

Obliterate Startup Depression - jaf12duke
http://www.humbledmba.com/obliterate-startup-depression

======
buro9
I'm always glad that this kind of topic comes up.

Last month I went to the HN Meetup in London that Harj spoke at. On the way
there I was recounting to a workmate how low the lows can be and how at the
record label we would have these bleak months wondering if we'd screwed up
absolutely everything.

It's really hard to explain to someone without this experience what it feels
like. How hard it can be to go into work, and how you struggle to remember
that this is what you want when through your head part of you is demanding you
quit and work in a kitchen somewhere anonymously and simply.

He didn't believe me, not really. He was just listening.

Then during the speech that Harj gave, after inspiring everyone to take the
risk, he then mentioned the lows. The devastating lows.

And I think that's important.

The only truths I firmly hold from having done a startup and now doing one
again:

    
    
      * Everyone is a mess and doesn't know what they're doing.
    
      * Everyone is going to go through their darkest days with their startup.
    

It's much harder to invest the time and energy over a prolonged period to
deliver than anyone thinks. And there is no easy path or way around it.

The only thing that seems universal in coping with it, is exercise. Make
exercise part of the startup. Being fit for the job is part of the job, and if
that means coming in late post-exercise some day, that's way way better than
working your butt off until midnight and doing it again at 6am.

------
casca
In my experience, this tends to happen to different founders at different
times so hopefully there's always one person who's "up".

The solution for us is to exercise competitively: "Did you go to the gym
today? I went for a run this morning...".

~~~
btrautsc
I definitely agree, one cofounder & I recently discovered that doing intense
exercise in the evening can really help decompress after a long day and clear
the mind.

------
ohashi
I'd like to add another suggestion, this probably goes double for the solo
founders out there.

Join a co-working space. Working from home/coffee shop just doesn't give you
enough social interaction and community to keep you going indefinitely. I
learned the hard way, a couple times, I simply can't work from home for
sustained periods of time. Co-working spaces gave me the flexibility to go
somewhere that I got to know people, make friends and escape work every once
in a while. Working on a startup is very isolating, simply being around other
people makes it a lot easier. (Shameless plug if you're in DC - Affinity Lab
is the place to be)

------
techiferous
If you're looking to better understand and treat depression, this is a good
resource: [http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/dlp/understanding-
depre...](http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/dlp/understanding-
depression/understanding-depression/)

------
Chernev
It somehow helps when I know we are not alone.

------
tkahn6
Ok rant time.

I go to your website. It demands an email address before you tell me anything
about your company or how it will "change commercial real estate forever". I
don't want to you to spam me in the future so I enter a fake email address.
Some ajax happens and it tells me to "invite at least 3 friends using the
link" to get "priority access". I don't even know what your product does. I'm
not going to spam my friends in order to get "priority access". Also there are
links to follow you on twitter and "like" you on facebook. Again, I don't even
know what your product does.

So I figure that the information must be in the email that you send to the
address I give you. I give you my real address and lo and behold I get an
email which says you're not going to tell me what your product does and that I
should spam my friends with my referral link.

The only reason I would want to give you my email address or like your
facebook page or follow you on twitter is because I'm interested in the
product that you're creating.

Maybe I'm just weird, but this has been a negative experience with your
company so far.

\--

Nice blog post though.

~~~
jaf12duke
I'm sorry you don't like the Launchrock strategy. I don't disagree the
Launchrock implementation has its drawbacks, but it's also a very useful
service. I certainly understand your frustration. The reality is we're not
ready to say anything more yet. We iterate too quickly at this stage to put up
a more informative page. We've had 20k+ visits to our sparse splash page, but
it's not for everyone.

We're providing a way to stay up-to-date to those people that want it. The
vast majority of them know me through my blog, because that's the only place I
advertise it. The super early adopters, including many investors, want to make
sure they know about it long before the rest of the people.

When we're ready for a more public launch, we'll provide a much different user
experience. If you'd like to talk it about it further, please ping me
directly.

~~~
skmurphy

       "I'm sorry you don't like the Launchrock strategy."
    

It's your strategy if you selected Launchrock. What's the point of asking
people to tell their friends when there is nothing to say? Also, investors are
not "super early adopers."

    
    
       "We iterate too quickly at this stage to put up a more informative page."
    

If you are changing every substantive aspect of your business such that there
is no foundational premise you can communicate it sounds more like something
else than iteration.

~~~
drumdance
Or they're just busy building it and haven't had time to even spec out an
informational web site yet. If you feel so strongly about this, then don't
sign up for his list.

Cut the guy some slack.

