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by verysadpanda
4367 days ago
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Thank you for all of the constructive comments and different perspectives. I saw a few emails in my inbox too. Thank you. As a single founder, it's the constant rejections that have me down. Failure to raise money to prove product market-fit [1]. Failure to come through in the clutch. Failure to convince investors. Failure to get the 'Yes' people to actually give you the cheques they said they would commit. Failure to "find a way". Failure at home. Failure at simple tasks like cooking an egg omelette for breakfast. Failure everywhere. It feels like everything is compounding. I can't close anything to save my life. Literally. Confidence lost, swagger extinct. I try to shake off the negative thoughts and 'push through' as every successful person claims.. but somehow, someone pulls another rug out from under me. When it rains, it fucking pours. It could be worse, but it feels like i'm standing in a nimbus cloud that wont let up. [1] - Don't need to raise to prove product market fit. But haven't pulled a salary in 8 months. Needed to keep the lights on at home. Avoided taking on contract work as that would take away from the startup, so kept pushing thru. "I'll just raise, I'll find a way.." said every startup founder. |
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I spent the first few months post just rolling around in misery. At some point it became clear I had to make a choice to either get out of it, or just keep being consumed by it. So I did the only thing I know: I went back to building. I built with the goal in mind to see relatively near-term victories, as the prior start-up was a long build and failed with not much to show for it (other than experience). I wanted to start getting back into the winning column in regards to how things were going in my life, even if it was just in little ways, because I knew that would begin to lift my mindset.
When you're ready, you'll probably begin to reboot. That's a process that takes some time, and is obviously different for everyone. Try to find your way through it as quickly as possible, and in as healthy a fashion as you can (find the happy medium). Feel free to be angry, upset, frustrated, depressed, down, the whole cycle of negative emotions, go through it all and flush it all out; don't try to not go through it, you have to go through it.
My suggestion for the next thing you build: have it be something that makes money from early on and requires no outside investors; something that runs on a $40 or $80 linode instance, where you can become cash flow positive with just a customer or a few. Create something where your customers fund you, in other words. No more waiting for investors to say yes. The next time around, when you're ready, you'll say yes to them, if they're lucky.