

Ask HN: What if nothing works out? - sz

The success and temporary "failure" stories are informative and sometimes inspiring, but what about the permanent "failure" stories?  I don't mean your startup tanked and you're starting a new one; I mean by all indications this stuff just wasn't for you and you dropped out of entrepreneurship for good.  What happened afterward and how was your career affected?
======
petercooper
A problem is that people who experience failure in an area of life and totally
drop out of it.. aren't hanging around the same community to tell their
stories.

Most of the people I knew in the late 90s "new media" sphere are no longer
involved in Web development or Internet media at all.. and certainly wouldn't
be hanging around forums for those kinds of people. Their stories are stuck
with them in their new roles as bank managers, fashion journalists, and
mechanics (the founders of Boo.com, for example, are now a fashion designer
and an investment advisor).

I doubt the strongest "failed and never got back on the saddle" stories would
come from asking on HN. People who died in the entrepreneurial space are most
likely not here.

 _Update: An idea, perhaps, would be to find people from famous Internet
companies or "up and coming" lists and track down where they ended up._

~~~
ajb
During WWII, the RAF had to decide where on their planes to put the armour
plating. They could not plate everywhere due to weight considerations. They
were going to put it on places where returning aircraft were damaged, but
Patrick Blackett
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blackett,_Baron_Blacket...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blackett,_Baron_Blackett))
pointed out that this was a biased sample. His recommendation was to put the
plating were returning aircraft were _not_ damaged, as this is probably where
the aircraft which _did not return_ were hit.

------
benwerd
It affects what you do next, and the way you tackle everything from jobs to
relationships, probably for the rest of your life.

When I left the company I started, I intended to start another one almost
immediately. But then I didn't. Partially this was because of assorted
conceptual and administrative issues, but partially it was because I realized
how burned out I was. I'd been living this thing for five years, breathing
life into it as part of a very small team, starting with literally no budget.
Business is hard, and it was often soul-destroying - I discovered that other
people were considerably more cut-throat than I was willing to be, and
consistently underestimated how low people could go. And on top of the
business itself, I was up to my eyeballs in code most of the time. Over time,
I lost perspective. Within a space of a couple of months, though, two
immediate family members were told they were seriously ill, and my sister
became long-term disabled, and I was snapped back to reality.

It wasn't that entrepreneurship wasn't for me, as such, I don't think. It was
that the specific kind of entrepreneurship I was living didn't fit my hopes or
goals, and was eclipsing everything else in my life in a very negative way. I
didn't think I could fit the care-giving that would potentially be required
with the demands of the job. They're still going strong, but I wanted to live
a different kind of life, closer to what Tony Stubblebine writes about on his
blog. (Tony's the smartest guy I know on the topic.) That was always my
intention, but we diverged.

It's certainly positively affected my career. Since leaving, I've spoken at
Harvard, been published by IBM and have worked in a bunch of really
interesting situations, with fantastic people, on a consultancy basis. Before
the startup, I was a ground-level developer, so that's a win. But I'll
certainly start a company again, at some point, if only because I'm the kind
of person who loves to make things, and to do things on my own terms.

I'd ask yourself carefully if it's entrepreneurship that's not for you, or the
situations you've been in.

(By the way, my family's health situation is vastly improved - but I think the
thought experiment of what would happen if you needed to be a care-giver is a
good one.)

~~~
benwerd
... Also, I'd venture that most successful entrepreneurs have experienced a
run of failure. That's how they learned to do it well.

------
EasyCompany
Reading this question, a scene from the movie Greenberg popped into my mind.
They turned down a recording deal when in college and both amounted too
nothing and they pushing forty, the scene after the house party, he has an
argument with his friend and his friend tells him......that the biggest hurdle
he has overcome is accepting the life that he didn't plan for. I can't
remember correctly but that was the just of it.

Look, for every 100 people that venture into entrepreneurship, less than 10
make it, that is why there is so much money to be made. You should be proud of
your effort, the only time you should be pissed at yourself is if you didn't
commit 100%, in the long run we are all dead!

~~~
mattmanser
Where did you get the 10% success rate from? This sounds very low compared to
figures from US census figures, for example, which reckons 50% ae still going
after 5 years, without even accounting for the difference of being bought out,
stopping while the going's good or going bust.

~~~
EasyCompany
A business just surviving and a business that is successful is two totally
different scenarios. You can be surviving for 5yrs, marginally profitable for
5 yrs but still find yourself in huge debt, paying off your credit cards and
other loans. Many people quit at this point even though the business is not
bankrupt but it is just not what they envisioned and then realize 5yrs have
gone by. If the US census calculated those people in business for 5yrs or more
making over a certain amount of money, then u would get a clearer picture.
There is a lot of grey in that 50% number. You also find some entrepreneurs
struggling to make that leap from being just profitable or break even to being
really successful, they just hover around that barely profitable point for yrs
unable to make the leap, then realize yrs down the line that they could have
been in a much better position in a 9 to 5 job.

In the trading industry, they say that only 5% of traders are successful and
of that 5% only 1% make enough to call themselves wealthy.....that is why
George Soros can make $500mill a year or $1bill in the 1992 British pound
trade, or Ken Griffith buying a $60mill dollar painting and giving it to a
museum. Many traders will say that number is higher but you find many traders
who hover around that break even point unable to make the leap.

Look at the sporting industry, how many kids want to be star athletes and how
many make it, then when u look at those that make it to college level, more
drop off unable to make the leap. Then of those that go pro, there will only
be a handful that will be stars, like Kobe.

So i guess its not about just making it, its about making the leap from
borderline success to real success that separates the men from the boys. Since
if u are just borderline you will never be happy and you will eventually burn
out.

------
keyle
When I get really depressed about commercially viable ideas, which happens, I
turn myself to open source development. At least there, there is no agenda and
nothing really known as failure. Then I get back up and refocus.

~~~
harscoat
Intrinsic (vs extrinsic) motivation, +1

------
stretchwithme
I will do a double blind experiment where I do startups in one version of my
life and don't do them in another. Then I'll know whether doing a startup
damaged my career.

Ok, just kidding.

I knew it was the right move when I realized I was learning 5 times as much in
the startup.

Nothing matters more to your career than the development of your brain.

And if you're not excited by what you're learning, if its become stale and
dreary, make a change.

~~~
fbnt
Just one note from myself. I don't think your career depends on your 'brain
development' or self taught mad skills. It all comes down to gaining
experiences imho. What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't endeavour in a
startup just because you like coding, and you like learning new languages and
whatnot. Being a great technical person most of the times doesn't suffice.

~~~
stretchwithme
I think you're brain is developing when you have experiences.

Not all learning is technical. I didn't even mention that specifically. You
can learn marketing, sales, leadership skills, project management, customer
relations and qualities like tenacity and creativity at startups.

------
neeleshs
I have been in and out of failures, without any success so far. I have ping-
ponged between working on my own and working for the corporates. Does not
exactly match your question, but very near.

If you meant corporate life by 'career', my startup experience landed me in
better and better jobs.

------
kochbeck
This is sort of a funny question because it's one where answers arising from
the brashness of youth just sound brash. The strains of, "The power is all in
your hands," just don't ring as true when you actually have to sing them to
someone who's trying to make life decisions. I had a recent failure, and I've
crafted an exit strategy for just such occasions. Here's my pitch:

I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life. Aside from a brief stint at IBM
where mostly people looked at me funny for two years, I've done ridiculously
financially risky things just because I enjoy taking risks and seeing if I can
make them come out. I'm like a compulsive gambler who bets the rent every
month, except I place longer-term bets than the craps table, and I've beat the
house more than half the time.

I published my first piece of code at 7, and it was for a TRS-80. Like most
risk addicts, the #1 predictor of getting hooked is early success. Even if
you're predisposed to being an adrenaline junkie, if you hurt yourself trying
the first few times, you're done. Needless to say, the heroin of early success
has a particularly acute effect on a 7 year old.

I tried a lot of stuff over time, some of it way out of my league, some not
worth trying, some just dumb, and some a bad fit for the exigent circumstances
of life and market. Those were the losers, and I've been kicked in the balls
hard many times by betting on losing ideas, bad plans, lousy partners,
conniving vendors, bad customers, and, more than anything, my own personal
triumph of hope over cold, hard experience.

I also have just enough successes to keep me hooked. But on average, I'm not a
whole lot better off financially than many of my 9-to-5er friends. My years
where I turned over a lot of personal income are offset by the years when I
don't, for sure. So for me, it just isn't about wealth. It's about the one
place where I have the 9-to-5ers beat: that where they say, "Wouldn't it be
cool if somebody..." I live my life being able to say, "Isn't it cool that I
did?" But that's not the life for everybody. Most folks need the sense of
security and uniform societal justification that being one more cog in the
machine brings. I've never personally valued or had either.

So I totally blew a startup project I was working on for over a year. All but
abandoned it a couple months ago. It was just too complex to fund, and it was
a regulatory nightmare. I personally lost most of my net worth on the
miscalculation. Oops. (On the bright side, I didn't lose anybody else's money,
so I came out with as many friends as I went in with.)

And, of course, it flamed out at the height of the biggest recession in
generations, so I was left fairly idle. I moped. I piddled. I taught myself to
cook. I toyed with other backburner ideas I've let simmer for a long time. I
did a fair bit of nothing and pretended it wasn't awful and painful and
embarrassing and deflating and demoralizing. I'd trot out Michael Jordan's,
"I've missed more than 9000 shots..." quote in my head and try to ignore that
he was Michael Jordan and I wasn't.

The other day, I was talking with a recruiter friend of mine, and he said that
it would be easy to get me a real job (gasp, choke). Suggested that I join his
big company, do something simple, and let them pay for grad school in some
subject area that I enjoy but doesn't necessarily have any commercial value.
Get paid to hang with folks and just think for a few years. So I considered
it. I even began the application process.

Then, I talked to a line manager at the company my recruiter friend works for
(because I do my homework), and the guy related to me how much trouble they
have managing the line because they have very weak procedures and no training
on the line as to how they'd develop procedures.

My response was: "Well heck, I've been wanting to do some Android development,
and you guys all have Android phones. I'll just build you an app to support
your line management. I'll learn Android on a non-trivial project, and you'll
get to know me."

The point (and I do have one) is that even my personal risk management
behaviors are colored by entrepreneurial behaviors. I'm thinking of taking a
35-hour per week job to pay me to go hang out at a school and pay the rent,
and I somehow manage to turn my job interview into new development and a mini-
enterprise applications project. It's just who I am now.

I have a lot of respect for people who walk away from the startup game and go
act like normies - I know tons of 'em, and I know that almost all of them miss
the exhilaration and the sense that every time they come to work, they have a
chance to move the needle. I can't seem to let myself give up that rush, and I
really don't want to. I have no problem picking up high-paying work when I
need it, but that's a function of having cultivated skills that have value no
matter what kind of job I take - startup or secure (consulting, of course).
I'm confident that if push came to shove and I needed to walk away, I could. I
have a steady stream of job offers to prove it.

Churchill said that success is going from failure to failure without loss of
enthusiasm. Of course, he won his war, so he would say that. And forums like
HN are rich in first-attempt winners because there's an audience for them. So
they've been as immunized to failure as a published 7-year-old. If you get
into startups and totally flame out, assuming you can tolerate failure like a
fully-formed adult (seriously, be sure you can), you might end up taking a pay
cut if you decide to leave for higher ground. You might end up leaving for
something deadly boring. But any losses you incur will probably be temporary,
relatively minor, and non-fatal.

Or maybe you'll get hooked, and your life will just stay interesting. If you
live by the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times," then don't do
it. If you think that's a blessing and not a curse, go for it.

------
throwaway1618
I usually post under another name. I consider myself a startup casualty. I've
worked for 3 startups as one of the first 5 employees. None of them panned
out, in any definition of the word. I consider it mostly a waste of time, and
if I could do it all again, I wouldn't. I decided to work at an investment
bank for 3 years so that I would have at least some money and investments for
retirement. The only useful part of my startup experience is that it made it
possible to get a dead end, but high paying job at an investment bank. I don't
think I would have been hired otherwise. I've got about a year left and then
I'm going to move to the beach area of Oaxaca and hang out until I think of
something else to do with my life.

~~~
sz
Thanks for the honest answer. Best of luck to you.

If you don't mind me asking, what would you have done instead?

------
brianmckenzie
You ask a really good question.

I have failed w/two different startups, one very recent. The first time it was
great for my career in monetary terms. The second - I don't know what will
happen, but I don't regret doing it.

Working on a failed startup is draining. Your whole life is tied up in it, and
if the company fails it seems like a phantom limb for awhile.

To directly answer your question - past entrepreneurship should be a big plus
to any company worth working for.

You know you want to try something else, why not another startup?

------
jmathai
Try as hard as you can to find something else that satisfies what
entrepreneurship satisfied. It would be hard but I don't know that any of us
ever give up really. I thought my last attempt was my final one. Now I have a
7 week old baby and I'm doing it all over again.

Sure some things change. I can't be as reckless or risky now as I was when I
was 20. Perhaps this IS my last attempt, but I doubt it. If it is I hope I can
find just as much joy in something equally as productive as entrepreneurship.

------
petervandijck
I did a semi startup (code in my free time, consult for actual money) a few
years ago. It was hip, but after 2 years I realized it wasn't working out and
I sold it. After that, I've been doing consulting and actual jobs for a few
years. No real effects on my career, as far as I can tell. I am thinking I'll
probably start another one soon, with many lessons learnt.

One thing it did for me is that for a while, I was hesitant just jumping into
any idea, because I know now how much it can take out of you (years of work
before you know it).

------
DirtyAndy
I think that for a lot of entrepreneurs there is probably never a point where
they truly give up (and this is probably a bad thing, not everyone is made for
it). To me part of being an entrepreneur is a bit like being an inventor, a
tinkerer - there is always something you want to fine tune or an idea worth
exploring. I can easily see myself following that path until old age, without
necessarily ever making amazing money.

Saying that, most careers are dead. Obviously in some areas there will always
be a direct path of experience where a true career will exist, but the days
where you went from junior to intermediate to senior to manager to vp etc are
dying fast, especially with companies people who frequent HN are likely to
want to work with. Do you want to take a job where they say you didn't do two
years as senior developer or marketing assistant etc so you can't have the
job?

More and more companies are starting to recognize the experience gained in the
field and it is easier than ever to move between fields and jump "stages". Not
all companies are like that yet, in fact maybe most aren't yet, but as they
lose good candidates to companies that are then they will change.

So I wouldn't worry about what happens if everything fails, if you're willing
to try the life of an entrepreneur then survival post that is going to be
easy.

~~~
sz
Is entrepreneur life sustainable? That's something I'm trying to figure out
right now.

~~~
DirtyAndy
Most of the entrepreneurs that I've met are dreamers and optimists. I'm sure
that most get into it wishing to make it rich (I'm betting most of the ones
that want to make the world a better place also hope to get a little rich
along the way). Most don't succeed.

But that life is definitely sustainable. You might not have the biggest house
and nicest car, but you should definitely be able to live an OK life. It gets
more difficult as you have dependants, but some things will work, some things
wont, and overall you just kind of hope it works out in the long run. There
are no guarantees, but I don't know many people who pursue that life and end
up on the street.

I wouldn't say I live a truly cutting edge entrepreneurial life but in 20
years of "adulthood" I have never had a "real job", I've gotten married, two
kids, nice house in a leafy part of London. I drive a Mazda rather than a
Ferrari so I'm definitely not where I'd like to be, but life is pretty good.

Don't worry about the future too much and just go for it, things will work
out.

------
PaulJoslin
If you don't try you never know. I'd prefer to be old looking back thinking
'at least I gave it a shot', than constantly sitting in my office cubicle
thinking to myself 'what if'.

------
maxklein
Well, statistically, there has to be someone who will just not succeed. I
believe that there are many paths to success - working in a big company and
rising up in the ranks would be as satisfing to me as any other thing I
wanted. It's just about how you define success, and if the thing you do is
going to give you success.

If you define your success by something that you have been unsuccessful at for
years, it seems to me you will get depressed sooner or later.

------
martey
I think a corollary to this question is whether HR people and others in charge
of hiring attach a negative stigma to working on a failed startup.

~~~
sz
Precisely. My dad is a typical executive at a big company and the consensus
still seems to be that startups are not as "legitimate" as, say, working at
Morgan Stanley. We argue about it a lot.

~~~
c1sc0
This attitude increases exponentially the further removed from Silicon Valley
you are & is pretty much the status quo in Europe.

------
prat
I saw this award winning Russian animation short sometime back - Its called
GAGARIN. After watching it,I felt it spoke of those who tried before their
time and failed. Not sure how relevant it is to this post, but I try not end
up like Gagarin.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA7RKwhrOT0>

~~~
Tichy
Great animation, but still: how do you know when is before your time?

~~~
prat
Wish I had an answer for you and for myself :) If you look at the crazy people
who made it and sane people who got burnt out, you'd stop asking this
question. The lesson I took away from this was that when you think you have
recovered, with time you have grown wings (or whatever you need to accomplish
what you started out for), make sure to clear up the history and restart as a
curious kid.

PS: To me, Gagarin did not restart - was central idea of the animation.

------
akshayubhat
Our judgment is always clouded by survivorship bias, the emergence of self
help social media, has only magnified it. Its one of the the main point in
books by Nassim Taleb. One of the strategies he suggests is to to pursue a
dual strategy where you invest 20 - 30 % of resources ( effort, time or money)
in High Risk - High Reward strategy while keeping rest 70 - 80% in low risk.

Personally I pay a lot of attention to stories on HN when they mention failure
(complete and not just cosmetic how we failed and then won type stories).

~~~
AmitinLA
The problem with this strategy is that it is impossible to engage in a high-
risk/high-reward strategy like entrepreneurship where your effort has to be
100% committed to the business, especially in the first couple years and
especially if you are venture backed.

There are a couple solutions to this:

1) Invest more of your wages in low risk investments to offset the monetary
risk of a startup.

2) Work full-time or as a contractor whilst also working 20% of the time on
your own startup to try to gain traction which would lower the risk. Though if
that succeeds, you should be then reinvesting your time in another startup.
It's a vicious cycle :)

------
protomyth
are you dead? no, then good.

Go find something you enjoy doing, and then find people willing to pay for it.
Enjoy your life. Don't go searching for the next big thing.

Then, when you least expect it, you will have an itch that needs scratching,
that might be of value to other people, and you will be rested and ready to
try again.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
Nothing's "for good" until you're dead.

------
shin_lao
Work harder.

~~~
sz
You missed the point. I'll just clarify the intent the question here for
everyone else who does:

I'm just starting my second year of college, and trying to figure out where I
want my life to go. I think I was born to do startups but need to know what I
can fall back to. There's a very low success rate but because of statistical
bias we hear mostly from those who succeed. I want to hear the other side of
the story to find out what it's really like.

~~~
donaq
If you're at all like me, you might end up being very discontented at every
job you go to, especially when you see things that are obviously being done
wrong, and you do not have the power to change them.

------
ahoyhere
Your mistake is thinking that "works out" is an external thing that happens,
or doesn't. You're going to have a hard time being satisfied with anything
else if that's your belief. That belief will also screw with any employed
career you might have.

~~~
sz
I meant it as a more tactful way of saying "you didn't work hard enough/ideas
weren't good enough/didn't develop fast enough/weren't emotionally strong
enough" or something just happened and you had to reintegrate with normal
society :)

~~~
todayiamme
>>>you didn't work hard enough/ideas weren't good enough/didn't develop fast
enough/weren't emotionally strong enough<<<

No one ever is, but you can always make a choice.

~~~
sz
"Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger!"

------
inodeman
You only fail if you don't learn from it. You can always start again, you
might need to learn a few tricks, but starting over is always an option. Might
need a little time.

It will all work out if your are persistent.

