Two Startups in 9 Months: Lessons Learned as a Technical Co-Founder

That is a strong point. What's interesting in your article is that one was "yet another social platform" and another is a marketing-style product targeted towards artists. While artists sort of care about marketing, they really are too busy for that.

I went through the validation stage and the feedback was not only honest but highly discouraging to say the least. It's disheartening to think that I put in so much time and thought into creating a prototype that got such a cold reception. Here I thought I was solving a problem and it turned out that no one thought the idea was any good. This is where loss-aversion can quickly take over and you just keep on looking for one or two yeses to get some courage.

Then again, after dropping the idea, I can't fight the suspicion that I am a spineless quitter.