I’m Done with All These “Success Stories” Online | Hacker News Reader

I’m Done with All These “Success Stories” Online

10 pointsbizflop10 comments

In 2023, everyone is a millionaire.

Every single post online shares how this person started a million-dollar business, such as making $10K in a day selling buttons or how a 17-year-old made $50K selling a card game.

Or better yet, how I made $30,000 in a single weekend dropshipping backpacks.

However, what you don't hear are the people with multiple failed businesses struggling daily.

You don't hear about people like me who have started various businesses, from reselling and Instagram theme pages to packing groceries for people (yes, I did this), creating a clothing brand, a dating app, selling water bottles, podcasting, newsletters, eBay flipping, curb painting, and offering SAT prep services.

These failed ventures don't catch headlines, and I assure you, I have so many ideas and cool stories to share, but they'll never see the light of day.

These stories fail to consider survivor's bias and the numerous failed software, grand ideas, TikTok brands, and startups that you'll never see.

The richest ideas are the ones that failed due to one reason or another.

Most of the success stories had luck, opportunities, or advantages that can't be explained in a success story.

I truly believe the greatest ideas that failed are more relatable than the "multi-millionaire who sold a sponge or a comfortable blanket."

Most of us who have failed have nowhere here to share our stories, and neither do most people on the internet.

Imagine the stories, ideas, or interesting components of the guy who tried to start a virtual restaurant, sold funny shirts, had celebrity promotions but never got it off the ground.

Where are they?

The little guy never gets to share their upbringing because all these people get their dopamine from big stories/headlines from exceptional outliers.

I wanted to start a newsletter or Reddit where people share their interesting business stories that failed. I would learn much more from that.

(If this blows up, maybe I will)

https://www.failory.com/ started collecting stories of struggle. Often the people who shared their story also already worked on something new so liked to tell (link to) about that as well. I admit after reading a couple of dozen I lost in that genre, too, a lot of startup mistakes or life changes are, well, common. „I didn’t research the market well enough and my product didn’t reach product-market fit“ was common for example.

The thing that they don’t teach in any entrepreneurship school or say in any article that success is just merely a matter of luck, really, not your IQ, not your education, not your wit or grit, your network, not your funds, none of that, yes they might increase that luck factor or contribute to it overall, but ultimately it’s just a luck, that’s why some people realized that and took it as a gamble, keep releasing or starting new startups until you get lucky with one and eventually succeed.

Pretty sus.

Typical twitter techbro style one-liners.

>if I get upboats I will launch my PAID_PRODUCT

It's funny, maybe you can add yourself to the list of success stories that you're complaining about.

Maybe you know exactly what you're doing here.

Report back in a few months and let us know how your newsletter works out.

That said, if genuine, I know the feeling.

I know a lot of famous people. (STEM people, not the arts -- I'm not literally sitting in a cafe with Taylor Swift despite what Twitter may have told you)

I also knew a lot of people who never became famous who drove me to become an underground hacker.

Be EXTREMELY wary of any success story that doesn't give specific strategies beyond "work hard" lest you realize that selective silence boosted someone who's... not a monster... but shows up at the finish line to espouse ideas they shot down for decades.

Questioning of motives aside, this same framing comes up in plenty of places: "nobody ever talks about miscarriages/postpartum healing/whatever" is one I've heard frequently. The discussions you're looking for are more personal, and don't belong on the internet among strangers. You open up to people and they open up to you. Some things don't scale.

I'm interested! I haven't failed in anything interesting, but would definitely love to hear stories to learn from.

I actually share the same feeling as you do, for example here in Sweden it is very common that many salary or career discussions ends up in someone bragging about being a freelancer and making tons of money- but how many failed that and how?

most people err on the other side of the extreme by being too conservative limiting their potential based on the wrong belief that all successes are due to luck and they can't do anything about it.

Most people woule benefit by being more optimistic and taking more risks. In the modern world, most risks won't destroy you. But you will live a very mediocre life if you believe you dont have much control over external outcome or your own success

I 100% share that feeling and would love to read the stories of businesses that failed.

Survivor bias. People failing and letting their dreams die tend to not write about it as much. And people aren't as willing to read it. So those who wrote are the ones who have succeeded.

i know of two so called millions of dollars success stories first hand

both shared the same elements:

- theft of IP or sales leads

- unlikely events that lined up (luck) which made the business a success

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