Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

Hi friends, I've been making attempts for over 4 years now to make money from my pet-project and finally leave my job and never think of it again. I do small saas and. online projects (sites under amazon).

But I am saddened by the fact that I invest hundreds, thousands of hours of my personal time, spent 5 000$ on testing, experiments with advertising, quit my job, worked fulltime for the last year - and still still never managed to earn. My result is only $200. Heck, in all 4 years. I want to live this life, to see the beauty of the world - but instead I spend my life working hard and trying to pluck a star from the sky. I want to finally live this life. To be free.

I have a question for the community? Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you? I'm tired of trying, the work seems endless. I am grateful for everyone's advice.

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Life is just hard. I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going.

Someone told me that life and work and relationships are sometimes just pushing everything you have in a giant deep dark hole in the ground, and every now and then, something pops back out. If you're lucky, it makes it all worth it. The only way to know is to keep trying. Maybe you'll give up on all your hard work and be even more depressed, but eventually get a job that doesn't even seem good, but then the days get better and better and one night you feel pretty darn good before bed and your realize all that behind you was just part of the journey, and it's ok. Let yourself feel sad, doubt, fear, get it out, behind you, make room for the good. You will discover it, I'm sure of it. If it's really hard to keep going, then you're on the right path. Life just is not easy! Gl

Thank you, that's inspiring as hell. I guess that's the way it is.

They survived in the past by having low expectations and knowing hardship was a fact of life. And also that life was unfair to the extreme.

I would argue that they didn't survive, unless they were predisposed to it. If you were depressed 500 years ago you died.

I don't follow your take. If you were sick 500 years ago your survival chances were low. If you are sick today your survival chances are lower (but not as much). Why is depression any different ?

Depression must have had some survival value or it would have evolved out.

Same could be said of hunger or tiredness. In other words, depression can be an unwanted, but inevitable byproduct of our internal workings - same as being tired is.

My guess is it caused people to stay home and keep their head down when things were going badly. Which may have been functional in a violent tribal ancestral environment but maladapted for the modern world.

I disagree. Life 500 years ago was a constant struggle to stay alive. That left very little time to sit around and be depressed.

For those humans, at that time, who were mentally ill, I agree, they either died from exposure or were protected by other humans. That protection was expensive, though, and wasn't available to many families.

Why would you want to survive, though. Just for the sake of it?

Actually it feels somewhat unfair, how hard it is to die, nowadays. You literally have to commit a violent act towards your body to do it.

I'd love to just sort of blamelessly die by exposure or something. No fault of mine and no fucking life on Earth, thank you very much.

This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot.

For most of human history life was extremely hard, tons of death during child birth and diseases running rampant. Not to mention you don't have enough food.

Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone.

Not once in my life have I heard anybody saying life is unfair because they can't afford an iPhone (or a ps5 or whatever expensive but dispensable good), except from children or teenagers.

But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids. Or from people who couldn't afford an education at the right time to get their adult life on tracks.

Oh I've heard it from adults before. Were they acting like children? Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

> Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Damn Fair Labor Standards Act and that pesky National Child Labor Committee and that man, am I right ?

edit, because it scratches me:

> Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Don't know which specific past you are referring to but I'd venture to guess that there were far fewer of such inaccessible goods though.

Anyway. I'd rather live in a present where children (and adults ?) think life is unfair because they can't have an iPhone than a present in which children are forced to work in coal mines or plants so their whole family don't die from starvation.

That's not what's wrong with the world today.

Never once did I say that that is what is wrong with the world today.

Either I misread you or you at least implied it's a problem though:

> This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot.

> [..]

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone.

Or maybe you agree life is unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone, I don't know.

Apart from that... what's with the fixation on iPhones from people who bash on the poor and the supposed entitled ? Reading other threads iphones are the best bang for bucks (resale and quality, costs less per day than an android equivalent flagship or something) and then there's that TP quote "A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”" that is brought a lot... wouldn't that justify people complaining about not being able to buy quality stuff ?

Or is an iphone quality stuff for rich people but extravaganza for the poor ?

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

Or life is unfair for people who tried indie startup stuff but not the other people.

Is this a tribal thing ? A peer thing ?

Whatever.

I mean, spoiled people are spoiled no matter what year. It's not the best representation of an entire population.

I think it's more about how the current generation can't afford a lot of what the previous one had or even took for granted. Housing, education, the process of procurring a career; a few things that changed so radically that it creates a generational divide among contemporaries.

I think there was a very short time in human history where it was "the good life" where it was affordable and that was basically the 50s to the early 90s.

Other than that in human history things have been extremely hard.

> But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones...

> > But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

> And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones...

I don't think people who don't have a job have much money to spend on booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones (hey ! at least they don't complain how unfair life is because they don't have one !)... I also don't think people who work two jobs to barely make rent have much money left either for said activities and consuming...

Have you ever been poor? That's exactly what I saw more often than not when I was poor. Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

> Have you ever been poor? That's exactly what I saw more often than not when I was poor. Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

Yes, I have been poor. That prevented me from going to parties, buying drugs or alcohol (well it would have, had I been a user but I am not), paying tuition in time, paying the rent in time, sleeping in a bed because the rent wasn't paid in time, etc.

I am sorry but I won't continue this conversation. I lack the energy today to deconstruct the fucking argument that "poor are poor and it's on them and if only they wouldn't buy an iphone they would have it easier".

We obviously didn't live around the same kind of poor people and I don't have the energy today to put into arguments and words the Venn diagrams of the whole debate and why it's not relevant at all.

I still hate poor-blaming and rich/people-who-made-it pissing on the poor to stroke their ego and ignore the larger situation though.

> Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

Yeah, no. Not "many times". That's just vague blanket statements to comfort a certain world view. Not buying.

edit: just clicked with the "when I was poor" part.

There's a lot to be said about the context. For instance, squatters, hoboes, etc. are poor and spend money on booze/drugs and food if there's money left but that's all they have and if they have been in the system long enough they know about bank food and other kind of charities that can feed and house them when needed and incite them to keep on spending money on what is now something very close to addiction. All we would see from the exterior is how they spend money on drugs/gadgets/alcohol and complain but we are missing the spiral that led there.

I know poor people with jobs who still have to go to bank food to make rent and they are not in debt and they are not in any party/drug scene.

They don't have iphones though but they have smartphones (which is something you definitely need to navigate modern society).

edit 2: I hope I didn't come too harsh, not my intention.

edit 3: Anyway, what rich people buy and now what I complain I don't have is not an iphone but a vertu phone ! https://vertu.com/

edit 4: interesting thread from HN about poor people and iphone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13831763

edit 5: i was wondering why the conversation went from people complaining life is unfair to poor people buying unnecessary gadgets when I specifically didn't mention or stated that the people I described were poor (or described themselves as poor) but you actually conflated both (people spending money on unnecessary gadgets and the hard-working poor without money left for that):

> But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

> And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones... > > Have you ever been poor?

It's on my for not catching that sooner and letting the conversation crumble into the usual iphone-poor-blaming conversation.

> I am sorry but I won't continue this conversation. I lack the energy today to deconstruct the fucking argument that "poor are poor and it's on them and if only they wouldn't buy an iphone they would have it easier".

You seem to have continued the discussion (alone) to points that were way far from the initial conversation. It seems like you want to prove that the reality you see is the only truth in the world?

You seems to enjoy the monologue type of discussion with so many edits. No, you didn't come too harsh, you came too confused. There are many poor people out there that for lack of more information they have no idea how to do their budget and succumb (as easily as rich people) to carnal desires. Don't hate on people that think like that, if you wanna help them, do something to teach people how to budget.

> There's a lot to be said about the context. For instance, squatters, hoboes, etc. are poor and spend money on booze/drugs and food if there's money left but that's all they have

Alright. Why are we discussing by the way? Ah, you are discussing alone. You should check your mental health, john.

> It seems like you want to prove that the reality you see is the only truth in the world?

Bam, uno reverse card.

> Alright. Why are we discussing by the way?

Because you moved the goal post from my example of hard working people having no money but not complaining how life is unfair because they don't have an iphone to poor people partying and spending money on drugs and how life is unfair because they don't have an iphone (even though in your example they spent money on an iphone but hey, I get it, honest mistake, people do it all the time when they want to trash poor people. Just let chatgpt write your arguments next time.) and because of this:

> > Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

> Yeah, no. Not "many times". That's just vague blanket statements to comfort a certain world view. Not buying.

> Alright. Why are we discussing by the way? Ah, you are discussing alone. You should check your mental health, john.

Fuck you too, Alan :).

They also had strong communities in many cultures/cases. Community, "sharing the load", and having a sense of purpose (e.g. kids, community members) helps a huge amount.

Well said!

" I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going."

You can get a glimpse of this in Tolkein's "The Monsters and the Critics"[1]: "in a little circle of light about their halls, men with courage as their stay went forward to that battle with the hostile world and the offspring of the dark which ends for all, even the kings and champions, in defeat. "

The idea that courage, or any virtue, will be rewarded - and its (less theologically correct) corollary so that if you are not rewarded, your courage or virtue must be suspect - is a Christian one[2], flowing from the idea that the universe is just. Indomitability, and unyielding will were valorised in earlier times, and given respect even if the only result were defeat. For are not even the gods part of time, doomed to be defeated at its end by the ice giants? "the gods, who are defeated, think that defeat no refutation.". So thought the pagans.

I'm not presenting this as a model for the OP, or anyone else. By all means look for success in a different way! But perhaps the idea that defeat does not invalidate your effort and courage is of some comfort.

[1]https://jenniferjsnow.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/11790039-j...

If you have a strong enough “Why”, then you can tolerate any “How”.

Wanting to be your own boss, or having the ability to freely travel the world are both a great “Why” to create the activation energy to take the risk and start. But in my experience, it’s rarely a strong enough motivator to help someone persist through 4+ years without any meaningful wins.

The strongest "Why" usually involves serving something other than yourself. For some founders I’ve invested in, it’s a specific group of people (e.g. patients with a particular disease), or protecting something specific about the natural environment. Those people I have seen tolerate extreme suffering - to the point that I have had to physically bite my tongue in conversations where I wanted to tell them to stop and give up (but I never did - better a cut tongue than adding my opinion/ego to their burden). Some of those founders ultimately failed, others found enough wins and are still going (and suffering), a tiny number experienced wild success.

So if you want to persist, then an interesting question is "Who" or "What" are you serving besides yourself?

A separate but related question is how long can your personal cash flow sustain this?

Good luck!

Amazing answer.

I don't have this sort of experience with founders to validate the specific claim that it needs to be about more than you - to give you the reason to keep going.

But I do have my own personal life experience in general... I've been a pretty self centered person in my motivation throughout my life. But eventually I reached a point where my drive just dried up. A deep and persistant despair began to infect everything I tried to do. What was the point of it... even if I succeeded somehow, it was all just going to be more of ME at the end of it. And I was pretty sick of me.

Strangely, it was a cat that saved me. A neighbours cat I used to walk past in the mornings as it was enjoying a winter sunbeam. I'd give it an ear scratch which it appreciated greatly. And I realised that interaction was giving me more pleasure / amusement than any of the big, important projects going on in my life at the time. Making some thing's / one's life better - even in some small way - is the raison d'etre I was missing. It's so obvious and simple to me now - yet somehow I'd gone through half my life blind to it.

Now I call it: the principle of the cat. It gets a laugh out of people, when I tell them that story.

I've always said it's about the fans. Even when we're making a credit card or something, the fact that people create entire groups to discuss the product is pretty cool.

Why do you want so hard to start a business? Why not spend your precious time, money and effort on something else? If what motivates you is willingness to change the world - you can do so by working for a non-profit organization. If you want to earn money - you can be a regular employee.

> Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you?

It is NOT work. I try to work as little as possible. Being a programmer, it is not so hard to earn a good living while working part-time. I'm an urban activist and a guerilla gardener. I spend a lot of time talking to neighbors in our community garden I started :) I also signed up for a literature and creative writing course at the university (in Poland studying is free, I know that's not the case in the US).

Work doesn't have to be the most important thing in your life.

Not the OP, but strongly identify with a lot of what they’ve said, so, my perspective:

> Why do you want so hard to start a business? Why not spend your precious time, money and effort on something else? If what motivates you is willingness to change the world - you can do so by working for a non-profit organization. If you want to earn money - you can be a regular employee.

For me it’s agency. I want the freedom to succeed and fail on my own. I’m sick of spending tons of effort on projects that are doomed from the start due to mismanagement. I’m tired of being micro-managed on every decision I make. It’s like some law of organizational structure: if you find the manager who won’t micro-manage you, the company will restructure until you get one who does. I don’t want to be the cog in the machine any more, but I don’t have the political skills to rise the corporate ladder into a position of actual decision-making.

Compared to all that, starting and maintaining a business completely from scratch seems like the easy option. :)

Ok, I understand that, but why do you want to have this agency in business specifically? Why the focus on tying your agency to making money?

> Why the focus on tying your agency to making money?

Because other fun hobbies of mine include food and shelter. ;)

Yeah, no, entrepreneurship isn’t necessarily my end goal in life, but I will say it’s been a passion of mine from a young age (even before I knew what “work” really was like). But sure, if I could find some other way to live my life, without a need (or at least a significantly lessened need) to make money to continue to pursue those kinds of passions, I’d take it. I just don’t know what you’re getting at, I guess.

Could I pursue something with more agency outside of work? Yes. But work is such a humongous drain on energy and time that it leaves little of either for doing anything outside of it.

>why do you want to have this agency in business specifically?

Is there any way to succeed financially without being bound to corporate, and not have a business in some way? Be it gig economy, consulting, independent creation, or a traditional brick and mortar establishment, you at the end of the day have a brand/image to sell to customers that you want money from. It all comes down to business.

The only alternative is to be a stay at home parent, but that's becoming less and less an option in this day and age.

>Why the focus on tying your agency to making money?

Money is power, and power can lead to freedom. If many of us had 10m dollars tomorrow we'd probably take a very different approach to the next few decades of life.

Money isn't the end goal, just the (literal) currency to establishing the end goal people actually desire.

You can stop tying your success and agency to work things. Find another avenue for that feeling instead. Then the micro-managers and dysfunctional businesses cannot get in the way of your success. Then a job is just something that pays the bills.

>You can stop tying your success and agency to work things.

I could. For my specific goals it's not easy, though. Ultimately my goal isn't money but to help others. And that takes time and energy for the sake of others.

I don't necessarily need all the money (I know my career choices won't pay FAANG salaries), but if I can make enough money to focus full time on assisting others and not split my remaining free time on essentially doing more work, that's just optimal usage of my time here.

This might sound harsh, but:

Maybe the wise choice is to change the path? That feeling of resignation, while a bitter pill to swallow, might be a good thing in the end. I used to beat myself over for not working hard and dedicating myself to my ideas, yet a few years down the line it became obvious the startups I wanted to build would have been made obsolete by other tech. I've dodged a few wasted years, a burnout or straight-up insanity right there. Trust your gut.

Why do something you are not enjoying? Life is short, it might end faster than you think. The people close to you can also disappear sooner than you think. Try to make the most of it. It's not all about making it big and being successful/rich.

Something to think about. Thank you.

After 4 years of $0, I'm not sure it's a matter of finding the strength to keep going. Something in your target market doesn't seem to be working out.

If you can, find experienced friends that are willing to tell you the ugly truth about your business effort. Talk more to your potential customers. Did you just happen to pick the wrong market?

I think all markets are currently saturated. What market do you think is easily available for solo hustlers?

There isn't any easy markets, making even a few hundred bucks a month as a solo dev is vastly harder than just working a 9-5.

It sounds like you spent 4 years building a product before you even knew if anyone would use it. That's a terrible idea, but a good learning experience.

I wouldn't give up (perhaps you need to give up on your current product though).

What you need to do is evaluate _why_ the product isn't selling. Who's the ideal customer? Can you get on a call with some of them and put it in their hands and get actual feedback? Figure out if you need to abandon the product or not. Stop building. Focus entirely on marketing and sales.

Next time, don't go so deep on the building phase until you have people handing you money.

For reference, I recently came up with a new product idea. I did some searching to figure out if any competition exists and I found none. That's horrifying. I almost immediately gave up the idea entirely on the spot.

However, I randomly met someone that was an ideal customer (while dropping my kids off at school) and they immediately said they would pay $200/month for that and asked when they could try it. Not only that, they said they knew 2-3 other people that would as well. I ended up meeting two other ideal customers that said the same thing and one even asked if they could invest in it.

I'm still not entirely sure-- but those are strong signals that people will put up money for it, but it doesn't mean they will. I am still nervous but decided to go ahead and build an mvp and see if the idea has legs.

What kind of signals are your ideal customers giving you?

I spent four years trying to get my startup to revenue. I created something that I thought would be useful for its niche audience, but nobody wanted it in the end.

I was so burned-out from the experience that I had to stop for my own mental health. I got a normal job three years ago.

Since putting the startup on indefinite hold, I've been able to learn new sports, buy a home, and generally enjoy my life without the constant feeling that I had to be working more and spending less. My life got dramatically better.

So while I would have preferred that the startup succeeded, walking away after four years was far better than continuing down that path. And because the technology I had built was really impressive, it only took a couple months for me to get a job paying more than I ever had before.

Diversify and find some reasonable balance:

1. XX% of life is dedicated to chasing your startup ideas

2. YY% of life is dedicated to earning bread and butter (salary work, contracts, not necessary stable and continuous)

3. ZZ% of life is dedicated to what you enjoy: hobbies, time with family, travels

You can try to combine (1) and (3), aka try to build life style business in the area you have passion.

About 7 years ago now I'd say I had an identity crisis. Startup life is rough whether you're working for someone or on your own. I've done both. I wanted to find work life balance but that stressed me out more.

Ultimately, Jiro Dreams of Sushi kinda re-ignited that building passion for me. I read some books that made me realize I give to many F*s about things that don't matter. I have my day job and am doing things I'm proud of on the side and oh-ya I have a family and work life balance now some how.

I guess looking back, it was about finding the right mix of what I want to spend my time on day-in-day-out, and matching it with the right people and work around me. It was about seeking out and trying different things until I found the "happy path" for me.

I want to build cool stuff people use, but I hate feeling like I'm in free fall. I'll end up choosing the 30% risky path these days, and maybe that doesn't make a billion dollar startup but I don't really care. Or maybe it will because I'm just building stuff I want shrug

After making your prototypes, did you ever go up to a potential customer and get their opinion? The stuff you mentioned in the post doesn't sound like you had any feedback/validation

This is the MOST important step #1 to be able to get to "that life".

if no-one wants what you have produced, which seems to be the case here, produce something else. or find yourself a full-time job doing something that you enjoy. i don't see any other alternatives.

Work to live, don't live to work. Freely pursue, build and expand what _you_ value. This will make you happy. When you are happy, this will attract people who want what you have. Invest in yourself, next sell this value you have to those people. Everything you ever did was not in vain because it created who you are today. Invest in yourself - not material wealth or value for others - above all else. Don't undertake affairs that don't make you happy.

I don't know the answer. But I just want to say that you're not alone. One of the things that motivates me to study ML is I want to help create a world where everyone can be free to pursue their passions, to be... the most human they can be. (I also really love studying mathematics and intelligence, so it aligns well) There are so many things that frustrate me about the area I work in, but I think these things will always exist. I think it is best to just focus on your passion and not others. But it is also difficult to focus on your passions when you have to worry about living. I don't want to say that the answer is to go back and get a traditional job. It may be the answer due to environmental constraints, but I hope not.

So the little advice I have is to remember what made you passionate in the first place. Don't think about others and how you compare, think about yourself. I think the motivation dies when you lose that passion or that passion gets tainted. If it means taking other work, then do that. If it doesn't, then that's great! But no matter what, make sure there is something in your life that you can find passion and joy in doing. If you don't have this thing, all other things fall apart.

Do you believe that what you are working on will really help free people to work on their passions? Every other efficiency increase has gone to line the pockets of the already-rich. I have lost hope for a brighter world. I can find happiness in my own life, but I find a bitter rage grows in me each day against the owners of the means of production.

“We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.”

> Do you believe that what you are working on will really help free people to work on their passions? Every other efficiency increase has gone to line the pockets of the already-rich.

It is actually something I'm really concerned about and have put a lot of thought into. But yes, I do think it will. I don't know how to solve the momentum or "gravitational" problem, or whatever we want to call the fact that having more resources makes it easier to get more resources. But I think if you look at the long term trend, we have always seen human lives improve. But this is not always true for short term trends and the swings can be rough. It is not a smooth function, it has a lot of noise.

I think post scarcity is one of the most important problems we can be working on. But there's a lot more than technology to get there. I want a lot more people thinking about how to transition to a post scarce society. What do we do when say 10% of people cannot be employed because you've automated their jobs (and no replacement. Not to mention replacement is still usually rough)? It will take a complete restructuring of our economic systems, the way we measure value of people, and so much more. But I don't think this should stop us. I want to get people thinking about this before we have to solve it with blood. But I'm only one person. This will happen with or without me. With me, at least I can help steer the ship.

Fundamentally I think these issues are about being short sighted. A lot is about how we measure and compare, missing all the nuances and interactions. How alignment drifts and there's never perfect alignment. I think even the rich benefit from the poor living better lives, but I think this is not obvious if you live in a world where you're the main character.

It is a bet. I can't predict the future and either way is a bet. We live in a causal universe, there is no such thing as inaction. But I think the potential benefits are worth the risks. We can make humans more free than any human of any status has ever been in all of history. More free than the post powerful and richest of kings. But you are correct to note that this same power can be used to for a novel form of abuse. But it is hard to say if this will be worse off as much of human (historical) life has been extremely tragic. I have faith in people that they will fight tooth and nail to go back. But I'm unsure if we have the foresight to do things the "right" way. We definitely have the capacity, but it seems we waste a lot of our potential getting caught up in the moment.

Edit: I listen to a lot of GSY!BE and F#A#∞ is my favorite album, so that line hit hard.

Edit 2:

> but I find a bitter rage grows in me each day against the owners of the means of production.

I feel this too, but I think we must be careful. It is easy to let this feeling metastasize and corrupt. For it to accumulate in the culture and misalign from what caused the feelings in the first place. And when that happens, we may have killed the beast but to only create a new one. So rage against __the__ machine, but be careful that this does not cause you to hate all machines nor to replace one devil with another. For the path to hell is paved with good intentions, not because of any ill will or malice, but because the divine path is treacherous and deceptive. Little mistakes easily lead us astray because we are navigating an incredibly complex maze. So do not fear the man that preaches good and evil, fear the man who preaches simplicity. For that's what our little minds want, and will make us true believers. No malice needed, only laziness.

So do not go gentle into that good night. Rage against the dying light. But remember that the light never dies. Nor does the darkness.

Much love, I agree completely. I hope we can find a way to bring justice and care back into this world.

Fwiw, I think things are coupled. The more we free people the more power we give them to free others. I think this is part of why we continue to progress. But don't lose track of the overall trend while trying to fix the local "noise."

Hard work and struggle doesn't take anybody closer to success, it never has. It is one of the most common false beliefs and even false gods.

Do you think a panther struggles to fell its prey? No, it is a pleasure for the panther, it's a game.

Your approach is wrong. You shouldn't keep going with your failed pet project, you should abandon it and start something else. Be happy that you've only earned $200. Imagine if you were in the situation that you were earning more but still not as much as you should? Then it would be much harder to let go.

If you're looking for a project, something to turn into your own business, you will have to try several different things. And do not invest too much in them before you get returns. Sometimes you have a great offer, but nobody wants to talk to you. Why? Because people are idiots a lot of the time. There's nothing you can do about that.

Start some new projects, see what sparks an interest among others, and investing more of your time and effort when you see that you are getting returns. Abandon the projects without returns.

I make a living selling a service to the general public, that I personally don't consider a huge value add. But people are very eager to buy it, so why shouldn't I sell it?

I had another service I tried to sell that would have been an enormous value add for business clients. Like an all pros and no cons service, and I could easily demonstrate to them how they could save many thousands with the service per month while at the same time making their lives easier. Guess what? Nobody even wanted to talk to me. Sometimes there's a brick wall for no logical reason.

So try different approaches and follow the flow.

An older monk and a novice were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.
The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.
Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river and placed her gently on the other side and carried on his journey.
The novice couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.
Two more hours passed, then three, finally the novice could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted to touch a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river a while ago, why are you still carrying her?”

Hope it doesn't look patronizing and helps.

It just occurred to me that other humans act as external memory storage... like when you suddenly remember something... that's how I feel reading this story for the Nth time over the last decade.

Don't get married to a project. If you don't get traction you should do something else. Business is ultimately about serving customers not about building the thing you want to build. If the customers won't buy it then its not fit for purpose. The exact time you should spend before pivoting isn't hard and fast but 4 years is well into the "its not working out" territory.

Life is both short and unpredictable so wasting years without a return is nor a merit neither a skill issue, it's worse - it's bad strategy.

I am in the same boat, but for me it has been 10 years working on it and I stopped mostly doing anything else a few years ago and focusing 100% on this. I know should do something as not even competitors are closing 10m$+ investment rounds with incredibly low quality products compared to mine. I just don't live in san francisco and i don't know investors. Anyway: I am going to keep pushing, I guess my belief in the product and in myself is what keeps me going. After 10 years I still jump out of bed in the middle of the night to fix something or write a new feature i've been mulling. That's more important than money to me, but money we can unfortunately not go without in this life.

If only there was some program that could Combine You with investors and other business savyy people ;) Joke aside - wether it is investors or customers you are looking for, you gotta get out there. The quality of your product is all in vain if it does not reach your target audience.

Well in this case target means I guess people who pay as 100k+ people use it all day long, they just refuse to pay.

Yes, without paying customers there can be no business. It is great that you have such a userbase! Now you only have to convert a reasonable percentage into paying customers, somehow! If they are not interested in paying for what you have now, then you must identify what they would be willing to pay for. Better is to try figure out, what would they really love to pay for? Which problems do your users have that they would like to pay to get rid of (or substantially reduce)?

I wrote a blog post* about this from a more "marketing" point of view. I can really feel like an uphill battle but I think the trick is to learn to love the journey more than the end goal.

Do things that don't scale so you don't invest too much money in it, find ways of doing it cheap. Balance your time working on startup projects as a hobby with another fulltime job and family life. Be ok if it doesn't go anywhere. Change ideas if the one you're working on does not pan out. Be happy you work on something you love working on - even if it is a slow process.

And in the end, one of your ideas will probably take off!

*briefmix.com/startup/trough-of-sorrow

Just sharing this as a different point of view that might help you get out of the rut, it's not meant to discourage you...

Hollywood, social media are all glorifying the hustle culture, keeping us all delusional that if you just keep working hard, in the end it will all be right. "Don't ever give up because you only lose if you give up".

That's all fine and dandy and makes for great movies, and YouTube videos, but in reality, some people should just give up, or at least instead of working longer and harder, they should really think about why they keep failing.

Maybe you need to touch some grass, find a hobby, be less obsessed with whatever it is you try building. Maybe you aren't listening to your customers, or you're terrible at sales, marketing, product, design, software development or all of the above.

Sometimes, the best decision is to give up and move on to new things in life, and do what you enjoy instead of hoping you'll be Mark Zuckerberg.

(based on personal experience: for so long I wanted to be a physicist because I didn't want to "give up", not realizing that I can just "write off" the university years in my mind, and move on with my life. The moment I did that, I felt free, doubled down on software development that I actually enjoy and I'm good at, giving up was the best decision in my life and I wish I did that sooner)

I became free by working for salary (or daily rate, when contracting), saving most of my paycheck, and retiring on the savings. It's the easiest, most fool-proof way.

I have the opposite problem, but I hope sharing it helps you reflect on your future paths. I hope you don't dwell on the past - it was a learning period, and all that matters is tomorrow. For me, I only start projects that I have a clear vision of how they will end. My most successful projects were driven by a strong sense of what I wanted to achieve. I faced some challenges, but I quickly made a working prototype. I hate wasting time so much that I avoid taking on complex projects, which I'm sure limits my potential.

Why are you starting a business? Starting a business is for people who want to work very hard for little to no money, on the off chance it becomes successful and self sustaining and finally they can take some time off. You’ve already seen this for yourself.

What you really should strive for is a remote job that lets you work from anywhere and pays you well, ideally contributing to something fulfilling in life.

Entrepreneurship culture these days is toxic and the opposite of the “ideal” life.

>I want to finally live this life

I'm not sure your situation but assuming you are a programmer in a high wage country you can have quite a lot of fun going off packing SE Asia and similar and living by beaches, jungles for not much money for a few months. Then you'll probably get an idea for a plan B when bored with the beaches.

Watch a series called American Dynasty. Many of the most successful people in history because so, in part, because a stroke of luck. They had many setbacks before they caught their break, but it was ultimately luck that allowed their venture to take flight. Had they given up sooner we likely would have never known who they were.

Yes, as they say 90% is just turning up.

Being smart and working hard might pay the bills but are not enough for 'success'. As above, it seems many if not most successful people seem to have caught a break; been in the right place at the right time, discovered some little trick or loophole, etc.

It might sound trite but... It's all about the journey. If you're not enjoying the journey, try a different route.

I've been working on my "start-up" for over 10 years now and it's great fun! I'm sure there are loads of things that we could have done differently but I suspect that would have been less fun.

I'm currently working on my own project almost full-time, and what keeps me going is that I really want that product to exist and I see others might like it as well, even though it barely breaks even with ads/revenue ratio.

Having a stable, high-paying job is the 2nd best thing to getting incredibly lucky (being born into a trust fund, or stroke of luck to be part of a unicorn company).

Being your own boss is overrated (when it comes to earning money specifically).

Hopefully you learned a lot or made a product/code you personally find useful/reusable.

For me personally, any side project I make scratches an itch I have so at the end of the day, if it flops, I'll still use it.

Ease up, build toys instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27812192

I was deep in debt, liver was failing (swelling), got set up at work by a psycho who wanted a promotion, working thirteen to eighteen hours a day in abusive environment, had PTSD with night terrors, and other stuff was going on.

The sheer number of improbable events almost seemed like the universe itself was working against me. I felt a realization that I was paying for the evil choices I made. Asking God, if He’s real, for a sign about that led to me experiencing an actual miracle that turned my beliefs on their head. I professed Jesus Christ and everything changed. My PTSD and night terrors were cured, too.

The new foundation helped. Now, I know God made us to love Him first in a relationship, reflect His character, and love each other as ourselves. Our own evils toward God and each other incur His wrath. The very evils in the Bible that wrecked countries are what happen today. Yet, I know God loved us enough to take flesh as Jesus Christ, set a perfect example, die for our sins so we can be forgiven, and dwells in us. He has an eternal future of love, joy, and peace for all who follow Him. I put more on GetHisWord.com with proof.

With that foundation, I can answer your question. Those who truly believe in Christ receive God’s Spirit who grants an inner peace and joy that’s always there. We also know Rom. 8:28 says He works all things for our good. Our suffering builds character. Every good act toward God and others is rewarded later but often blessed now, too. We can also give people the Gospel, the gift we’re given, in our communities, work, etc. Then, they’re saved from wrath, receive God’s peace, and become instruments of His will.

Last year was one of my hardest. Yet, I definitely had more peace and purpose than many others with more material things. Also, God answers our prayers in specific, noticeable ways which are awesome to watch. He even healed one person’s kid we prayed for. I’m so grateful for this new life.

Not sure of the specifics, but I can guarantee you are not listening to your customers enough. This is the make or break hurdle for most businesses.

You can still set this project down.

Even right now.

It does not seem to be providing any kind of satisfying outcome for you.

May be set it down.

And tell yourself you will consider revisiting it in 6 months or a year.

Running a company is hardly an answer if you want to be free and live life.

misery loves company. consider bringing on a business partner who knows product-market-fit, marketing and sales.

disclaimer: i have never (yet) tried to build a saas business.

> I have a question for the community? Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you? I'm tired of trying, the work seems endless.

The first thing I try to remember (and this is really hard, during those times it feels like a blatant lie) is that things change and you get out of the rut.

Accepting the mental storms, knowing they will pass, and having faith that somehow, somewhere in that fog there's something gestating, something moving, that will take shape only after the fog clears, that's helpful.

And when I'm not in that storm, knowing that it will come eventually, and welcoming it instead of constantly wishing it away, I try to prepare the ground for my future depressed-self, to make his life easier.

I want to finally live this life.

should read as:

I live this life.

IMO. All the best.

Being your own boss and seeing the beauty of the world are both extremely modern tropes, I'm not saying they're bad in and of themselves but they certainly aren't the be-all and end-all. Lots of tech people become miserable and insufferable trying to follow that dream

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