel like a failure you don’t give up - that you give yourself enough time to try all the things you’d want to. It is ok to fail at a startup and not give up because the mindbendingly frustrating thing about startups is that even when you are succeeding you experience a lot of failure, and success rarely seems to precede at least one period that feels like utter failure.

I realize the tone of this advice may seem contradictory to my comment above, but it’s not. If a particular set of responsibilities that feel like chains to many / most people in the world feel like freedom to you - then by all means - keep enjoying the freedom, don’t let the world define it for you, and don’t give up when the roller coaster hits a low.

Re: I am done. I give up

#326

Post by jnovek »

safety1st wrote: post #284
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.

Sure, the rich have more advantages than the poor. Always been that way and always will. In our culture there is an immense preoccupation with the unfairness of this but the reality is that if you don't come from wealth and privilege, you need a different playbook. Dwelling on the inequity neuters you. If you want to win you need to figure out what the playbook is and then do the right things. I found a playbook that…

Class mobility is generally regarded as a good thing for economies. It increases competition.

What you’re saying is that the only way for you to get ahead is by exporting your own lack of class mobility to another nation. This is akin to shipping trash to other shores so we don’t have to deal with the repercussions of landfills in wealthier nations.

If that’s considered a sane way to get ahead, home is not economically well.

Re: I am done. I give up

#327

Post by e-v »

inerte wrote: post #295
Mikeb85 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the Nordics combined have less population than California and have actually produced some decent startups.

[flagged]

This is ridiculous. If anything, California tends to be liberal - nothing to do with Socialism (let alone Communism). What does being a "woke" State (whatever that means) have to do with Socialism?

California has very little in common with Nordic social-democracy. Even when looked at relatively to the rest of the US. And this is particularly true when one looks at the subject at hand, which is social safety nets. The "relative" approach has its limits.

Re: I am done. I give up

#328

Post by fragmede »

szundi wrote: post #213
fragmede wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

VC-backed is mutually exclusive with being a lifestyle business. I could see if they just generically said rich, because yeah it's easier to be rich than poor in this world, but that's not what they said.

Re: I am done. I give up

#329

Post by uffndnjfncnc »

chrischen wrote: post #277
xvector wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos would not have kept Amazon in the US if it adopted Nordic welfare levels of taxation. The fact of the matter is that the EU has a staggeringly low output when it comes to tech innovation compared to the US. Their policies and regulations shape this.

The US is prized because of its large market… not because it’s a tax dodge. The US dan cut off access to any company unwilling to pay local taxes just like how China forces any foreign company wanting to tap into its large market to give majority control to a local entity.

The EU is a large market too but startup founders aren't going there.

Re: I am done. I give up

#330

Post by fullstackchris »

ToJans wrote: post #282
fullstackchris wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uses product-led/marketing-led/sales-led growth What exactly do you mean here? because I'd argue depending on the product, each of the 3 could be the way to go over the others. Are you trying to say one is the best way of growing? Curious to hear your thoughts.

Disclaimer: solo bootstrapper, currently growing reasonably, but still way below 1M ARR. I did start with a pilot / first customer and then started doing cold outreach, while trying SEO/ads/social without much success for a few years. I tried combining both product-led and sales-led, and addressing a lot of different kinds of businesses, but this ended up making my go-to-market more complicated and resulted in almost…

Thanks for this. It seems to be clear enough: if you get in touch with your specific niche customer that matches your product the best, your conversion is sure to increase.

Perhaps since many broader (less niche) bases are covered by the innumerable products out there today, maybe this is a good way to go for solo people.

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