Tell HN: My confidence in my new startup seems extremely fragile

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3049400

4 3 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm exactly where I want to be. Back to square one of starting up. With the emotional ups and downs, including the exhilarating ups and the heart-crushing downs.

As a protectional armor of resilience against fear of failure I have redefined my success metric from "making a billion bucks" to the oh-so-modest "learning a lot every day".

And it seems I really do enjoy the success of learning a lot every day. I very rarely achieve the same feeling of reward as when I actually am in the process of doing something I never did before.

But. It doesn't take much at all in some situations, to just ruin my confidence. A mundane comment from someone I meet along the lines of "so... is this something you are really going to do?" or "are you still working on the same idea? what was it, something about a camera?" and my heart is very prone to sinking right through my chest. Plops down into the pit of my stomach and decides to hide out there for probably the rest of the day. And I really have to work on getting my mood and confidence back up.

It's still worth it though, a thousand times over. It was a very conscious decision to get back on the roller coaster and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.

Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

AndrewGCook• 15 years ago

As a fellow founder, I experience the ups-and-downs of the start-up roller coaster everyday. One of my favorite quotes from Founders at Work comes from Joe Kraus, one of the creators of Excite:

“The hardest part in a startup is that you wake up one morning and you feel great about the day, and you think, “We’re kicking ass.” And then you wake up the next morning and you think “We’re dead.” And literally nothing’s changed. You haven’t made some big deal, you haven’t sold something new. Maybe you wrote a few lines of code over the course of that last day. Maybe you had some conversations with people, but nothing’s really moved. It’s completely irrational, but it’s exactly what you go through.”

It's easy to let yourself get down in the dumps by what other people say. One bad though of defeatism can ruin you entire day. It's also easy to combat it in a few small ways:

- Commit code everyday - If you do this, you'll see your small gains adding up, have a record of what you've learned, and everyday feel like you've made at least some progress. Even if it's a small change (changing a color on a button you've been looking at for weeks), nothing makes you feel better than commit and deploying code.

- Find a great cofounder - If you're serious about starting a new start-up (or just learning more in general), find someone to go into battle with you. You'll feel off each other's energy in a ying-yang sort of way. When you're bummed, their natural tendency will be to protect you and pump you up. When s/he is bummed, you'll do the same.

Find a rock - Not many people talk about rock's as a necessary part of starting a company. To me, a rock is someone who you trust greatly, is a good listener, and is removed from the business. It can be boy/girlfriend, husband/wife, friend, mentor, practically anyone. The key to a good rock is they are objective, a good listener, and won't even judge you.

Just start - There's nothing like finding out whether you should go on the journey than to take a few steps and see how you feel.

If jumping back on the start-up roller coaster is what you want, then enjoy the ride.

md1515• 15 years ago

I'm a first time entrepreneur right now and the answer is "yes". I feel the same thing.

I've spent so long getting things designed and prepped and ready to go yet no matter what I do it feels like my expectations are not met. I guess I am optimistic by nature and I try to bring down my estimates to fit, but they still end up failing.

Oh well...I need to really start focusing more on learning. That is a good attitude. The more you learn now, the more you make at a future startup

PonyGumbo• 15 years ago

I'm right there with you, but unless they're your target audience, it really doesn't matter what they think. Being an entrepreneur is kind of like having a really obscure hobby. Unless the people you meet are into the same stuff (i.e. vintage trampoline collecting), they can only reasonably only have so much interest (and tolerance) for your weirdness.

Tell HN: My confidence in my new startup seems extremely fragile

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