"Startup rollercoaster" isn't even the half of it | Hacker News Reader

"Startup rollercoaster" isn't even the half of it

swizec.com

59 pointsSwizec11 comments

"Definitely the hardest year of my life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way."

The last line gave me pause and catapulted me in to the reply box when I had no intention of being here. But now that I'm here I'm going to give you my 0.02.

It is OK to regret the mistakes you've made.

There are plenty of awful things you did over the last year. Some were done with malice and some had more innocent intentions. Either way, I wouldn't accept "I'm happy where I am now" or "I've learned a lot since then" as a valid reason to not have regrets. Saying that you have no regrets shows a lack of awareness about how your actions have affected others and, in your case, borders on tasteless. You don't regret hurting her? You don't regret burning bridges with your past employer?

The reason that I write this is that I want to encourage you to not settle for aphorisms in place of real reflection about how you really feel about the last year. Your regrets shape your future. It's important to pay them their due.

off topic but to me living with no regrets does not mean literally that. Sometimes it means not regretting just one of action/outcome. Sometimes it means knowing that you did to the best of your abilities. And sometimes it means (eventually) accepting your fallibility.

e.g: not too happy about taking that chance, but happy that had the courage to take that chance.

I don't regret anything I did, I do regret how I did some things, but the action itself was always something that I wanted.

Cheating on my girlfriend wasn't the best way to break up with her, but if that relationship was perfect I'd seek shelter in it when things got rough rather than see it as something that I also have to get rid of.

Similarly for the job, if it was a good fit I wouldn't even think of quitting.

Thanks for the honest recap, but the concerning bit is that you don't leave previous arrangements in a good way.

- Kicked out of the startup you were working on

- Cheated on girlfriend before leaving her

- Left job without notice and ignored emails

This stuff will catch up with you. I would recommend leave previous engagements with integrity or you will start having trouble in future due to reputation.

The startup situation is a bit more complex. I certainly wasn't going to just drop what I considered to be pretty much my whole life for a year and a half and I had the largest stake in. In the end it was really more of an amiable agreement that we can't work together anymore and that I will repay my debt by turning over my share of the company.

The others are also quite rare occurences. This was the first and probably last job I have ever left without notice or in such a silly manner as not responding to emails.

Cheating ... yeah, no excuse there.

Hey Swizec,

Congratulations on holding out this long given the amount of headwind that you've been experiencing.

What strikes me is that some of that headwind seems to be of your own making and that maybe if you changed your mindset just a little bit that things will go much better for you.

Yep, I seem to have a tendency to shoot myself in the foot sometimes.

It's getting better though :)

>>I had that pesky school to finish!

Why work at it while already doing the startup?

Because I find education to be as important as it is fun. Furthermore it tends to help financially to have a student status.

That's the gist of it, got into a bit more detail in a blogpost once: http://swizec.com/blog/doing-a-startup-taught-me-the-value-o...

I'm not familiar with the author, but from the post, I gather he is from Europe. Is he working freelance gigs in the US while on an H1B for another gig? If so, I would be careful, things like that can get him banned from entering the US for 10+ years...

It's a bit different since I'm not physically in the US.

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