Ask HN: Getting up after repeated failures?

This attitude is a disease that a lot of software engineers have. If only everyone else wasn't so stupid, if only there were no politics, and no lying business people! Then I could design the perfect system and be successful and my beautiful software would realize its true potential. If you really want to succeed you absolutely must learn to be pragmatic about sales, and business and politics and people. The world is run on narratives and stories and lies and faith and emotion and all kinds of illogical things engineers don't like. You also must also stop thinking about things in terms of success and failure, there's not really any such thing except in our heads and in the way we present ourselves to others, only your attitude and what you are doing today matter. Also in a week you might wake up and find out you have cancer and you will just be sick for the rest of your life and never work on anything ever again, forget about the past, forget about the stress and feeling of being angry or unjustly treated and just be who you want to be today, and make everyone else believe it too.

> there's not really any such thing except in our heads

I disagree. When my father's used car lot went under, that was a massive failure of planning and leadership, sending my family into a financial spiral with effects felt for decades. There was no upside here. Hell, he ended up in jail briefly as a result of the debacle. There's definitely such a thing as failure.

That said, I agree that the poster's mindset seems to be doing them no favors here. Sounds like they've always been paid, they've done good work, they've broadened and deepened their engineering experience. As long as they can still find a job there are worse things than this kind of failure.

> Also in a week you might wake up and find out you have cancer and you will just be sick for the rest of your life and never work on anything ever again, forget about the past, forget about the stress and feeling of being angry or unjustly treated and just be who you want to be today, and make everyone else believe it too.

this hit hard, and for me it just proves how much harder i should work on things I care about, and not what the next clown wants me to accomplish for them

One of the best comments I've read on this site, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Narratives and emotions run the world. Engineering / facts only come into play when there's liability to kill people or lose investors money.

Were you paid? If so, then as that one guy put it, you and the company are even. Yes, that's the reality of the software life, and yes you're either on your way or already burnt out.

The other reality, is the majority of software work doesn't end up mattering in the long run, or even in the short run, and you need to come to terms with the reality that you're exchanging your time for a salary and maybe some equity, but don't get your hopes up, it's just a job like others. Nobody is really changing the world, and it's a lie that we bought 12 years ago when we got into it. You can work on something that improves someone's workflow marginally though, and that can be satisfying. It's way way more satisfying to just get the work done and then have great interactions out in the real world with people you meet. I recently helped a Taiwanese immigrant get their passport, and I started my day by playing an mmo with some friends, now I'm back to coding whatever.

The other other reality, is that a lot of that time even if the product or website or company is worthwhile and sells stuff, it's often not the "features" or the fancy frontend that people care about. That's why Rockauto for example is so awesome, and look where you're posting right now.

It's probably worthwhile to go independent, but the same things apply, except you'd now have a real stake.

Practiced indifference is necessary when society isn't working out for you.

That is, most of the avenues that were presented to you to "succeed" in life when you were younger are actually designed to either turn you into a petty tyrant or a willing servant. As with how everyone behaved around the pandemic, we're prone to turning our backs on the astonishing facts of the matter and call it normal, and then call the negative outcomes mysterious and inexplicable. Most of the media we consume is in turn made to support whatever normal needs to be; it's not a conspiracy, it's a symptom of our underlying illness. Actually getting a square deal - and they do happen - is really, really hard when you're faced with gregarious competitiveness at every turn, people who aren't there to solve problems but to treat everyone as an asset, liability or threat, and put their contact list into a spreadsheet to calculate how best to get ahead.

Thus, indifference. Nature is mostly indifferent and can't maintain all the fallacies that we order ourselves through; if things aren't looking good, most creatures just run and hide. Survive until options improve. Every job looks important in the moment, and not so much in the rear view mirror. It's not software alone, it's every sort of business. The good stuff trades not on credit, but on logical coherence, but nobody wants to buy into it until after it's proven itself. They'd rather hear that a so-and-so is involved or a BigCo has already made a deal with them.

These and other thoughts are how I turned into a speculative investor. In this there also an unwellness, but I can face it less frequently, and with more retained optimism in the sense of "they'll all be wrong, probably, but in roughly the right direction".

Both my parents worked at startups in the bay area from 1970s-2000s. None of them hit, though the IP those companies created currently makes just one of the businesses that bought it 2billion a year. I think they maybe got a few thousand for their IP contribution the company shut down and IP was sold. Meanwhile plenty of their friends hit. I worked in startups in the bay area from early 90s until early 2000s, none ever went big. At the same time I had plenty of friends who did make it big, from great software developers to super mediocre devs to stoner hardware techs to receptionists. I have ex family that made into the high 9 figures but only on their second try, after they were majorly responsible for a segment changing/name you would instantly recognize projects/app you have on your phone that took years of their life on which they made in the low six figures all out. If they would have allowed themselves to be burnt out after that they would have missed their 9 figure win, but they were driven and kept going.

You don't deserve anything, your talent isn't going to get you anything. Keep trying and you might hit, you might not. Even if you disrupt a major market your return isn't guaranteed to be huge financially. That's about as much logic as I've seen in it over my 30 years experience of it. It's up to you if you want to stay on the ride/purchase the lottery ticket.

> lazy / unmotivated coworkers obviously there only for the paycheck

You are correct that this is a problem, but there is a different flavor of that scenario that really works: Competent coworkers with solid work ethics who are there only for the paycheck.

Find a group like that and you don't have people trying to make work into a family, nor the startups acting like they'll change your world if not the entire world. You get people who go to work, do it well, then go home. It makes a great team and a great working environment that also lets you live your life. And such teams tend to produce working software in a working market because if either of those were not true, the paychecks would not be stable so the team would leave. So when you find such a team, join it -- you will all get paid reliably with stable work on a stable team.

Yes absolutely.

Jobs like this are hard to get into, the barrier to entry tends to be high, but once you are on a high functioning team it is really pleasant.

Startups are lottery tickets. Just keep building products quickly and iterate. A lot of it is finding MVP which it sounds like hasn't happened yet.

So go more meta on the process. Ask why you are deciding to choose these companies etc... It is easy to put the blame on others but not always helpful to our own personal growth.

You have to embrace failure (of the product) and move on. Embrace uncertainity. You built some great software and learnt a lot so much so that next time you can build faster.

If you want stability, join a larger company and do your side hustle programming.

That's really all there is.

There's no magic destiny or guarantees. Find joy and life in the work.

I think you should stop being so hard on yourself first. Reading this, to me you’re clearly someone with the capability to work in high pressure environments and deliver things under difficult circumstances. That’s a very rare and valuable skill. The bad parts of your post come down to two things: you’ve been unlucky, working for people and companies that have potential but aren’t realised due to to factors outside your control. Or, you’re bad at identifying opportunities that will pay off. Sounds to me like you can work on developing those skills, but it’s up to you if you want to keep rolling the dice on start ups or settle for a comfy job at a big company.

Good rant but seems like you already have your answer. You have been able to create a ~$500 MRR SAAS which a lot of great devs cannot/will not. Indie hacking is your way to your freedom it seems like.

"I'm just worried I won't make enough money fast enough, and I'll be back where I started, working for some goon company with clueless C-levels and processes fettered with incompetence"

Define fast enough. If you can create $500 MRR in 5 months, is that not fast enough for you ?

You do need to let go of the bitterness and the fact that you failed to hit big with startups (most startups fail). You will be ok. Figure out your goals and go from there.

Sorry to hear all this. Honestly, given what you've gone through, I'd just avoid the start ups and go for 'boring tech', in an unambiguously useful and established industry. Maybe energy, telecoms, banking etc. Go for a well established company but one with a good stack and modern ways of working. They do exist. You can have a good engineering culture and engaging projects, combined with a stable business model and sane management.

Startups are high reward potentially because they're high risk. And a lot of these companies are doomed-to-fail, snake oil-peddlers. Choose carefully if you do carry on down that path.

Ugh. Yeah, it does sound kinda burnout-y, sure.

In your shoes I'd probably design a specification & system to get what you want. Starting with questions like: How would you know you're applying at the type of company you want to work at? How could you find that out before accepting a position? If things don't turn out the way you want, how could you turn your critic-voice into a grounded, solutions-oriented voice as soon as possible, to regain control?

And on the independent side, what's the minimum you need to make to survive?

Additionally, putting those together, what kind of PT or FT employment runway might you need--how long would you need to work & how much would you need to save, as a launch-to-independence stage?

Caveat, you'd probably need to get into the details, which will require a rested, patient mindset.

You are already forecasting in your post, which is generally automatically based on your past experience. But the future will have to be different. This means you'll need a lot of trust in yourself, more than you may have right now, for any kind of progress to feel good.

A lot of little successes are needed from here. And a more objective self-trust system based on new experiences & accomplishments may need to be designed, constructed, experienced going forward.

As a coach myself I'd generally grade your success from here based on how much of this ends up in something like a milestone-focused schedule or spreadsheet that you are actively using, revising, & sharing for accountability on a weekly basis. IOW, subjective mental reflections are not on their own generally reliable for a challenging process like this. Emotions will tend to creep in at the wrong times unless objective measurements are the mainstay.

I would also try other objective-ish methods, e.g. any journaling should be done in the third person before using first person.

BTW It may also be important to build your own system of getting recognition for your contributions, no matter where you're working. This is very much a thing and IIRC some articles along those lines have been posted here. Get what you deserve.

Good luck from here, however this goes for you.

Startups as non-founder are for suckers except extreme outliers, ask me how I know. Join FAANG. Very good pay and high internal mobility which will allow you to find the team operating at the right pace for you.

I am at Google and one can generally change team every year, no questions asked, the company is structured around supporting internal mobility and the common tooling makes onboarding relatively easy. Hundreds of internal positions open for all tastes. You can work like a dog or just chill, there’s a team for everything.

You need some small wins. Even video games at first, then something slightly more ambitious, and keep adding on until you feel ready for another big challenge. Every single step is scary so just make it a bunch of smaller steps and it’s easier to go from rock bottom to empowered again

Also: you might need rest before you dive in. But try to make it rest plus some tiny empowering step that you have control over. Eg, making the bed, going to the gym, keeping a room tidy, being on time for things

In a sense, it’s a form of exposure therapy, convincing your subconscious that you are fully able to handle things again, one step at a time

Almost everyone you ever meet who seems lazy is just somebody who lost their empowerment and didn’t find it again. Take it easy on those people, they all feel a little powerless and it’s not pleasant. You might be feeling that same thing right now

I think you would benefit from not blaming everybody around you. And then create your own business getting your own customers and getting them to pay you for what ever software you build. Maybe you will find that to be very easy and get very rich. Another possible outcome would be that it is not that easy and that you end up with a zero or a huge debt. But constantly blaming others is not solving anything.

It's true I have a bad trait of being very critical of others, but as I've said I've always gone above and beyond to complete the tasks given to me, so I'm not sure what I could have done better... maybe I'm just trying to find excuses for what many have pointed out is just the fact of the matter of the startup landscape (high risk of failure)

> I'm sick of being lied to and cheated by clowns

Then don't work for them. Don't apply to startups building yet another ecommerce site. You can find a job writing code for something that won't evaporate next year, they're out there. You now know what to avoid, avoid it.

> So HN, what do I do here? Is this just the reality of software life? Or am I just facing burnout? Should I expect repeated beat downs and failures like this forever? Really getting sick of the whole thing.

That's the reality of the startup world. A lot of it is unethcal bozo who dream of making it big without neccessarily putting in a commensurate amount of effort. They are perfectly willing to ride on the backs of idealistic suckers like you (sorry for calling it like it is). If you want to work with serious people, it's best to do boring jobs at big companies. Startupland requires having your wits about you at all times, lest you'll be taken for a ride again.

My intuition here is you would do well to somehow give yourself 2 year runway of life expenses (sleep on mum or mates sofa for example!) and build up the SaaS. If you are working your ass off then do it for yourself.

You may be “lonely” doing this so make sure you mitigate for that.

Really appreaciate every single reply and all the insights, advice, and guidance. You all are very much appreciated! Going to save this post and re-read what everyone has said. Lots to think about in the coming weeks and months.

Go indie! You will understand management way better after going that route.

Just take responsibility when the customers don’t like or understand your product and improve from there.

It’s humbling for everyone. Really grounds a person to the realities of life.

You joined a startup and you feel cheated and lied to because they couldn't raise another round of funding? Is that right?

I stopped reading once that seemed to be the case, because that made it clear this post is ridiculous, tbh

No, they said we had X months of runway and then suddenly in the past week basically said to us that it was a lie and we're essentially "on call" until (if ever) the next round comes through.

Obviously I'm aware startups run out of money and fail often, but just how the whole thing was communicated to engineering team, and even worse that we're now supposed to be cog to do some consulting for XYZ corp "but then as soon as we get funding you come back to us", that really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm a member of the "founding team" at least how it was marketed to me, and it sure doesn't feel that way.

But anyway, I've given in my notice as of today, just for the peace of mind.

Ah, sounds shitty, sorry to hear.

FWIW, I disagree with some of the other posters saying that joining startups early but not being a founder is a raw deal. People can "hit it big", as one of the other posters put it, by simply being early at a successful startup, even if they aren't a founder. Of course, it is a gamble and not reliable. Even VCs, who are in the business of identifying companies who will hit it big, plan on getting it wrong 9/10 times.

Maybe next time you can join people to whom have some sort of personal link (either you personally know them or they are a 2nd degree connection). Hopefully a good learning experience; sounds like you were basically the CTO of a funded startup. A lot of us would have love to have that on our resume.

You just need to get it in your head, either work for yourself or don’t work for a startup. You probably will never come out ahead working on someone else’s dream. Be a founder or work for an established tech company.

This isn't just the reality of software life. It's the reality of any career whatsoever. Most organizational endeavors fail. Just to give you a quick rundown of all the different things I've done as an adult:

- Helped open one of the original stores in Downtown Disney as inventory manager. Company no longer exists.

- Helped open one of the first Great Indoors, an attempt by Sears to get more serious into furniture and interior decorating. Company no longer exists.

- Director of Development at a youth mentoring nonprofit. The grant that funded my position was canceled after six months and I was gone.

- Performer at Disneyland. By far the most fun I've ever had at a job. I had honest to god groupies who bought annual passes and followed me around and stalked me. But Disney Parks had serious cutbacks after 9/11 and that included me.

- Army officer during Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. You think it's disappointing to see a product not launch? Try training up a foreign government for 20 years only to see the Taliban sweep in and kill everyone the minute you leave.

- Software responsible for the initial ground processing of all US spy satellite collections. One of the most successful and longest-running programs in the entire government, staffed by passionate domain experts who have often held the same job for decades. I can't really tell you jack shit about it, but I'll say I've seen some stuff not many get to see and I sleep much better at night having been able to get information raw rather than filtered through a scare-mongering public media that largely doesn't know what it's talking about.

I currently still work on military software projects, but at this point strictly unclassified because I like to work from home. Some projects have failed, some have not, some management has been short-sighted shitheads that sabotaged what could have been great, some have been legitimate visionaries that have pushed through real change and innovation that the military and government in general badly needs, pulling Congress behind them kicking and screaming. It's not Facebook pay, but I'm still making six times what I made working in any other industry I've been in. Software is by far the most rewarding thing I've ever done. I haven't ever had to bail a subordinate out of prison at 1 AM on a Sunday morning for hitting his wife. I haven't had to find a room to quarantine someone in for a week while an investigation takes place. I've never had a direct report shoot himself in the face two days before returning from overseas. I've never been forced to fire a woman I knew was innocent, also pregnant, and likely to end up on the street, but the owner didn't care. All things I've had to do in other jobs.

Should you go indy? I can't advise you there. I would never even try, personally. I'm far more risk averse now than when I was younger. I'm sure my dad didn't love waking up at 3 AM to go literally wade through shit as an LA County Parks and Rec plumber for 40 years, but he did it anyway and I had a stable and predictable childhood and grew up secure and safe because he did that. I'll never scoff at building anything at all that sells even a dollar, but just be aware that $600 MRR is about half what I get from VA disability for having ten screws in my spine, and that's tax-exempt. It's not something you can live on.

Assuming the checks never bounced, it seems to me like you ultimately came out ahead from every single one of these jobs. One more day you stayed alive, paid all your bills, and one day closer to retirement. It's a grind, but man, you could have been a slave, you could have been a concentration camp victim, you could have been a coal miner, you could have been a child during a cholera outbreak, you could have been a native when the Spanish first came to the Americas, you could have been any animal other than a human that lives for maybe a few months before getting ripped to shreds by a bigger animal or starving to death. Every single one of us here got one of the greatest deals any sentient creature has ever gotten. We're the lucky ones.

Wow… what a varied work life and experience.

You should write more about this… I’d read your blog or watch your YouTube channel.

And yes what a shame about Afghanistan, still don’t fully get why they didn’t fight back, despite all that training.

Wow, really appreciate you opening up and sharing all this experience.

I do consistently try to make an effort of recognizing and meditating on how blessed I am and the part of the world I grew up and in live in. Of course my feelings of "failure" have much more to do with my personal desires and goals, I'd never spite or throwaway everything else I have (roof over my head, never a worry about food, water, etc.)

Your thoughts on the MRR are similar to my concerns, some comments are saying 100% go indy, but if that income only scales linearly with time for me then yeah I am back to the drawing board in about a half year.

But again, thanks for these great insights and advice.

We are going from zero interest rates to 5%. The tide is going out massively when it comes to funding and we will probably be at low tide for a long time.

To me, it is like complaining about the volatility of growth stocks. The reward wouldn't be what it is with lower risk and volatility.

My best advice: take a break, follow your heart.

I am similar to you. I am naive and optimistic and take a “I’ll just work more” approach to everything.

The same pattern happens over and over again. I go somewhere, try to do exceptional work, then something changes and I get screwed.

I think you have hit a moment of realization that I hit: “Whenever someone is dangling a carrot in front of you, they are always going to snatch the carrot.”

You have to move past it. The solution is to develop a selfish side. You have to take the mindset that you are going to move onward and upward and that all of these intermediary stages are just temporary.

Don’t believe the stories they are telling you. Everything is actually make believe in business.

It is profoundly unhealthy to become cynical and stop working as hard and stop learning. I view being diligent and reliable and proactive as a form of mental health exercise.

It’s a game just like any other. FAANG is a game, startups are a game. It’s all a game.

And what engineers find out is that the deeper into the game you go, the less writing code matters and the more it’s about understanding the political, business and relationship metagame.

Programmers are just pawns in these systems. They don’t get to decide anything and they aren’t treated like important players. Even though being a developer is touted everywhere, and programming skills are held up with this high regard - it’s actually a lie. Programmers get used up and tossed.

Being useful is important. However, being naive is a big mistake.

I learned not to trust companies ever. To always have my plan B and plan C underway. To not give everything to the company.

Almost all of the tech industry is fake. It is a byproduct of easy money and hype. Some of it more so than others.

I think there is a middle ground between being cynical and being naive. This middle ground is understanding everything is just a game. That playing the game well keeps you healthy and sane (playing it badly will ruin your mental health).

Have one foot in the game and always be looking out for your interests.

With this latest startup. They exploited you. But you should have been exploiting them. Your telling me there was no way for you to use their resources or brand name to advance yourself?

For example, telling the founders you want to develop an AI speciality which you can trade for a higher pay later.

The other problem you have which is the problem I have is I didn’t have an end goal.

Sure you work on startup X. There is a 5% chance that has a big payout. Let’s be honest that is a truly shitty deal.

You need to look at the whole deal. Does it get you a better title, qualitative life improvements such as getting to work from Costa Rica, or maybe you can use it to raise funding for your own startup.

You should have a plan every day of what you plan to do after your current job. And be working on it the entire time.

Never make the mistake of outsourcing your career or life ambition to some idiot founders.

You can exploit them the same way they exploit you. Keep it in the back of your head: Maximize your own interests while playing the game and always have an exit plan or several that lead to a 100% better outcome.

Very well said!