[codazoda]

True, but ~45 may be a golden age again. By then your kids may be starting to becoming self sufficient, retirement is still 20 years off, and you've lived through a fair number of financial problems. Your retirement plans might be coming together and the world is starting to look more rosey. Plus, you find yourself feeling like you're nearing the end of your "youth"; you're aged but you still feel good. Perhaps you become less worried about the risk and you're well trained and ready to take on a complex challenge.

I can dream.

[deepGem]

I more or less left full time work when I was 39 to pursue startups. The reasoning was exactly on the lines of what you have described. It's been 2 years and the journey has been fraught with failures. One, it's become really hard for me to find a co-founder. Almost none of the guys in my friend circle are willing to take the risks associated with startups. I've attended a pre-accelerator to find a co-founders but haven't had any luck in finding the right person. Two, I'm just getting lazy because of the financial cushion. I mean, it's not much but still some sort of lethargy has set in since I don't have a pressing problem to solve. Until I get to the stage where things kick off, I bet this is going to be the norm. On one hand I have a financial cushion, on the other I know that the cushion won't mean much in the next 10 years. So, I'm constantly thinking about self sufficiency down the line. So, a combination of no cofounder + no exponential idea + procrastination = My life has become quite miserable. I mean, sure on the surface I project an image of it's all good, if you know what I mean.

[CalRobert]

Sorry to hear it, but thank you for sharing. It's likely people with your experience are less likely to share it than those who've been successful and I worry it gives a skewed view of the likelihood that a startup will make you happier.

One question - have you only looked at "exponential ideas"? Maybe there's a small but reasonably profitable endeavour out there - a lifestyle business?

[deepGem]

"Maybe there's a small but reasonably profitable endeavour out there" I am actually thinking about just this. Let's see.

[tixocloud]

I'm curious to know what are the things you've been thinking about working on? I've experienced the challenge of finding a co-founder in my immediate circle but looking beyond that, there are plenty of potentials.

I know a startup called Wagepoint that started with a co-founders from vastly different age groups.

[deepGem]

I started working on recording meetings and converting the recordings to meeting minutes with actionable items. Not a trivial task. My idea was to build an iPhone app with ML in the cloud. I did some initial market survey and found no takers for this idea. I spoke to startups, mid-enterprises and even law firms. I got one positive response from a VC who said this could be useful in tracking the meetings he has with founders as most of them go untracked but I was not too convinced (perhaps I was wrong). So dropped that idea and tried on some ideas around computer vision, prompted by the problems some of the customers were elucidating to while validating the above idea. "We don't really care about meetings but can you use machine learning to monitor people ? I am not a big fan of surveillance. After this I have drifted quite a bit around the last year or so. Current situation - no direction. Just having a side thought on doing something around high definition maps. Looked for a job to fill up some savings, but boy the interviewing phenomenon is nuts. I haven't interviewed in like 15 years. So got back to doing leetcode and Hackerrank.

[sleet]

I know you've dropped your first idea but you may want to take a look at https://transcribeme.com

[Horrabin]

Hmm, Wagepoint. I was involved in vetting the younger of the two to the older. They both had similar interests and the experience of the older complemented the energy and enthusiasm of the younger.

[shaqbert]

Sounds like you need a young gun co-founder to complement your expertise with the energy and enthusiasm of youth.

[sharemywin]

tried to check out your website www.callindra.com it doesn't go anywhere. Do you have a current website?

[deepGem]

I don't have a current website yet. Thanks for pointing this out. I have a static page at callindra.com (works without the www) I have to fix the Godaddy DNS. Will do.

[jcadam]

I'm 37 and absolutely cannot imagine myself working for the man for another 30+ years. I can't seem to last more than 2-3 years at any one job before becoming bored out of my skull. My present position, which I've been at for ~6 months, already has me mired deep in ennui (It was utterly unchallenging from day 1 - but the pay is great).

I want nothing more than to quit and strike out on my own, but financial obligations (kids, mortgage, etc.) are holding me back. My wife doesn't understand why I make a comfortable six-figure salary but am so discontented with my career. Maybe I feel like I'm running out of time?

[chasedehan]

+1 I could have written this exact same thing.