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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#611

Post by deepGem »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #451
deepGem wrote: post #441

"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 lazine…

> These small successes is what you need. To propel you back into the entrepreneurship journey. Jesus, leave the dude alone, will you? Didn't you read he was institutionalized? Your one of the influencers that make people's lives worse.

My apologies. I didn't mean you to him, i meant it as a generic response to everyone. I will reword the reply to say one.

Re: I am done. I give up

#612

Post by JohnBooty »

hcks wrote: post #506
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…

Absolutely, and this explains largely why most of the massively successful startups we all know comes from the Nordics and not from places with poor social security like the USA

Sarcasm noted. Seriously, though, this is somewhat easy to explain.

Much of America does have an amazing "safety net": generational wealth.

There's a reason why startups tend to spring from elite schools like Stanford, MIT, Yale, etc. Those kids have the brains, yes, but also the family connections and the parental safety nets and the connections to capital investment. These kids don't have to worry about food security or having healthcare.

If you're from that upper 10%/5%/1% or so of American society, that's GREAT!

It's an incredible primordial soup from which startups can spring. We are a big country, so we are still talking about perhaps 30,000,000+ people in this lucky category. That's more than all of Scandinavia's population combined. Goes a long way toward explaining why so many "big" startups come from the USA.

However, if you don't come from one of these blessed demographics in the USA, you have a much harder road. If you didn't go to an "elite" school and don't have a parental safety net it's very difficult... I fall into this category and simply didn't have access to healthcare for five years while I pursued my tiny indie business. It made money, but not enough to buy healthcare for a family, so I had to ditch it.

Re: I am done. I give up

#613

Post by czbond »

MikeDelta wrote: post #275
copx wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most founders are still men from Ivies or Stanford. That's the key part of the "entrepreneur" story the OP missed. From Gates over Zuckerberg to Musk, all these people were born rich, into well-connected families. If you do not belong to this ultra-privileged class of people, your chances of doing what they did is practically zero.

Indeed, this has been a topic of many discussions in the past and I do believe that connections and privilege form a more important factor in success than many would like to admit.

If this were true, wouldn't the other side of that statement be true? Since all startups seem to be privileged white males - shouldn't they all succeed and have funding?

Re: I am done. I give up

#615

Post by czbond »

It's a hard game. This topic will fill up why all the failures were because of lack of privilege, and the successes are privilege and luck.

Luck comes to the startup founder who takes the difficult and hard steps to starting a business and iterating on finding what works.

Edit: the game is hard. Really hard. And it's not just luck, but some of it is. Luck without lots of hard work means nothing.

Re: I am done. I give up

#616

Post by ffiirree »

I spent 8 years trying to be a professional musician, running my own music project. I gave up opportunities, travel, etc. for it. Lived with family a lot of those years to save money for the studio, and to work part time so I could write songs and make demos. I made some things I'm really proud of. But it didn't pick up, I didn't get signed, I made no money from it and lost many thousands of dollars from it, etc.

By the end I was completely burned out, and saw I gave up most of my 20s for that. If I were to go back I wouldn't change anything. I gave it my best shot. But like OP here, I am burned out and need to just enjoy life now.

Re: I am done. I give up

#617

Post by jviotti »

It is not defeat and you did not fail. Running a business is incredibly hard, and I think the entire HN audience would applaud you for even trying and give you our support.

Re: I am done. I give up

#618

Post by yawnr »

Almost all of the successful “entrepreneurs” I know are just rich kids who had the time and space to figure things out over the course of 10-15 years after college without worrying about money. Same thing for all of the successful people I know who work in media. It’s a racket.

Re: I am done. I give up

#619

Post by gwbas1c »

annyeonghada wrote: post #447
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.

> Does this kind of pseudo-self-help-tough-love help anyone?

Yes, there is a lot of research in this area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset#Fixed_and_growth_minds...

I interpret is as being able to ask yourself "what did I learn" when you fail; and realizing that most success comes from trying over and over. ("Most" because some people are lucky and succeed the first time.)

In general, people who adopt the growth mindset, (see the link,) are more successful.

Re: I am done. I give up

#620

Post by rchaud »

Digital nomads and internet hustlefluencers have definitely skewed the perception of what entrepreneurship is like.

You mentioned Product Hunt, Indie Hackers (the website I'm guessing), Twitter, Substack.....these are all marketing channels, and marketing is a lot of work. But are you taking your message to the customer, or to other entrepreneurs on the same grind?

In 2022 I started a paper magazine on a niche topic (URL is on my profile). I have a full time job, so I don't worry financially about how the magazine will do. I also definitely do not compare my thing to what someone else is making. I have around ~100 customers, probably acquired at a loss.

I couldn't care less about the absolute numbers. For me, the minimum number I was trying to reach is 1. I've exceeded that and can talk to customers about what they'd like to see in the future. I wouldn't have been able to do that had I been focusing on acquiring thousands of subscribers first.

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