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Hi Superpi :-) First of all I want to congratulate you and your partner for taking the huge step of starting a business - something that very few people will ever attempt (although many will think about attempting). In my opinion it's a great thing to take hold of your destiny in that way but it's a very difficult thing to get right and for every success story there are dozens or hundreds of "failures" - I use quote marks because that word gets a bad press generally; many people seem to forget that they "failed" at many things in their life on the way to learning how to succeed at them. If you're not failing then you're not learning and life would be much less interesting that way (although of course much easier). About ten years ago I went self-employed (you wouldn't call it a start-up as such, I was just a freelance software developer), and for me, the point where I had obviously "failed" was when a) I was deeply in debt and could no longer afford to sustain my personal basic requirements, that is, a place to live, food to eat, a car to get around in, and b) there was no prospect of improvement in the business. I think if you're on the point of losing your house but the business is looking very promising then it's probably worth the risk - spending your last dollar to win the $1million contract, as it were - but if the business looks like it has no future then why make sacrifices to keep it going? Perhaps the reason is... >I'm 25, I feel like I'm losing at life already. It was okay to be broke earlier, because it's expected. It's not anymore, when almost none of your peers are. You're not losing at life, you're learning about life, and instead of making safe choices that suit everyone else, you're making difficult choices that suit you. Bravo! Sometimes those choices don't work out well but that's life, unfortunately; if you don't take risks, you won't get rewards - if you do take risks, sometimes you still won't get rewards, but other times you will, and those rewards may be far greater than you would get from an easy life. Try not to worry about your peers - they are living the life that suits them, you are living the life that suits you. So I would say: make an honest assessment of the future of the business. If it still has good potential, then suffering hardship now could lead to great reward later. If you're keeping it alive because you don't want to feel like a failure, then recognise that, as I said, "failure" is really just learning, and don't be ashamed to make mistakes along the way. In that case, get a paid job for a while, take a break and recharge your batteries. Then you can start your next great adventure when you're ready :-) Best of luck to you! |