Ask HN: How did you find the courage to try again?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7828873

by rblion • 12 years ago

10 12 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I really could use a Gandalf right now...

I'm 24 and from Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up playing with LEGOs and computers. I began to dream of building a "world changing" startup at 17 motivated by the problems I saw in the American education system. I started learning design and code to build a MVP before my 20th birthday. I gave up before launching after seeing projects like Khan Academy, Knewton, and Coursera come out. The domain I owned was www.academiia.com, my original choice was already owned and the guy wanted at least $100,000. At least I learned a lot before starting college...

After that, I took on a design and marketing job at Myriann (www.myriann.com) while taking classes at a community college. I worked on TalkHotels.com and RoomSailor.com among many other projects. I had to leave because I felt burnt out from working on things that didn't excite me. I had notebooks full of ideas and UI's for problems that should be solved but haven't been by the looks of HN and Twitter. I knew I couldn't waste any more time not living my dreams...

I quit the job and dropped out to take some time off to "collect myself" and in the process went through depression, a bad breakup, and even suicidal thoughts knowing that I had nothing to live for if I couldn't help solve world problems through my technology. I thought I'd missed my chance because all the great founders were way ahead of me at this age, that no investor wants someone outside of California and NYC, and without a degree no one would give me a job if all else fails. Unhealthy thinking looking back in hindsight.

Right now, I work at a financial company working on the hardware and software for ATM machines. I study design and code for hours every day because some new ideas I have keep me up at night like when I first started on this path. I don't want to go back to school and waste more time. I want to save enough and apply for App Academy or something similar as a fall back plan. I just have to be a player on the field and not a spectator in the stands. My soul will be crushed if I don't realize my potential.

How did you get back up after failing? After seeing other people create what you envisioned? After burnout? After seeing all the media about brogrammers and sexism? With the neverending talks of a coming bubble? Please help a brother out. I'm sure I'm not the only one needing some guidance. Thanks.

amac• 12 years ago

Keep going. Seriously, even folks that are 'successful' by any measure have probably been through multiple failures. That's life, and you deal with it by continuing to try.

tptacek• 12 years ago

Tangent: you probably have no idea what all the reasons you have to live are. Your reasons could end up including raising a child, or being a support to a life partner, or starting an important cause, or maybe just performing some tiny act of charity when you're 58 years old that unbeknownst to you ends up saving someone's life. The most important purpose for your life could change in a matter of months, or even weeks. You haven't come close to fully exploring the graph of potential influences you'll have on the world.

Even if you constrain your horizon to "solving world problems through technology" --- which seems awfully limited compared to the full gamut of ways any of our lives can make a difference --- it's incredibly hard to predict how and when your technical achievements will make a dent in the world. Maybe it'll be some open source library you write over a weekend when you're 34, just to scratch an itch, and that thing takes on a life of its own. Maybe in a few years you'll get captivated by some branch of technology (image processing. machine learning. statistical filters. information retrieval.) and compulsively become expert at it, and the industry will shift towards needing exactly that expertise. Or maybe you'll end up writing a book that helps tens of professionals build things that end up changing the world. Who knows? It's impossible to predict. Even if we consider the ways in which banal technology work can influence the world, the potential for impact is practically unbounded.

Your life is not on a schedule. You could stop working on technology for 5 years, starting tomorrow. You could instead become a roofer, working 35 hour weeks on the tops of houses sweating through your clothes and pounding Gatorade. In 2019, you could pick technology back up. You will still have approximately the same potential for impact. I know this because I've watched friends do it.

All this is not to talk you out of your feelings or negate your perspective. Rather, I mean to suggest that if setbacks in a technology career cause you to feel suicidal, you should urgently seek help. You are not the only person that this has happened to; far, far from it. You probably have a better support system than you think. Engage it fully.

qohen• 12 years ago

Tangent: ... or maybe just performing some tiny act of charity when you're 58 years old that unbeknownst to you ends up saving someone's life.

A tangent on the tangent: this reminds me of the following, which I just happened to come across a few hours ago -- the quote (and others) comes from a post[1] endeavoring to defend the man from charges of misanthropy, etc. -- from the letters of one H.P. Lovecraft [2]:

About the time I joined the United I was none too fond of existence. I was 23 years of age, and realised that my infirmities would withhold me from success in the world at large. Feeling like a cipher, I felt that I might well be erased. But later I realised that even success is empty. Failure though I be, I shall reach a level with the greatest — and the smallest — in the damp earth or on the final pyre. And I saw that in the interim trivialities are not to be despised. Success is a relative thing — and the victory of a boy at marbles is equal to the victory of an Octavius at Actium when measured by the scale of cosmic infinity.

That I have been able to cheer here and there and aged man, an infirm old lady, a dull youth, or a person deprived by circumstances of education, affords to me a sense of being not altogether useless, which almost forms a substitute for the real success I shall never know. What matter if none hear of my labours, or if those labours touch only the afflicted and the mediocre?

Surely it is well that the happiness of the unfortunate be made as great as possible; and he who is kind, helpful, and patient, with his fellow-sufferers, adds as truly to the world’s combined fund of tranquillity as he who, with greater endowments, promotes the birth of empires, or advances the knowledge and civilisation of mankind. Thus no man of philosophical cast, however circumscribed by poverty or retarded by ailment, need feel himself superfluous so long as he holds the power to improve the spirits of others.

[1] http://radishmag.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/cosmic-horror/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

rblion2• 12 years ago

A tangent on the tangent. lol. priceless.

Thanks for sharing that. I will read that over and over as I try yet another experiment.

I truly believe in the power of tools to improve the human condition. We also have the good fortune of being able to shape the future with the tools we use every day, no other generation has had the ability to communicate with the entire planet! There are infinite possibilities with what we can create and how we can move our species forward.

I have added H.P. Lovecraft to my reading list. I need to get back into sci-fi again.

helen842000• 12 years ago

I see no failure in this. Just a constant drive to do more that is wearing you out. You recognise potential in yourself which is keeping your focus on the future. The thought of 'why hasn't it happened already' is detracting from finding what makes you happy in the here and now. There's a balance that needs to be struck.

You seem focused on changing the world for everyone when in reality you can change the world of just one person or a handful of people and have that matter just as much.

I think you may find some of the motivation you need by starting small and creating & shipping something tiny. You need to get to the part of the feedback loop where people are using what you have made and you have an asset for yourself.

Your projects don't know if you have a degree or care if investors are on the horizon. What matters is they are enjoyed, finished and used.

staunch• 12 years ago

Move to Silicon Valley maybe?

adventured• 12 years ago

Ok, you've got some bad ideas that need cleaned out. You're young, and assuming you keep going you'll probably get around to that over time like most people do, but I'll try to help on a few things.

First of all, HN and Twitter do not have big problems that need solved around their UIs. When you look at them, you see perceived flaws, but generally speaking those flaws do not matter. People sometimes make the mistake of placing too much emphasis on something because it's what they're particularly interested in, they assume the sun rotates around their favorite thing. What matters is whether users like the product, not whether the UI is mind blowing. HN has a UI choice, not a UI problem. Simple is always better than complex, less is more. You don't build UI to fulfill your ego and show how great a UI wizard you are, you do it to make it easy for a person to interact with a product. When something works, don't 'fix' it on the basis that it isn't ideal. Don't seek out solutions where there are not real problems, you'll just burn your time making a small impact that way. Anyone can look at Craigslist and think that it has a design problem for example; it doesn't: it does what it should and nothing more, whether it's pretty or not does not matter.

Second, you're looking at failure wrong. Failure is your best friend, it will teach you how to become a great entrepreneur. Every time you endure the pain that goes with it, embrace it, dissect it and absorb all the wisdom it has to offer. Zuckerberg has failed a lot, even though Facebook has succeeded overall; he's the first to admit that. Those failures have taught him, molded him, made him better, and without them he could not run Facebook.

If you remain overly scared of failure, then that will make you a terrible entrepreneur, because that kind of fear is crippling. There's a proper middle ground, between recognizing the risk of failure + not wanting to fail, and keeping it out of your mind when it shouldn't be occupying your thoughts (obsessing over it will just paralyze your thinking when it's most critical that you be acting).

Once you see failure is not something that will kill you, and you understand that you will fail many times throughout life no matter what you do, then it stops being an all powerful monster chasing you in your dreams, and it becomes a simple 'thing' you manage as part of the routine.

All the great founders were not way ahead of you at your age. Quite the opposite. You're falling for a hyper romanticized myth that is nothing more than a media lie. Larry Ellison was 33 when he founded Oracle, he's worth 45 billion dollars. Let that sink in for a moment. He's one of the greatest entrepreneurs in history. Larry Page was 25 when he founded Google. Jeff Bezos was 30 when he founded Amazon. Pierre Omidyar was 28 when he founded eBay. Len Bosack was 32 when he founded Cisco with Sandy Lerner. Mitch Kapor was 32 when he founded Lotus. Mark Cuban was 37 when he founded AudioNet. And on and on it goes. Seeing the trend? The typical successful tech founder is closer to 28 to 35 years of age, and absolutely not 19 or 20.

You get back up because it's what you enjoy doing, and failure can not kill you, it teaches you, if you listen to it. I don't even like the phrase "get back up" - why get down to begin with? Yes failure sucks, yes it can hurt a lot, but those things have absolutely no inherent bearing on how you mentally approach the next day, that's up to you to choose. Failure is always in the past, remember that; by the time it's failure, it's already over, don't move in with it and let it stink up the place. On to the next adventure.

Another tip: don't be spaztastic about pursuing things (all over the map, constantly jumping from one thing to another). Be more patient, there is no hurry. Pick one really really good thing, focus on it like a laser; you're a million years of pressure trying to create a diamond from carbon. Success as an entrepreneur rather works the same way as that. It's a grind and it takes time. Or to paraphrase Steve Jobs: put all your wood behind a great arrow.

And this: "My soul will be crushed if I don't realize my potential." --- Dump that way of thinking tomorrow morning, first thing. Strive for excellence, yes. But do not dramatize or glorify any of this stuff. Being an entrepreneur is rubber meets road; it's about getting down in the dirt and building things with your bare hands, so to speak. Does allowing that soul crushed thought into your head design a better product for customers? Not it does not, and it has no place in your head; all it can possibly do is hold you back, trip you up, scare you, make you think of the consequences of failure, and so on. You don't know how long it might take to succeed, it could take five tries and ten years, or it could happen next thing; right place + right time plays so much of a role in all of this, it's impossible to plot success far in advance; you stay on the things you can control: patience, effort, persistence, focus, etc.

rblion2• 12 years ago

All of this perspective has helped a lot, given me some clarity on what I need to shed and what I need to keep. Thanks a lot.

Im_Talking• 12 years ago

Mate, you are too caught-up in the big picture. The devil is in the details. You seem to be consumed about the big picture yet may be unwilling to do the necessary daily work to make it happen. Making something happen is always a case of rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty. That's how dreams are made. The daily grind is 90% of the time boring dull work that just needs to be done and you have to be willing to slog-it-out.

I am coding a new web-service and excited about the prospects yet I know to make it happen I have to spend the months debugging, tweaking the UI, writing documentation, load testing, etc. In other words, all the shit work.

Until you understand that 99% of any dream is doing the shit work, you will never reach that dream.

notduncansmith• 12 years ago

It sounds like you're going through something that I have some experience with.

I'm a young guy (21). I've been frustrated time and time again by feelings of "why hasn't it happened yet?" and "why do I keep throwing myself at this shit?". I'm a pathological starter (not finisher) of projects. I fall victim to the 70% rule constantly.

There a few things that help me deal with it:

1. Realizing how much left I have to learn. I regularly consult for $XXX/hr on a wide array of topics within the software business: however, while I have a lot of knowledge, all it takes is for a true "expert" who's been doing ______ for the last 30 years to make me realize that I don't know even close to everything, or even everything about X, and that it's entirely acceptable for me to not be at that level yet.

2. Shipping something. I've been where you're at, where you have your finger on the trigger, and then you throw the safety back on and give up. It's a reaction due to natural human fear, and the only antidote to the poison that is fear is to ship stuff. Do something simple, low-risk at first, like a redesign of your website (done this a few times). Then ship a product, something tiny, nothing "world-changing", just something that's shippable (did this a few weeks ago). That will build up your confidence, and from there you're unstoppable. Don't be afraid to ship because someone's already done something: if we all did that, there'd be no Pepsi (debatably a good thing).

3. Do normal things. I wanted to hack on something today, while my son took a nap. Guess what I did instead? Watched a movie, then did the dishes. Yep. One way to look at it is procrastinating (why are you watching a movie instead of changing the world?) but I've been banging out code for the past 6 days and I wanted a damn break, so I took one. It's okay to take the pressure off every now and again.

4. Stop comparing yourself to "all the great founders". They're outliers. Plenty of people start very successful companies at 24, 34, hell 54. Ray Kroc started McDonald's at 52.

It sounds like you could use a break. Take one, you'll be much better for it. A few days, a few weeks, a few years, whatever it takes. Spend some time in the real world, and when you come back into the fold you'll have plenty of real-world problems to solve :)

User9812• 12 years ago

Ok, so you've been dreaming of a world changing startup at age 17, and you're 24 now. What have you started? It's been seven years, it sounds like you spend a lot of time learning, but you need to start launching products.

The common saying, 'finished is better than perfect', comes to mind here. You talk about the UI problems with HN and Twitter, but guess what, they have a functioning service. They're both successful in their own way, and they can continue to grow and resolve these problems in the years to come.

Expect to fail often, that's just the startup life. If you waste all your time perfecting your world changing startup, and it never sees the light of day, or it launches and goes nowhere, you wasted unnecessary time. You want to launch something in the shortest time possible, and check for traction. If it doesn't exist, you go in another direction, or drop it entirely, and move on.

It's like searching for gold. You visit a new location, and quickly scratch at the surface and sample the land. What happens when you find nothing? You relocate and try again. You don't spend a decade digging deeper and deeper.

Take your favorite idea, figure out how you can take the core concept and launch it within a week. Forget about all the extra features, forget about the perfect UI, just make it happen.

k0• 12 years ago

A few things. Talk to a counselor (psychologist) to vent and vet the issues that led to your past depression and begin a treatment plan. Everyone has problems, some choose those problems, some choose to move on, and some choose to contemplate suicide like yourself (and some actually commit suicide). Just as you sought assistance here, call around and get an appointment.

Do many small things that build into bigger things. You had mentioned LEGO. Make 1 small shed. Done. Make 1 small house. Done. Make another house. Done. Make a city. Done. Make another city. Done. Make a world. Done. One LEGO a time. One line of code at a time. One hamburger at a time.

Ideas are great, and plentiful. Execution is the hard part. Which is better: McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Wendy's, Sonic, Whole Foods Deli, or your local choices of hamburger joints? Who cares who was there first, learn from them and leverage the differences. You're an American. We have been subjected to the greatest Marketing machine on the planet since birth...look at all of the competition for damn near anything. Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, was a dyslexic orphan who stumbled around creating his empire...and it started with one pretty crappy store (restaurant) in Columbus, Ohio. Was Wendy's the only game in town? Did Wendy's not have any competition locally, nationally, or globally? WHO CARES! He forged ahead and died a Billionaire. When Dave was born did anyone think Dave Thomas could even run a Hamburger store or that his potential (or destiny) would be owning thousands of hamburger stores? Probably not. He threw his all into something and despite the failures, loss of market share, fighting healthy menu choices, etc. he still did something. Arguably, the Dave Thomas Foundation is what his true potential/destiny would be.

Your potential is not something you live up to, it is something you live. The imaginary apex of potential is well, imaginary. It is also so one-dimensional as to be transparent. Focus on living right, whatever that means to you, and the rest will come.

To answer your questions: 1. Never give up on getting back up. Note the "results" (not the "failure", that's called learning), and say aloud, "Next." If you "fail" a test do you break down and cry? No, if you're smart you review the test and study the gaps in your knowledge and comprehension. Are the "results" random, or did you fail to plan?

2. I have seen many of "my ideas" eventually end up on the market. It's called validation not theft. What prevented me from getting there first or being a contender? All this BS about first to market is cute and does not prevent you, me, or anyone from doing it better, faster, cheaper.

This financial company you work for...are they the only financial company in the US or the world? Are they really that badass? Let's assume you are working for a bank, what company was the last disruptor? Ally? ING? Stripe maybe? ATMs are going the way of the dodo...I know, I worked for the big three (Diebold, NCR, and Fujitsu)...and they are scared as shit with all of the cashless, swipe, tap, bitcoin, online mortgages, email funds, etc. Point: Everyone's ideas will get to market eventually. Sometimes the idea comes with an alloy of passion, persistence, and good timing for you or someone else. Competition is good, as is using technology to pivot.

3: Burnout: take it easy, go camping, get away, read a book. Take many small breaks. Take a vacation. Take it easy. Have dreams, and live them.

4: Brogrammers and sexism...who cares. I put up with all kind of -isms and societal BS everyday. Welcome to society. I'm not sure what your issues are, but I just focus on my concerns.

5: I love bubble talk. It is very remedial. What goes up, must come down...but what aspects? Again, focus on your concerns. When one bubble pops another starts growing.

Ask HN: How did you find the courage to try again?

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