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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#871

Post by n1c00o »

Sorry if it might look subjective or raw, but I think the problem here is, as you greatly highlighted, the entrepreneurial porn bullshit existing on the Internet.

The thing is almost everyone wants to get the saint Graal, financial freedom blah blah... and thus, the same people overthink the life to find problems to solve where in reality, the problem is not worth solving. Nevertheless, I like your point since it is rare to see *real* posts of someone giving up and realising their errors.

Your second paragraph is important and I hope more people could realise that Product Hunt is mainly full of junk, from raw copies of existing and successful products to fake comments. Every time I open Product Hunt and click on some random product, I can clearly see comments that are unrealistic, and it contributes to this idea of "everything is. problem to solve".

At the end of the day, the real freedom for someone is finding who they really are, and thus what they have to do to be happy, because once you do something you like, you will feel free.

Once again, I am glad you realised your mistakes and hope you can find your way in this world. However, don't give up forever, you never know the future /shrugh.

Re: I am done. I give up

#872

Post by lcedp »

scoofy wrote: post #810

Listen to Nassim Taleb on success. If you want maximize your chance at success, you need to do something non-scalable. The number of successful barbers is astounding, the number of successful tech startup founders is vanishing, and half of the founders have given away much of their equity before even making money. Focus on your mental health. Life is hard. Treat the people you care about well because they're really w…

> If you want maximize your chance at success, you need to do something non-scalable.

What is the meaning of 'scalable' here? Popular/widely-known?

Re: I am done. I give up

#874

Post by bennysonething »

KETpXDDzR wrote: post #760
moooo99 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is just startup porn. It’s the same in any category (make money flipping houses!, crypto!, etc.) As a rule of thumb, assume 99% of influencers are full of shit. Stay off instagram. This 100x! Many of the big influencers in these indie/startup/productivity niches seem to earn a lot of money at first sight. If you look deeper, a lot of these influencer seem to be making a lot of money from courses they are selli…

My all time favorite is Robert T. Kiyosaki's book "Poor dad, rich dad". Pretty much everything he teaches about financial success is fiction. In reality he worked a regular 9 to 5 job, failed at starting his own business, and finally made money by selling this book and providing seminars.

You are completely correct. I hate this stuff that's peddled on YouTube, it's pretty simple, ask yourself what do they get out of telling you this if they are making so much money doing it. They are making money selling you courses.

What made me more susceptible I think is that my father made his money grinding up, buying a few flats , moving into full on property development. I paid no attention to his business until it was too late for me to learn from him (he died). Sure I worked on his building sites as a teenager, grafted cleaning out flats after tenants moved out (this is while my mates enjoyed their school holidays). He did pretty well and I grew up in a pretty affluent way. The stress was awful for him. I believe it fucked him up a bit. I have a few bad memories of him being a bit horrible. I forgive him that now looking back at the pressure he was under.

After his death I was desperate to emulate him. I began to think working for a salary was a mugs game. I paid for some bullshit property courses. Never went all in on anything thank god.

Anyway, eight years later I've accepted what I am, I'm in a job I actually like. I'll plough my furrow doing software and getting better at it. It's modest, but it's more certain. And uncertainty is the root of stress for me.

One bit of advice he gave me when I was complaining about working and having a manager etc "son, the bank manager is my boss, he can call in my loans any time" I can see now that this is a great antidote to the bullshit financial freedom advice on YouTube

Re: I am done. I give up

#875

Post by _448 »

jacquesm wrote: post #694
_448 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

38

Bezos was born in 64, he's a year older than I am and Amazon was started in 1993. You can do the math for yourself.

Bezos once said in an interview that he was 38 when he started Amazon, after leaving DEShaw as a manager.

Re: I am done. I give up

#876

Post by _448 »

lairv wrote: post #706
_448 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cold email is a hit and miss approach. Just go talk to people face to face. Initially it seems like a non-scalable approach but it works wonders. The silicon valley, VC preached mantra of hyper scale is what muddles the minds of most entrepreneurs. Everyone starts thinking of million of users rather than 100s of users. There is a very interesting presentation from YC startup school 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

I consider "just talk to people" to be in the "connections" category

Doesn't have to be. You can form connection with people who you don't know. But first you have to talk to them.

Re: I am done. I give up

#877

Post by philippz »

philippz wrote: post #427
throwawaybbq1 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you sustain yourself during periods of failure?

Freelancing and I had a co-founder (also technical) all along with whom I worked very closely in terms of survival. E.g. sometimes he was freelancing for the both of us while I was networking, researching, and evaluating opportunities. Having a co-founder that is complementary to your personality and skill-set is highly valuable. We've been working together for 10 years now.

Another tip here: Upwork can help kickstarting this.

Re: I am done. I give up

#878

Post by paledot »

p1esk wrote: post #832
fxtentacle wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insidious part is that these grifters make it seem as if everyone had a fair shot at the startup game, when in reality they just pretend it to make their audience of potential customers larger. My experience going to business events is that all of the startup founders who made it had parents well into the top 1% or 0.1% of the income range. That's why it's so common to raise a $100k friends and family seed round…

Who are these “influencers” everyone is talking about? Never once in my lifetime I have ever heard anyone say “building a successful startup is easy!” WTF?

No, of course not. If it were easy, why would it take six payments of $24.95+S/H to teach you how to do it?

Re: I am done. I give up

#879

Post by mitjam »

botswana99 wrote: post #720

I am so sorry you feel bad. Want some advice from an older engineer turned entrepreneur? Be proud of what you have done. Not many people take risks in life. You did. Being the 'man in the arena' is enough. I read this quote from Teddy Roosevelt often: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to…

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed."

- Theodore Roosevelt

Re: I am done. I give up

#880

Post by slawr1805 »

jacquesm wrote: post #861
moooo99 wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fell into this whole startup hustle bubble a while ago, obviously I also read the book "Rich dad, poor dad". At least I tried, it was bad. Not only was it unrealistic, it also dismissed a whole lot of external factors at play at accumulating such wealth and didn't feel realistic at all. I did not know that he worked regular 9 to 5 and only generated his wealth by providing advice how to build wealth, but its not re…

It made you poorer and him richer though, so from his perspective it's a good book.

This genuinely made me LOL
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