> Currently at $300k/yr with http://cyberleads.com. Previously failed with 19 products.
Failing doesn't mean you're a failure. It's just feedback from the world that something about what you were doing didn't work. Sometimes it's product, sometimes it's marketing, sometimes it's behaviors in your own life, sometimes it's circumstances beyond your control. Every time something fails, it's a chance to look at those and try to understand what happened.
And sometimes what you realize is that you just plain don't care about what you were doing, and that's okay. That's a chance to revisit what success means to you.
I know it may not mean much in the immediate aftermath of what feels like defeat, but you did something few people have done: you worked on a startup for 7 years. There are so many lessons you can take away from that -- whether that's how to make your next venture succeed where this one failed, how to "fail faster" next time, or that you hate the whole startup scene and want to do something else with your life.
Just remember, what happened isn't your life's final verdict -- it's just one piece of the puzzle. It could be the stepping stone to a great 7 years to come. Keep your stick on the ice.
OT: Would you care telling some more about details? How does it work, did you set it up yourself, how it's done? I am very much interested.
I'm pretty happy with Marvin overall. It natively supports time estimates and different types of task scheduling (specific days, weeks, months). I came to it from Todoist, Remember the Milk, and Outlook tasks. I had also tried Taskwarrior. My only complaint is that performance is not so good once you have more than a couple hundred active tasks. But Strategies are great. I love that they can be toggled and how many there are.
You are still 10 years away from the statistical "peak" to start your startup.
Yes you will recover.
This experience may be exactly what you need to become great. It's your choice to either hide from it and whither away in regret or face it head on and extract all the value it has to offer. Growth comes from painful reflection on our mistakes.
Studying Stoicism and this lecture series really helped me get through the failure of my startup (Which I spent 7 years building and then had to sell for $1).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PL22J3VaeAB...
Note the lecturer is controversial politically now... but this series genuinely helped me put myself back together after my ego was shattered - I am way better off now (and more resilient) and years later building another company which is doing great so far.
Even earlier than that he espoused beliefs of yearning for the old days when a man could make a living for the whole family and casually beat his wife (look up his redpill fedora access/public tv video for this).
This isn’t to take away from those videos helping you or any one. Just to clarify Peterson was a “controversial” (a shitty person imo) long before now.
Your Q is irrelevant here as Peterson wasn’t discussing what was written as law, but his narrative.
If you're posting such a serious accusation, you should at least provide the link yourself...
I said what to look up. If this is such a big accusation as to respond asking for a link, why not type or copy paste the few words mentioned?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TWsxFKF__is I have the uninterrupted clip saved locally, but here’s a video talking about and showing some of it. There should still be actual full clip ones too.
Now, is he right? It's hard to tell, but the phenomenon he describes definitely exists to some degree.
He didn’t say much about their flaws. He kept hedging for how they are the good and better ones. He for sure never phrased this as “as flaws as 50ties men were” in the context of the whole thing.
Knowing Jordan Peterson’s sexism, racism, religious bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, disregard for the poor, and his own hypocrisy of his own mean advice and sayings on drug addiction, if a statement about a 50s guy coming home to repress/oppress his wife doesn’t scream a big issue to you, nothing will. You will be able to turn anything he says into a positive, and I will not see his sneaky wording as anything but that.
I mean in his Kyle Kulinski discussion recently and before that too, he talks about how “remember when [gay] pride used to be a sin?” As if that’s an indictiment on being gay. And that gay and trans advocacy is tricking people into being gay and trans. It’s insanely baffling to appreciate someone’s words when they actually are saying straight cis people are being tricked into being gay or trans. No less to the point of a morale panic. I can’t give any benefit of the doubt to such an overt bigot.
> Now, is he right? It's hard to tell, but the phenomenon he describes definitely exists to some degree.
He’s probably wrong. His own philosophies with all this are bankrupt to begin with. He talks about hierarchies being natural and the best with the alphas rising up. Yet marriage is the opposite of that. It forces exclusive monogamy and is pushed down through culture and society. He has been asked by Rogan and others about this contradiction to his work. His answers are quite wanting. It’s obvious there’s no answer except monogamy benefits him and many of his fans who aren’t the most playboy types and are likely conservative leaning thus want “traditions”.
I hope you can become more curious and less whatever this is. For your own sake and for the sake of the people in your life you care about.
Here’s another recent Peterson tidbit of being a bad person and not improving people’s lives. In one of his recent Daily Wire stuff, he said Russia is attacking Ukraine for trying to be more woke like America. Which is incredibly wrong when Ukraine has lots of non-woke stuff and is not “woke” haha. Secondly, what an awful thing to say to defend Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine and the deaths of innocent people.
Even Peterson’s fans on his subreddit and on the YouTube video and other comment sections were upset at his callous and wrong take on the Ukrainian invasion. Just like many of his fans are upset with his joining Daily Wire and being so completely mask off these days.
Some more issues of when he is saying stuff that doesn’t appear to improve lives: what about when he insults women who wear make up. Or insults women he finds unattractive? Or when he hypocritically doesn’t call out his own daughter for wearing make up.
What about when he insulted a dead patient (RIP) of his for using up his money on drugs and then dying from them? Meanwhile he went ahead and spent a lot of money to go to Russia to be put into coma. He blames people for getting addicted to drugs, but when it is him, there is an excuse.
how is his bigotry against lgbtq people helping them? Is this stuff not “evil”? Since you claimed I am saying evil things —- without any specific backing of how.
—-
I can keep giving actual examples of Peterson not being a good person. No need to resort to personal attacks, gaslighting, and making narratives up.
If you aren’t satire and aren’t acting in bad faith, please give some actual info on how I’m being evil with the specifics of what I’ve said. Or specifics of my slandering. Also please respond to any times you believe I’ve said the truth about Peterson. Of course that won’t happen, much less a response at all.
I at the very least had my first response to you include me being happy for you getting better even if it’s from Peterson. You on the other hand have shown no semblance of good faith in this last response.
Finally. Just because I find Peterson to be a bigoted hate filled individual, doesn’t mean I think that about you. An attack on Peterson is not an attack on you. So there’s no need for you to push such harsh attacks on me.
> I am interview now but my identity has been shattered.
You are not your work or what you do or what you have or haven't accomplished. You are you, and it's your relationships with yourself, people, family, friends, etc. that matter.
> Everyone tells me it’s not too late to start again
You aren't starting again. You are simply transitioning and growing. Nothing to be ashamed of there. In many ways, many would like to have a clean slate, and you've got a good excuse. Haha.
I recommend seeing a therapist. Just like how a student going to a professor to ask questions about something they're stumped on suddenly realizes the answer to their own question by merely saying it out loud, one can have the same experience with life questions and problems and a therapist. And if you don't answer your own questions, the therapist is there to help you answer them, either by providing answers or finding them with you. Friends, family, and strangers can only help so much. A therapist is paid to help you, and they are trained in the art.
Pick up a hobby or do exercise. Even better if you join club or organization that provides those things.
I often find the most painful employers and experiences are the ones that I gain the most out of in terms of development and growth. Not fun to hear in the moment but afterwards it's a gift.
What is it, then? It feels really contrived to say "you're worth something" but then not say what that thing is.
In court of public opinion, you're always guilty until proven innocent — whether that's right or not.
My story isn't unique, tons of people have gambled, lost, and recovered. It isn't easy, but it isn't impossible, just don't get overwhelmed, don't take it personal, and get backup and start thinking about what is next. Work the problem like an engineer would any.
Best of luck
Whether you work at Intel for 40 years or hop between jobs and your own projects, the story is the same:
- Find something that works
- Grow it larger until it fails
- Find something (smaller) that works
- ...
i.e.,
- If you want to feel more productive, take smaller steps
- If you need to go faster, take larger steps
The absolutely key issue is taking ownership of how your activities affect you
- If you read bits of news all day, you'll addict yourself to short bursts of new information
- If you relish people's attention, you'll depend on their whims
- If you meditate all day, you'll find the deepest peace, but do nothing
Right now, you have a long process of mourning all that you'd hoped for. It's best to do so deeply - to get it done. So:
- Write down all your faults and failings and how royally you screwed yourself
- Write each once. No need to elaborate
- When you can think of no more, you're done with that.
Now you have X time in the bank. How do you want to spend it?
Remember: if you read news or seek customers or write books, you will become the reflection of that activity: hyper-intellectual, a pleaser, a ruminator...
So, to make something of yourself, do what will make you what you want to be.
Above all, DON'T act out of misery to just make yourself feel better. DON'T try to "build yourself back up". i.e., Don't let your past define you.
That's the essence of freedom
I felt the same way after leaving my 1st job of 10 years out of college. It was like mourning a death. I was "an employee at X", I was good at it, I liked it. So it was so very worrying, frightful, and confusing when that season of life began to pass, and I was no longer happy with what up to that point had been everything I had been looking for.
Some resources you may find interesting:
[1] On average, friendships last about 7 years (indirectly suggesting that WE tend to change in identities every 7 years or so) - https://mwfseekingbff.com/2012/11/07/friendship-the-seven-ye...
[2] Transitions: Making Sense Of Life's Changes by William Bridges - A great book on the transitions of life, and how society today tries to rush through them, but they are deeply important and must be given the appropriate honor, time, and space. I read this when I was struggling with my own career transition, and it was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. Only by letting transitions run their courses fully can you set healthy foundations for the next stages of your life (and the next stage WILL be fruitful, even if life is full of murkiness and confusion right now).
Remind yourself they are true regardless of how you feel. Emotions are often influenced more than controlled.
Take actions as you are able that support or aligned with those truths. Regardless of how you feel.
Tell close friends and/or family that you are working to really believe those truths.
Then give it time. At least months, maybe years. Time heals many wounds. The process above will hopefully shave off some of that time.
Try going to the gym/exercise/running, doing code tutorials to build up confidence. Tech Podcasts & udemy to fill the silence.
Do not try to do another startup right away, the workforce has changed and you need to acclimate.
Employers care about your skills, show them you got what they need. As a founder you will bring a new type of leadership skill and initiative to any team, this won't always make you popular so it's okay to not alway have the answer or share your opinion. Enjoy checking out at 5pm without worrying about how to make payroll. Rebuild yourself for the next hustle, but give yourself time. You know so much more than you did last time you started.
Losing your identity is very scary. However, with time, you will develop a new identity. You will discover new joys and goals.
Try not to panic, the way you feel now is quite normal.
Have fun discovering the new you.
28 y/o graduate with Engineering Degree
36 y/o left engineering field, became firefighter paramedic (married with a < 1y/o child)
@ 40 started Master's degree in CS (online thru DePaul) (still married, 2 kids @ 4 and 1 y/o)
@ 45 graduated with MSCS
45 - 50 worked pt as remote software dev while a FT firefighter pm
@ 50 left fire dept became full time, remote, software dev
@ 52 start a new software dev, remote job with a major hospital in a couple of weeks!
With this new position they have tuition reimbursement so it is my plan to start another MS degree in August 2023.
In the link below I reply to someone's question about how I got to where I am. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30204355
edit: formatting
... unless you mean energy, or "ability to pull all-nighters". Then, yeah, remaining resources are probably below 50%. But now you (hopefully) have more wisdom on what to do with the remaining resources. You can use them more efficiently, so that you get more results with fewer resources used.
You're much more a success than I am.
What you are going through is grief, for a company ; so even without any more information, as anyone who lost people, I would tend to say: "yes you will recover". Here's one that I saw the other day and really resonated: https://everything2.com/title/You+have+a+sad+feeling+for+a+m...
It is tough. But if there was no risk involved in doing a startup wouldn’t every tom, dick and Harry have done it already? You put yourself through big risk for asymmetric gains, isn’t it? This pain is the risk that played out this time.
Just take a break; get onto the salary wagon for a few months; gain back your mental peace and confidence and then come back.
I think what hurts is that it's a form of death. It feels like actually losing someone, because you have lost a part of yourself. Companies grow faster than babies, and losing a company of 7 years could feel like losing a child.
Even if you go on to start another company, it isn't the same. It's like having another child or another spouse. It doesn't replace the first.
Whatever it is, you have to make peace with that. Go through the stages of grief. Do all the rituals necessary, which may be crying on the sofa watching TV. Just avoid hazardous coping mechanisms like alcohol and drugs. Death of an identity is necessary for the metamorphosis of a new identity. Don't try to figure out that new identity yet, but allow your startup founder identity to die sufficiently that it doesn't hold you back.
Your next identity might well be another startup CEO. But remove the old identity and commit to the new one. You want to be "Steve Jobs, CEO of Pixar" and not "Steve Jobs, former cofounder of Apple Inc"
But my career really took off after that. As bad as the experience was, writing about it gave me a new audience and lead to some really great clients, and I've now enjoyed several years doing high level consulting.
For anyone interested, check out "How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps":
https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...
37 is so young, I can barely remember it.
37 is really young.
I learned that I had to reinvent myself every 10 years as the "old shoes" didn't fit anymore. So from a perspective of a 37 year old you still have to go between four and six reinventions before you really can settle down.
So you still have a long way to go. And from the simple mathematics that you have more reinventions before you than you have already achieved you definitely can be count as "being young".
Probably.
History is full of famous successes who were failures first. Lots of people are giving you that advice. Famously, IBM was Thomas Watson's 38th try, and the durable lightbulb filament Edison's 162nd.
It's absolutely okay to feel despondent after a big hit, especially if it's one that took seven years of your life along the way. I've been there. It's just an awful feeling, and I commiserate as best as I'm able.
At the same time, pragmatically speaking, you really only have three options:
1. Try again
2. Try something else
3. Give up
You're not going to give up. You wouldn't be here asking if you were going to.
So the real question is, do you try again, or do you try something else, like a day job?
I don't know about your situation, and I don't know how much safety you need, but that's sort of the baseline choice, really. By what method do you dust yourself off and stand up and respond?
At 37, you'll be okay. After seven years (a fifth of your life, or a third of your adult life,) it's going to hurt real bad, and be confusing.
But life goes on. You'll be okay.
It'll be a while before you can see it that way, and that's okay too.
If you have the resources, I highly recommend taking a sabbatical to recover and give yourself room to breathe and for your mind to wander. Moving to a new space, at least temporarily, helps you get in contact with new people and ideas. With some time, you'll find some new problem space which interests you, or some other new path you'd like to follow.
What really helps you feel less old is spending some time getting in good shape physically and mentally to give you strength for your next adventure. Spend some resources on treating yourself to make that happen. Recovering is definitely possible!
You need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, figure out all the lessons learned from your first foray, write them down, formulate a new life strategy, and then get the fuck out and chase it!
Whingeing on HN about how miserable you are won't fix anything.
Mourn it, move past it, and treat it as another stint of professional experience. You haven’t wasted time, you don’t have to start over. everyone works on a project that doesn’t live up to expectations at some point in their career. You’ve likely learned a lot and grown professionally.
Leverage what you’ve learned however you see best. Could be another startup, a bigco, academia, etc. The right companies will respect your startup experience. I’d strongly suggest taking 2-4 weeks completely off- no interviewing, no working, just recovery. (It won’t be enough to fully mentally recover- that will take much longer, but should be enough to get you back on track professionally) Lay down your arms so you can fight another day.
I'd suggest developing some other hobbies or activities and not tying your identity up with your job so much.
You're currently feeling negatively ("miserable") and thinking negatively ("I am no longer young"). That is fine. [Do that, it's a healthy experience!]
You'll probably want to simultaneously take care of your body and mind, while you are feeling negative. That way your physical experience of Life can be positive.
If you are having unsatisfactory difficulties recovering, get a Licensed counselor to ask you self-reflective questions. That can un-stuck you.
Congratulations on having a start-up of your own, sincerely.
Think of your startup as just a glorified hot-dog cart.
You're experiencing grief of the loss of your startup. That's going to take time to heal. You will have more successes. You will feel differently than you do now. Take some time to heal, and take care of yourself. There is a bright future ahead for you.
Your new identity doesn't have to be "failed startup guy." It can be something completely different. Maybe it is "I work my day job to make money but my passion is urban windsurfing" guy. We'll see.
Its not too late to start again and that has nothing to do with your age. You feeling miserable is partially from confusing these things and partially still a distinct unrelated thing.
Do you have alot if debt? Are you on the verge of declaring bankruptcy? Did you read too many articles where you think your future spouse is going to look down on you for not having a high credit score and being shut out of the mortgage market for the next 7 years?
Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. Go make some money to support and maintain your lifestyle.
Now? I cannot even get past the first round of interviews at the vast majority of companies I interview at. I would like to say that it isn't because I cannot code, but at this point my sense of self worth in terms of programming is rock bottom. I make mistakes - sure all people do - but when coding and making mistakes or not catching bugs each instance is added to an enormous pile of ever growing pain that I place on myself: obviously this is why companies don't want me. Obviously this is why I have been making $60k on average for my entire career. Because I am not worth anything. Yes I know that making something is more than making nothing. Yet the way people throw around salary numbers on this site just makes me want to turn away from everything in despair.
To make matters worse I now work at a place that tasked me with leading a team to make fundamental changes to our product which the business is counting on to expand its sales. The employees' spoken language itself is not my native language. The entire system was rewritten with new tech - some of which I had no prior experience using. Oddly I didn't seem to have control over the technical decisions being made by the engineers on my team. When I voiced concerns or laid out criticism, someone complained (a junior with 3 months of bootcamp prior to his joining the company) and the director of engineering told me I was needed to stop harassing the team. One of those "if someone is liked it doesn't matter what they actually do" scenarios. Things didn't go well. We overshot our, I would say, ridiculously optimistic development timeline, which was originally set by the director to please the higher ups, by 50% (1 year 4 months -> 2 years 4 months). The directory threw me under the bus from my point of view.
Now I am trying to find a new workplace. This entire time I continuously ask myself if perhaps I am the problem and it destroys me.
I don't know what to say but I hope you are not mentally where I am. Hopefully you find a way out. As someone older than you I guess I can say: you have more time than I do at least.
For me now slowly leetcoding away, what’s helping is having less and less expectations. I can’t separate the awful feeling you also have of absolutely dogging yourself and having no sense of worth. Logically I know it’s not true, though that isn’t much help. But seeing the numbers people get from leetcoding and interviewing, I know realistically I have a shot to begin rising now that I’ve conquered my debilitating issues enough, even if the self compassion isn’t there.
PS: ever thought of trying a tech interview bootcamp? Your middle job seemed miserable. And you’re talking about pretty low income. https://Coachable.dev and a distant second, https://Outco.io, are two such ones.
If you do think about doing the bootcamps (I’m doing one and a friend is doing the other) or leetcode grinding on your own, feel free to shoot me an email :). It’s in my bio. This whole comment is a lot more positive than how things actually are. Partially because I don’t hide who I am so I don’t want to sound as despondent and reveal too much.
The version of you that failed has been shattered. It’s painful, but this is your opportunity to move on to become a wholly stronger person.
You tested part of your personality in an extreme situation and you found it did not hold up. This is a great insight that will serve you well for the rest of your life (much more lies ahead than behind).
I can relate to that feeling.
If you wish to have a small chat send me an email (check profile) and I can share with you some things that were of help during some rough times I went through (no bullshit, real stuff for real people).
Only in Tech ( or mostly Silicon Valley ) do people expect you to be CTO by the age of 38 and retire at 42.
All I can say is good luck, friend, and hopefully we'll both find a better source of both income and fulfillment soon!
Much worse than failing is to feel miserable to have failed.
perspective.
I'm 54 and just as productive as when I was 37
If you have a dream, go for it. Don’t let age stop you.
At 37 I was marginally employed. In 2019 I was FTE at MSFT.
It was tricky but worked out
You got this, kid
BTW if you’re that ageist against yourself I hate to think how badly you stereotype others.