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I am done. I give up

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Re: I am done. I give up

#881

Post by chiefalchemist »

czbond wrote: post #635
chiefalchemist wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why, in the USA, health care is not a given (or at least extremely affordable). As long as that is then - especially if you have a family - taking risk that might lead to failure is a no go. Instead, the no risk route is to assimilate into the status quo, become a cog in The System's wheel. Providing foundational First World "human rights" would allow more professional / career freedom.

> taking risk that might lead to failure is a no go. For certain personality types. Let's say with some high conviction, the typical technology / engineering personality is already highly risk adverse. Thus - they need all the risk avoidance as possible. Entrepreneurship is a risk game. It is defined by risk; those that won't start without safety nets will probably never start at all. I know enough family men who bui…

Not to get off-topic but startups are risky. On the other hand - at least in my book - entrepreneurs are actual risk-adverse. That is, where others see too much risk, entrepreneurs see opportunity. They are actually risk blind to some extent.

But like I said, this another discussion for another day :)

Re: I am done. I give up

#882

Post by Existenceblinks »

> building an audience

This is the most BS thing I've observed on twitter. It's for e-books and courses, not for usual target customers. "Build audience before selling" is also utter BS. To be fair, one type of this approach works, that is solving customers' problems for free (it may be counted as building audience in a broad sense), and sell them a package of full-blown solutions later. I mean, building friends on twitter is a good thing, but that's indirect benefit or benefit that doesn't affect the process of getting customers at all.

Re: I am done. I give up

#883

Post by scoofy »

lcedp wrote: post #872
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?

It means you can only sell the product on a case-by-case basis, and it does not scale.

Author: scalable. One book can be sold to 1 person or 1,000,000 with little extra work.

Barber: non-scalable. One haircut can be sold to 1 person, but not 2 people without doubling the amount of work.

Re: I am done. I give up

#884

Post by Existenceblinks »

moooo99 wrote: post #722
rapind wrote: post #704

> It's also the constant stream of digital nomad influencers on Twitter who sell extremely distorted, rosy, and often times false dreams to indie entrepreneurs like myself. They make it seem like building a successful startup is easy and anyone can do it with the right mindset and a few key tips. This is just startup porn. It’s the same in any category (make money flipping houses!, crypto!, etc.) As a rule of thumb,…

> 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…

And the ones that make money whose products sold to those "I bought shits from this popular guy", "I'm trendy now", too much bias.

Re: I am done. I give up

#885

Post by mitjam »

If you think you have nothing left to give, look at the success of this very submission. You hit a nerve. It would be interesting to learn more about the specifics of your venture and learn more about your lessons learned. Wish you all the best.

Re: I am done. I give up

#886

Post by [deleted] »

JakeAl wrote: post #864
KETpXDDzR wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The takeaway I got from him was positive. First, start buying real estate and renting. THEN, with that financial security try to build a business of your own if you are motivated. The first part is hard to fail at, and you can do it while working a full time job.

[deleted]

Re: I am done. I give up

#887

Post by tayolo12345 »

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…

Thank you for this, this lifted me up.

I'm going through something similar to the OP, I haven't given up yet and don't really consider it either. But, it's really hard. My mental health certainly took a hit and I'm full of anxiety as my savings are not enough to cover the upcoming bills and couldn't find a contracting gig so far to support the cashflow. I've experienced severe panic attacks and bouts of depression. I sometimes dread the passing of days.

Hope I'll find a way.

It might be illogical to say this but I know we'll make it one way or another. I believe in what we are doing and what we built actually resonated with the customers as well. Just need to power through this last mile somehow.

Anyway, reading your comment gave me a little more strength. Much appreciated.

Re: I am done. I give up

#888

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

>PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PROTECT YOUR MENTAL HEALTH AT ALL COST!

You forgot to mention physical health, unlike mental health the damage to physical health can be relatively permanent and relatively irreversible. And of course physical health and mental health is related.

Re: I am done. I give up

#889

Post by quickthrower2 »

fakedang wrote: post #348
quickthrower2 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am interested in why it is the Firebase problem, or what that means?

Firebase has a ton of users, but most of the users seem to be independent devs and hobbyists, with a small number of large clients. It's possible Firebase tends to attract non-hardcore users because of its superb UI/UX, which makes it extremely accessible for beginner devs and hobbyist programmers. But apart from a few features (which don't generate revenue, like Auth and Cloud Functions), Firebase has a hard time ge…

I see. Probably thr main hope is stickyness in a startup that used them that gets growth in such a way that switching clouds is not worth it (client switching from Firebase to Google proper is probably acceptable as long as goodharts law is honoured so it doesn’t appear as a fail to Google)

There are lots of operators in the “Vercel” club, providing good UX tools for hosting, CICD, databases etc. witch attract indie hackers. Makes me wonder if they will have the same issue.

It grates on me because I would enjoy creating another JAMstack tool for indies, but making a boring thing for some other industry is probably more profitable. I guess that is the main issue at play. Business is work. Except occasionally when someone is lucky and the passion project does well.

Re: I am done. I give up

#890

Post by JanisErdmanis »

Mezzie wrote: post #358
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…

> no outsider is going to jump in giving away their product just to grow market share I wonder how much innovation is being stifled by this practice. I know I have at least one very viable idea (I've shopped it around) that could result in substantial improvement to the overall Internet experience, and I'm doing nothing with it because the minute I make it available, a Big Tech company will either steal it, try to bu…

I did have a similar concerns. My answer to this situation is to embrace it, make the idea open source with copyleft licence from the start. This gives opportunity to galvanize a community find early adopters and contributors.

If BigTech gets into it, that will be a positive signal which will make idea known and make a market of customers for it. I have no need to be the first, but just be in the game.

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