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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#441

Post by deepGem »

"and don't let the failures define you. There's always a chance for success, no matter how small it may seem."

These small successes is what one needs, to propel them back into the entrepreneurship journey. I don't know about these influencers and not sure what they sell. You just have to get lucky. I have been through so many startup failures that I have stopped counting, but I attribute my failures to my own laziness and not being in the right market.

So back to successes, what I found super helpful is a micro dosing of success like winning a point in a game of tennis, or getting 10 consecutive shots above the net , something like this, totally unrelated to the world of startups can bring in tremendous confidence and morale boost. Why I say tennis is because getting some of these shots right consistently involves some luck in the beginning. While you may not get all the 10 shots correct, that one lucky shot can bring in a high dose of morale boost. It could be shooting balls as well. I personally find that small successful acts like this, which involve your skill and some luck really help in overcoming failures, failures like what you state, which are truly a result of not just your effort but a lot of outside factors/luck.

EDIT - Changed you to one. I didn't imply this message directly to OP, was more of a generic reply.

Re: I am done. I give up

#442

Post by arghwhat »

mnky9800n wrote: post #389
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…

Unfortunately another component of the Nordic model that makes it work is that everybody trusts the government. This is what makes the Nordic model hard to translate to other settings in my opinion.

Rather, "trusting" a system which makes it so that you do not need to trust any government.

Having many large political parties and a trend of (almost) always having minority governments also help limit possible damage.

Re: I am done. I give up

#443

Post by serverholic »

uffndnjfncnc wrote: post #357
andrepd wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Finland doesn't have oil, you're mistaking it for Norway. 2. Progressive taxation is the basis on which the best places to live were built. This is an empirical observation, make of that what you will, but it's strange to give your gut feelings of "basic economics / human nature" more weight than objective reality. 3. Why do is the word "rob" applied to taxation? Without the state to at least enforce laws, enforce…

You should visit Tokyo. Japan spends very low on welfare.

Oh yeah the salaryman life sounds fantastic /s

Re: I am done. I give up

#444

Post by alistairSH »

washmyelbows wrote: post #352
IronIvan wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Lived a very frugal early retirement lifestyle in Austria because it was practically impossible to build wealth (high taxes, comparatively very low tech salaries, little entrepreneurial support/incentives). Moving to the US I was able to 5-6x my income (from what I could have realistically made) , while reducing my tax burden by 15 percentage points, and so I've been happily living a workaholics' lifesty…

I'll be lucky if I can afford a single family home after 20 years of software engineering in the US. halfway there now, we'll see. Moving to a senior position has helped but I feel like a lot of people forget that the compensation in SV is not normal in other places.

SV is an outlier in both income and housing costs.

Here in DC metro, a mid-career developer should be able to afford a home without much trouble. Many of the best jobs are well outside the city (Tysons to Ashburn corridor) where housing costs aren’t terrible.

Re: I am done. I give up

#445

Post by Aulig »

Sorry to hear that.

Like others mentioned - the chances to succeed are very slim.

I think 2 things are the root cause of failure for most businesses: - Running out of money - Running out of energy (founder burnout)

Things like not finding product market fit etc. can all be categorized into these 2 points of failure.

I find that helpful to take a step back when I'm feeling stressed and remember that worrying too much will just cause me to burn out, which is a bigger risk to the burnout than e.g. not fixing some bug or answering some email immediately.

Re: I am done. I give up

#446

Post by FollowingTheDao »

logotype wrote: post #306
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…

That’s exactly what I started: https://gitlab.com/logotype/fixparser It’s a quite boring project, but it is niche - and there is no alternative, at least not in the JS/TS ecosystem. Many startups/crypto/financial institutions (including YC startups) uses and are paying customers of my product. I’ve tried finding an investor (including YC) to grow the project but no-one is interested. It doesn’t matter, I’ll keep goin…

Hey, way to try to profit of another persons failure. Really sociopathic of you!

Re: I am done. I give up

#447

Post by annyeonghada »

joshwolff wrote: post #279

Hate to say it, but you sound like you're victimizing yourself. You're not a victim. And victimhood mentality likely played a large role in your failure. Try to change your mindset and try again when you feel you're ready.

>victimhood mentality

Does this kind of pseudo-self-help-tough-love help anyone? Whenever I read something like that I do not feel motivated but enraged. Sometimes people are really victims. Mainly of chance.

Re: I am done. I give up

#448

Post by drstewart »

amag wrote: post #407
KptMarchewa wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistently forgetting that giant majority putting US ahead in consumer software is large, single-language and culture target group.

Also consistently forgetting the 15 times larger population.

What's the population of Europe again?

Re: I am done. I give up

#449

Post by serverholic »

hker999 wrote: post #399
TomSwirly wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people you rob (the ones paying the bulk of taxes) have a lower incentive to produce. And yet when the top tax rate was 96%, Americans still produced. When I was 12, I was impressed by Atlas Shrugged, but by the time I was 17 I realized it was ludicrous.

Most wealthy Americans were never paying 96% in taxes, if any at all. There were many more loopholes during this time. People are forgetting that the high tax countries are enjoying the fruits of lower-tax countries labor. Technology and drugs are the big ones. Big, evil companies create life-saving drugs and generics are created and sold for pennies to these countries. With no incentive to create (ie: large profits)…

[flagged]

Re: I am done. I give up

#450

Post by pc86 »

I'm reminded of that line in Silicon Valley where someone sarcastically says "oh, is it hard to build a billion dollar company?"

Of course it's hard, and the entitlement here of "with an audience of 20 people, nobody signed up for my substack!" is astounding. The world isn't against you, the world just doesn't care about you. That's an extremely important distinction.

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