
Ask HN: I've tried lots of things but haven't finished any. - anewkid
Background: I'm 18 years old, American, and attend an Ivy League college. It seems that I've tried to do a very long list of things, but that none of them ever actually succeed. Some of the things I've tried:<p>- Wrote a program to model the stock market. (The capital I needed evaporated during the credit crunch).<p>- Worked on a paper with a professor. (The professor bailed and they had access to lots of equipment I would have needed to finish it myself).<p>- Worked on a second paper with a second professor in another department. (Same story).<p>- Applied to Harvard, MIT and Stanford, the three big startup schools, twice, got rejected by all both times. (The school I'm going to is good academically but produces zero startups).<p>- Tried to start a company over the summer. (The other two people working with me bailed in August and are refusing to acknowledge that I own the rights to the portions of the code I wrote. Don't know what I'll do since I can't afford to sue them.)<p>- Tried to start a second company the previous summer. (Found out that that particular business had much larger capital requirements than I had thought.)<p>- Submitted my own paper to a conference, gave a talk there, but the paper was never published. (The special issue of the journal they were going to publish it in was canceled, and I haven't found another journal that would accept it.)<p>- Submitted second paper to second conference in different field. (Same story.)<p>- Applied for research internships last summer. (Rejected by all).<p>- Applied for finance internships this summer. (Rejected by all so far, not heard back from some yet, would appreciate suggestions if anyone has any).<p>- Helped to write a web application last summer. (No one uses it, and the other people working on it, who have a great deal of needed expertise, have moved onto more interesting projects).<p>- Did another webapp for one of the student clubs. (Someone else also wrote one and theirs was better, so everyone (including me) just used that instead.)<p>- Half a dozen math/science contests which I've entered. I recruited some fellow students to help practice and then we met weekly to work on our strategies. (Did badly in all of them.)<p>- Tried to start a blog, worked on it for two years. (Pretty much nobody read it.)<p>Am I doing anything wrong, just in general?<p>(Formatting fixed, sorry).
======
numair
Dude, you're 18. The more important question is, are you carrying out
meaningful social experiences with people your age? Are you making really
great friends who have nothing to do with your career? Are you engaging in
dramatic, possibly-hopeless romantic endeavors with cute 18 year old girls (or
boys!) that you'll enjoy thinking about when you're 60?

You can't buy back your youth, kiddo.

~~~
anewkid
I don't get why, but it seems that few people here are interested in any of
the same things I am. It's not like my interests are narrow; indeed, people
criticize me for being too much of a dabbler (I am interested in math,
physics, chemistry, biology, economics, politics, history, computers, and a
whole bunch of other stuff). People just tend to talk about sports and dating
and parties and clubs and stuff.

Why do so many people talk about youth as some sort of idyllic time in one's
life? I, for one, have found a strong trend of things getting better as I get
older, not worse. Old people, in general, have more of everything, because
they've had more time to accumulate it: more money, more friends, more family,
more power, more skill, more social status, more life experience, more of
pretty much everything (except of course for physical stamina, but this is not
terribly important in today's world, as the success of numerous disabled
people shows).

~~~
Mystalic
Youth is carefree, where responsibility doesn't bear down you like a hammer.
Youth is a time of learning, one of my favorite activities. Once you get
older, you've got bills, jobs, internal politics, disappointments, and in some
ways less freedom. And while you are happy, you are not happy in the way that
you were in college.

More does NOT equal or mean better. The startup world is a great example of
that.

P.S. - There is nothing wrong with parties, dating, sports, and clubs. In
moderation of course.

~~~
scotty79
Paying bills is easy, acquiring and keeping job if you are educated in
something useful is also easy. Politics you can withdraw from. Disappointments
are spread through all life and they are more harmful when you are young and
emotional.

Being forced to learn boring stuff on daily basis for 10+ years (that actually
longer since you are younger) while coping with your emotions and huge amounts
of people you meet is far more hard then anything in adult life.

------
zaidf
I was almost in the same situation my freshman year around ~2006. I even wrote
to pg(before knowing much about YC) on how he focuses and completes things. I
was surprised when he responded.

My context was startups. I kept building sites which I was promptly shutting
down after launch because no one used it--and more importantly because I
didn't do much to get people to use it. If I remember correctly, pg said to
pick something and allocate the next x months to it--no matter what.

It worked for me. A few months later I picked an idea, and said no matter
where it goes, I will work on it for six months.

I think you merely making a post like this means you are progressing. A lot of
people would kill to just have _tried_ so many things. You are clearly bored
of trying stuff. Time to buckle up and get a little focused--because it's more
rewarding and fun!

------
bk
1\. It's a good idea to partner with people, but pick projects where you don't
depend on your partners to finish. Pick a problem/domain where if everything
else failed you could at least push out a minimal version to see if you can
get traction.

2\. For abandoned projects, salvage the scraps - publish the drafts or parts
of them, open-source your code (unless it still holds significant value, but
don't overestimate the potential value).

3\. You seem ambitious and not easily discouraged - both valuable
characteristics. So keep trying, but be on the lookout for blind spots, and
patterns in your failed projects. Distill your strengths and preferences and
see how you can apply them best, and work around your weaknesses.

4\. Make sure you're not someone else's "useful idiot" (and obviously, don't
exploit others).

5\. As others have mentioned here - enjoy your life, seriously! Don't race to
the presumed finish line. (Read Philip Greenspun's article on early
retirement). You should always strive to pursue something that you find
personally meaningful. What's the big picture of what all your efforts are
really for? Sitting in a vault of cash by yourself like Scrooge McDuck won't
make you happy.

6\. Unless you want to become an academic or consultant/i-banker, don't worry
too much about your GPA, but meet _and work with_ as many people as possible.
Make friends and test-drive them for productive pursuits. College (and I guess
grad school) are statistically almost the last stops for finding co-founders.
Just look at startups you respect, and look up the founders' stories - the
vast majority met at the latest at university.

------
btilly
Are you doing something wrong? Probably you are. But that is to be expected
since there are so many ways to mess up. The question is whether you're
learning from your mistakes.

Personally I would ask why people keep bailing on you. You had 2 professors
bail on letting you complete a paper you started on. You had co-founders bail
and screw you over. The people working with you on the web application didn't
continue working with you. (The point being that they didn't just abandon the
application, they also didn't invite you to be part of the next thing they
did.)

This is a bad pattern because generally we can't succeed unless we can get
other people to succeed with us. For example you're unlikely to start a
successful startup without the close cooperation of a cofounder. I'm sure that
circumstances are different in each case, but as the poster says, "The only
commonality in all your failed relationships is you."

This strikes me as a pattern that is repeating too much for coincidence. So
you need to ask why. It may be that you'll get an answer that you can't easily
solve. For instance people may find you not fun to be around. If that's the
case then you're unlikely to be able to change your personality. In which case
you need to find someone who can get along with you as you are. However it may
be something like, "you've always got 50 other projects going on, and keep on
dropping the ball" in which case you _can_ fix it. (Do fewer things at once.)

Whatever you find, be aware that you are almost certainly doing SEVERAL things
consistently wrong. So once you've identified one thing to improve, don't stop
there.

------
carpo
Maybe you're trying to do too much? Perhaps you could find something which you
are really passionate about and work at doing it the best you can.

Looks like a lot of the time you've been doing things for or with other
people. Why not think of something you are really passionate about and do it
exclusively for a while. Do it for yourself, not anyone else. That way you
only need to be persistent to succeed. And you never know, there might be
other people out there that like it and want to use it too.

------
jey
Keep it up, you're doing fine. You're learning a lot from your projects, and
even if you don't "finish" them, you benefit greatly from them. That's a good
place to be when 18, and you're already aware of the usefulness of finishing
stuff, so keep doing what you're doing but keep an eye open toward finding
projects that you can/want to stick with.

------
mechanical_fish
I see that people have already told you that it's fine, you're 18, everybody
is a dabbler at 18, and those who aren't will have a midlife crisis where they
wake up one day and wish they were you.

This is all true, as far as it goes, but I needn't say it again. Let's try
some coaching instead. Vince Lombardi mode, _engage_!

Stop trying to look smart. _Being_ smart is wonderful as a source of personal
pleasure, and is also really useful, but _looking_ smart is an empty
experience. Too easily faked. Any idiot can look smart. Many idiots specialize
in it. Bernie Madoff looked smart.

A sure sign that you're trying too hard to look smart is that you are
"applying for finance internships" and "modeling the stock market". These are
understandable mistakes -- the media works hard to convince you that these are
respectable goals, much as they work hard to convince you that blackjack and
poker are sexy games that you should play all the time -- but to a scientist
this stuff is the badge of the lightweight. It has the intellectual content of
a whiffle ball, and the only reason to do it is to collect money, generally
from the gullible or the corrupt. (See "Bernie Madoff", above.) Real
businesspeople don't "apply for finance internships"; they _sell things_ or
_make things_. And real investors (as opposed to gamblers and shills) don't
waste time modeling the market, because they've all read Malkiel.

You are in college. Do you... study anything? Your resume is seriously scary.
Where do you find all this time? Your academic work must be way too easy. You
are in college _right now_. You are surrounded by the infrastructure for
_learning stuff_. There will never be a better time for that. Do not waste
this time collecting C.V. entries like so many stamps; that is for later. I
call upon the spirit of the geek's Vince Lombardi: Yoda.

 _All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his
mind on Where. He. Was. Hmm? What. He. Was doing._

You claim to be interested in physics; do you understand Maxwell's equations,
stat mech, quantum decoherence, general relativity? You claim an interest in
math; have you run out of math courses? Chemistry: Do you understand the band
structure of solids? Biology: Do you know what siRNA is, can you do graduate-
level molecular biology lab work? Computers: Have you finished SICP, learned
operating systems and algorithms? Have you even considered linguistics, or
geology, or anthropology? Study any foreign languages? How's your music
theory?

Dabble, but dabble _smart_. Dabble like a _scholar_ : Study things. Study the
hardest things you can find. Study like you _mean_ it.

~~~
anewkid
"Stop trying to look smart."

Look smart to who? I studiously avoid mentioning any of this to anyone at my
school for fear of seeming arrogant.

"It has the intellectual content of a whiffle ball, and the only reason to do
it is to collect money, generally from the gullible or the corrupt."

Yup. I did these things entirely for the purpose of making money and not for
the intellectual challenges, because money is useful and I'm currently broke.

"And real investors (as opposed to gamblers and shills) don't waste time
modeling the market, because they've all read Malkiel."

Google Renaissance Technologies.

"Where do you find all this time?"

College is not very demanding. My usual load is two technical courses and two
nontechnical courses, which take up 10 * 2 + 6 * 2 = 32 hours a week.

"You claim to be interested in physics; do you understand Maxwell's equations,
stat mech, quantum decoherence, general relativity?"

Yes, yes, yes, somewhat (working on it).

"You claim an interest in math; have you run out of math courses?"

I will next year at my current pace.

"Chemistry: Do you understand the band structure of solids?"

Yup.

"Do you know what siRNA is"

Nope, thanks for the link.

"can you do graduate-level molecular biology lab work?"

I probably could given a month or so of training, but I seriously doubt any
professor would let me because of my age and my relative lack of bio courses.

"Computers: Have you finished SICP, learned operating systems and algorithms?"

I haven't written my own OS or programming language if that's what you mean,
but I find solving problems that have already been solved a zillion times
better by thousands of other people working together over decades to be
distasteful; what's the point?

"Have you even considered linguistics, or geology, or anthropology?"

Yes. I know some geology and anthropology but find linguistics boring.

"Study any foreign languages?"

Yes, I find them quite boring, it's basically just a great deal of
memorization by rote.

"How's your music theory?"

Music cannot be explicitly taught in the same way that any of these other
things can. I'm not sure how it can be taught, actually. I could probably
become good at it given several thousand hours of work but don't see the point
in investing that much time.

~~~
mcantor
Computers: Have you finished SICP, learned operating systems and algorithms?"

I haven't written my own OS or programming language if that's what you mean,
but I find solving problems that have already been solved a zillion times
better by thousands of other people working together over decades to be
distasteful; what's the point?

\---

Reinventing the wheel won't get you a better car, but you'll understand the
hell out of the wheel.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It is also theoretically possible that tinkering with wheels is _pleasant_.
Though perhaps it's not for everyone.

It is even possible -- bear with me here -- that while rebuilding the wheel in
your own way you will discover something new and interesting. Even in an
ancient and venerable field like computer science, which has been picked over
by _dozens_ , perhaps even a _hundred_ world-class minds for as long as _six
decades_. [1]

\---

[1] One of the many charms of growing older is that you come to understand
things, like why older people were always rolling their eyes at you when you
were seventeen. I remember back when I was young, thinking about the
futuristic year 2000. "My god," I would think, "I will probably live to see
the year 2000! Although I'll be 29 then, so I'll be much older."

~~~
anewkid
Tinkering with wheels is indeed fun (I have done some tinkering with existing
OSs).

A hundred world-class minds over six decades really is a lot.

~~~
manvsmachine
_A hundred world-class minds over six decades really is a lot._

Really? Try saying that to a math professor.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Is this you?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838640>

If so, why have you changed your username?

If not, read the advice there, because your story sounds very, very familiar.

~~~
jacoblyles
The immature know how to ask for advice, but not to take it.

------
thaumaturgy
It's hard to tell just from your post, but so far it sounds like you're more
of a "starter" than a "finisher" -- you're not following through enough on
your projects to keep them going. I'm not an expert on your life, so this is
just a guess.

However, the one that really stands out for me is: "Did another webapp for one
of the student clubs. (Someone else also wrote one and theirs was better, so
everyone (including me) just used that instead.)"

In your other examples, there were external factors that created large
barriers to finishing the project. That happens sometimes, but with this one,
you simply ... gave up.

There's not necessarily a negative connotation there; you could have made a
perfectly logical decision after factoring in your interest in the project,
the amount of work it would take to compete with the other webapp, and whether
you had any immediate ideas that would make your version better. But, it looks
like you're asking why you haven't been successful yet, and here's a case
where there really wasn't anything stopping you.

Aside from that, I think most folks here have a pretty big stack of failures
and dead projects. I sure do -- I've even lost track of them. I've got
failures in inventions, big what-if ideas, political ventures, software
projects, business leads, and on and on.

As long as you're able to get something valuable out of those failures, some
lesson or some insight or some social connections or something, then it's not
really a failure.

It's just more experience.

------
joecode
Yes. There seems to be a common thread here. You are taking on way more than
you, or really anybody, can handle. I mean, seriously---a program to model the
stock market? That's why everybody else keeps bailing out. Anyway, if you get
a bit more realistic (don't read: less ambitious), then I'm sure you'll be a
lot more successful.

Failure is actually a good thing, as long as you learn from it. And it looks
like you've got plenty of material in that regard.

------
codexon
You are not focused.

If people gave up after one or two failures, nothing would get accomplished.

\- Wrote a program to model the stock market

Everyone wants to do this, but unless you have insider information like
Goldman Sachs or some rare mathematical insight that a million PhDs have
overlooked, you are likely to fail. The stock market is a zero-sum game where
most of the profits go to the high end of a Pareto distribution. This is too
ambitious for you.

\- Worked on a paper with a professor.

Unless you are a genius, I doubt any of these professors would be working with
you seriously instead of just being free lab labor. Your knowledge is most
likely too shallow to be useful in high-tech research that gets all the
grants. However, this might be your goal if you want to go to grad school.

\- Tried to start a company over the summer.

Keep trying.

\- Applied for X internships

You are too young. There is also a recession so you can lower your
expectations.

\- Half a dozen math/science contests

There's something wrong with your plan if you have the time for half a dozen
of them.

\- Tried to start a blog, worked on it for two years.

Link?

------
julsonl
At least you had the drive, In my case I never knew what I truly wanted until
a year ago. I kind of slacked all the way through college, thinking I was just
going to be another cog in the wheel when I graduate. I felt that I wasted too
much time.

That said. I agree with having focus. Narrow down your area of focus to a
couple of things and drive the nail all the way. As in my case, I'm focusing
on learning graphics programming and image processing, and considering my
current skill set and timetable, it would take at least 3-5 years to acquire
reasonable expertise on this. Along the way, I will try to learn how to create
and run a startup. This is my current plan for the future, just to give an
example.

As for webapps, you don't have to work on something that others might use or
be happy with, rather, work on something that you, yourself can be proud of,
even though nobody knows what the heck it does.

------
chanux
Dude, almost same story as mine. But I fall very short at the number of items
on your list :).

But still I believe that it's all about experience.

All those things on your list will help you someway or other, on the right
time. Just keep it going and more importantly _balance your life_ (AKA numairs
comment :) ).

May the force be with you!

------
Tichy
As for the webapps: did you create a web app that you yourself would like to
have? What I mean is, perhaps you could try to create something that is useful
to you, then it does not matter as much if other parties lose interest.
Chances are if you like it, other people might like it, too.

A lot of the things you mention seem to be for other people's benefit, not for
your own. Like writing papers - presumably the professors have more to gain.
Or the science contests - sure, they'd look nice on your CV, but are you also
intrinsically motivated to work on that stuff? Perhaps you could focus more on
what you like and less on what you think other people would like to see. Just
guessing, though.

Another thing could be to "launch" early, so that users keep motivating you.

------
hooande
I think you're doing great. A lot of people on this thread say you should
spend more time being social. There's nothing wrong with that, but if I had it
to do over again I would do it your way.

Yeah I had some good times as a kid. But now as I'm approaching 30 I don't
really care about good times. I just want to do something big and I wish I had
more of a head start.

Life is a summation of experiences. The more diverse your experiences are, the
more perspective you have on any given situation. Perspective is what allows
you to see things that other people can't. Get as much perspective as you can
and treat it like gold. The earlier you start, the better off you'll be.

------
dsplittgerber
It reads like an amazing list of accomplishments. Actually though, you have
accomplished close to nothing (please read on, I don't want to put you down; I
had the same problem). Sure, you are interested in a lot of subjects. That's
nice. But that's never going to translate into any success. Stop the dabbling,
determine which field you really want to put work into and do that for some
years. You can later change fields anyway. But there is no use doing 10-15
things sub-par if you could do a single thing outstandingly.

Stop using dabbling around as an excuse for real, hard work.

------
akamaka
You don't have to be successful at anything.

I spent most of my twenties dwelling on my failures and wondering what I was
doing wrong. I wish someone had just told me to chill out and do what I enjoy,
but nobody did.

You seem to have a lot of curiousity and willingness to try knew things, which
is awesome. If you can come out of your twenties as a person who is healthy,
learned, and experienced, you have accomplished a lot.

Tomorrow, forget about all the past endeavors you've mentioned, and just go
out and have fun and try something new.

------
lionhearted
You're thinking too externally:

...capital, capital, people, people, publishing, acceptance/denial... and so
on.

To be successful, you can't wait to be blessed or funded or accepted by anyone
else. A good place to start would be trying to get small
jobs/contracts/articles/whatever that'll make you a bit of cash, a bit of
success, and some lessons and contacts.

Also: Feel free to ignore the people telling you to soak in your youth. The
Western world infantalizes people - keeps them younger than they need to be.
Kids used to be officers in the army as early as 14, coming of age ceremonies
at age 12, starting basic work at age 8. I was making pretty good money
playing cards at age 18 and started my first successful company at 19.

Getting a huge head start on professional success now is quite likely to lead
to a fun life with lots of cool people, experiences, and travel. Don't sweat
missing opportunities to drink beer and socialize with young girls - it's
overrated and you can do it in a much more high class and comfortable way
after you make it later.

I'd recommend you start shooting for small wins that pay just a bit. Don't
worry about your hourly rate, focus on your monthly rate. If it takes you 50
hours in one week to make $500, but you learn from it, that's good. Hell, 50
hours to make $200 in business could be worth it - it takes a long time to get
started in business to the point where you make any money at a reasonable
speed, but controlling your own destiny scales up much better. My first year
in business I think I averaged like two dollars and change per hour - we're
talking 50+ hour weeks for like a touch over $10,000 at the end of the year.
Ugly, but I learned the ins and outs of running my own shop, which was
necessary for later.

For now, look to grab some small wins. Try to not spend much too - if you can
build your bank account up to the $50,000+ range over the next 2-3 years (very
possible), then you'll be ready when you get a good opportunity to invest in
some people, you can frontload marketing and distribution contracts for better
economies of scale, you can test hire someone for six months if you meet a
good person, you can throw in and get a share of a commercial real estate
deal... look to live off of rice, ramen, cheap rent, minimal alcohol, the
dollar menu at fast food restaurants, and bank all you make. Do a lot of
little stuff, don't get arrogant and think anything is beneath you or not
paying enough. You're 18, so everyone is going to write you off. It sucks, but
all us young entrepreneurs went through it. You don't have a track record, and
there's also a lot of things that you're not aware you don't know. Hustling
and taking little projects, jobs, opportunities when possible helps fix both
those problems, and can build the bank account for the bigger wins later.

Best wishes - I admire the ambition. Most of my friends were on a similar
track at your age, and a lot of them have come out crazy-well just now into
their mid to late 20's and early 30's.

~~~
jlees
Indeed - it sounds as if age/experience, the recession, and Other People have
been the big drag factors here. Focus on something _you_ can achieve start to
finish without external capital, without other people who can make or break
it. And for gods sake stop listing your failures, if I'd ever done that at
your age I'd never have got out of bed in the morning.

------
lsc
One big regret I have about some of my early projects was that I did not leave
them online. I wrote a book price search engine when I was a few years older
than you. it was actually pretty cool, but I folded the company because the
competition looked pretty hot at the time.

Folding the company (or at least not working on it more) was probably the
right decision. The mistake was that I took the code offline and lost it.

save every piece of code you write. If possible, put it in public. Not only
does this help you if you later have an idea or opportunity that would use
your old stuff, but it builds up credibility, and it helps give you an idea
how far you have personally come.

So yeah, if there was one piece of advice I could send back in time to me at
18, that'd be what I'd say. Make sure all the technical stuff you do is
accessible online forever, even if it no longer works.

Seriously, the social bullshit works itself out once you figure out that you
get to choose your peers. (and you do. It's hard to imagine after going to
high school and being forced to choose from the thousand or so people your age
who happen to live within a few miles of where you are born, but as an adult,
you absolutely get to choose your peer group and your culture. no matter how
weird you are, there are other people like you.)

------
coliveira
It looks like you're good at finding the wrong side of everything you do. Just
look at the bright side. You did a lot of impressive things. Nobody is
successful in more than a small percent of what they do.

Moreover, in every success there is always some way to find flaws (it was too
easy, nobody cares, I didn't learn anything....). So, you have to take
yourself lightly, continue to work hard, and enjoy the things that you do. Try
to define success for yourself, not for others.

------
quizbiz
Unlike the rest, I ask, "why wait?".

I'm sure the school you go to has great resources. I'm a freshman at Emory and
even though there is no reputation for startups here, the business school and
the library still offer extraordinary resources. I've been emailing around
searching for local business men to connect with.

If you reach out you will find people with similar interests and I have found
partnership to be a superb motivator for getting stuff done.

Persistence is key.

------
jacquesm
So, why not try something simple for a change. And then finish that, make sure
it involves you, only you and does not require a bunch of money.

Then when you've done that try again, but this time with something a bit more
ambitious. Find your 'comfort level' and slowly keep expanding that.

If you keep at it this hard surely one day you'll succeed.

best of luck!

------
ramanujan
Hey -- as someone who thought similar things at that age, you probably have
quite a few skills from all those bruises. Very few people are writing
multiple web apps, multiple papers, etc. at 18.

My advice to you would be to seek out a mentor who sees themself in you. That
could be a graduate student, a young prof, or an entrepreneur.

Forget all that shit about "socializing". Completely agree that things get
better as you get older. Clubs are overrated. Work out hard and get a decently
hot girlfriend if you want. But then get back to work.

PS: stay ambitious. Read Richard Hamming on ambition. PSS: Look for a mentor
that is where you want to be when you are their age. You need to find someone
who you respect technically and who wants to teach you, to give you their
wisdom to help the young version of themselves avoid all the mistakes they've
made.

------
scottdw2
I have a few pieces of advice:

Your feelings are just normal youthful listlessness. It will pass. You could
try getting REALLY DRUNK, but it won't really help. In a year or two, things
will be a lot better.

Modeling the stock market is REALLY HARD. No one has done it yet. Don't fret
over it. In fact, I'd say don't try.

You will probably have to wait a few more years to get research internships.
That's just the way things are. Keep trying though.

Starting a company will get easier as you get more work experience.

Program committees for Academic conferences and Journals are not "double
blind". The people reviewing your papers know your name and your institutional
affiliation when they review your paper. Getting accepted without someone
else's name attached is hard. Just keep at it.

Don't worry about the school you go to. Being an entrepreneur is more about
persistence than anything else. Just be stubborn.

What year are you in school? Most of the Code you write as a Freshman is going
to suck. You might not know it yet, but it does. Even if your code is the best
in the class, it still probably sucks. Just keep hacking (and learning) and
you will get better at it.

Blogs are free, both to produce, and to consume. That means the barrier to
entry is low, and their are a lot of them. As a product, blogs are
commodities. The difference between your blog, and most other blogs, is
imperceptible to the average reader.

Think of it like tomatoes. If you grow a small plot of tomatoes in a community
garden, what makes your tomatoes different than the one's at the supermarket?
People know where the super market is. They don't know where your garden plot
is. And even if they did, the only difference between yours and theirs is that
you grew yours in a garden. What's the difference between your garden tomatoes
and your neighbor's garden tomatoes? Most people don't know.

If you want people to read your blog you have to:

1\. Make sure they find out about it

2\. Make it very obvious why your blog is different from everyone else's, and
why it's worth reading. "But I'm smart and I wrote it" is not an obvious
reason, because no one knows who you are.

3\. Build something people want. People have to want to read what you are
writing. What need does your blog fill?

In any case, you should do 3 things:

1\. Focus.

2\. Relax.

3\. Find your own path.

------
brown9-2
Keep going. Don't give up and don't beat up yourself.

You're trying and that's what really counts - most people have ideas and then
never try to execute on them. It sounds like you are executing on a whole lot
of things, which is really great.

Also I don't get this thing about "my school has never produced any startups"
- how do you know? Its not like anyone keeps a detailed, thorough and
completely accurate history about this start of thing. People from all types
of backgrounds - big name schools, no name schools, and no schools - start
companies and are huge successes. You shouldn't look at just a few examples
(which can be more hype than fact) and think that you have to follow in the
same exact footsteps and life-story.

------
conquest
I sometimes feel the way you do. I started a local ratings company and then
google and yahoo ratings took off. Interestingly enough it never really caught
on and yelp perhaps has done a much better job. I've tried babysitting coops,
and several other ideas all which failed. However the more I read, the more
you discover that the key to success is working hard and trying lots of ideas
and constantly refining those ideas quickly. I take myself too seriously at
times and I really need to start having more fun with my side projects. Your
broad range of ideas and knowledge is the important thing here, it will
greatly benefit you in the long run.

------
fuzzmeister
To be honest, I say keep trying and don't get discouraged. While joecode is
correct that you might need to be more realistic about some of your goals, if
you keep trying, you will find success, even if it's modest.

If you're interested in doing another webapp, I say do one start-to-finish
completely on your own. That way, you don't have to rely on the dedication of
other people for it to be successful. Also, try to reach out and find other
people interested in tech entrepreneurship at your school - I've found a
surprising amount here (Washington University in St. Louis) just by poking
around.

------
byrneseyeview
Sounds like a good summary of most successful people before they became
successful.

But if you want to get that real sense of accomplishment, I recommend getting
a fairly blue collar job either next summer or at night during the school
year.

What you need to figure out is whether you're facing bad luck or you're just
not as talented / determined as you'd like to think. In most of these
examples, it's somebody else's fault: your professors bailed, your friends
bailed, the schools rejected you, etc. One of the reasons people work so hard
in startups is that those excuses just melt away once it's all up to you.

------
diG1tY
You are much more experienced than most people I know. And you are quite
younger than them. Work as hard as you can, and live without regret, the rest
will come along the way ;)

------
MikeCapone
You're young and you still have lots of time to figure what works, but you
seem to be doing the right thing by trying lots of things that interest you.
This will give you lots of experience quickly and teach you about yourself.

You seem to be on the right track. From what you've written, doesn't seem like
your doing any specific thing wrong (except maybe spreading yourself too thin,
but that depends on many factors that I can't know from just reading this).

------
jeromec
Yes, it seems to me you are doing two things wrong. First, you are not
considering carefully enough everything an endeavor will require for success -
and if you can and will provide what is required. That leads to the second,
which is you jump in fairly hastily, then fail to deliver what is required for
success, if success is even possible at the time. Note: I've been guilty of
all this myself, and have worked to improve.

------
code_devil
When I read this it immediately reminded me of King Bruce and the spider
story. I googled and found the link
<http://www.longlongtimeago.com/llta_history_bruce.html>

I see all these setbacks of yours as stepping stones to success, plus you are
only 18. In other words you are learning thing's earlier. Keep trying and soon
you will be rewarded.

------
revorad
Can you give links to those webapps you made? Have you tried figuring out why
no one uses them? If you worked on either of them for another year, will they
still not be successful? If not, why not?

Sometimes, you have to plod your way to success, for years.

Unlike most people, you are smart enough to have made a start. Don't give up
in first gear.

------
startingup
When I was in college, I wanted it all - wanted to prove theorems, found
companies, join politics and so on. As I got older, I realized that just
getting deeply focused on one thing gives you all manner of creative
opportunities. Pick one area, and get in deeper and deeper - that would be my
advice.

------
kitcar
You only need two skills to succeed in business: the ability to negotiate and
the ability to sell. Buy low (goods, services, knowledge), sell high.

Without knowing your personally, I would say you need to work on the sales
side of things, as there is quite a bit of rejection in your past.

------
swombat
(Successful) life: you try 50 things. 1 succeeds. You're about halfway there,
well done!

------
DanielStraight
You're 18... give it time.

~~~
anewkid
I think "give it time" is good advice if you have a project which is not very
successful now but is on the ground running and is growing quickly, but I
can't think of anything I'm doing that falls into that category.

~~~
daveungerer
He's not talking about your projects. Give yourself time and stop being so
hard on yourself.

A lot of your apparent failures will seem completely meaningless in the
future. I would count doing poorly in match/science contests under those, as
well as the blog. Are those things really important in the long run?

And some of your other failures will be very important in the years to come.
You've already learnt how badly things can blow up if you don't formalise your
business arrangements in writing, for example.

It's sounds cliche, but set some concrete goals for where you want to be 5 to
10 years from now and focus on the things that will get you there. Strip out
the rest, but keep the things you are passionate about even if they don't have
much practical value.

~~~
DanielStraight
Right. Practically no one has "succeeded" at anything except school by 18.

I wonder too... it seems like you think you need to be in an ivy league
school, and really in an ivy league among ivy leagues, in order to be
successful. If you do think that, why? What don't you have now that you feel
you need?

------
ahlatimer
I'll reiterate a lot of what the other people are saying: you're depending too
much on other people. You're also looking at certain things that "failed" and
saying, "I failed" instead of looking at them and saying "They didn't take
off, but I learned this, this, and this."

I'll take your webapp you built for a student club as an example. What made
the other person's better? What did you learn, if anything, from building that
webapp? If you had another opportunity like that, what would you do
differently?

You seem like a smart and motivated kid; I'm sure you can figure out what went
wrong in each instance (excepting maybe the Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and
internship positions). I'm sure you can even find problems with the
internships. First, you're too young. I'm guessing you're a Freshman or a
Sophomore, depending on whether or not you graduated early from high school.
Most companies don't look at you until you're a junior or senior. Plus, it's a
recession, so companies are more likely to cut internship budgets. That being
said, you may have set your sights too high on gaining an internship. If you
applied to say, Google, or another company renowned for its extremely high
standards, you shouldn't be disappointed if you didn't get accepted. If you
want to do web development, look for a local web development shop that might
be willing to hire you. You might get lucky and not even have to work as an
"intern"; you may very well get hired outright. I've already managed to do
that twice, and where I am is _hardly_ considered a tech center, but there's a
decent amount of CS students at my Univ. that would kill for my job.

Back to the relying on people bit. If you want to build a webapp, build a
webapp. It really isn't that difficult to do on your own. Hosting is cheap,
and even if you don't ever make it into a real business, you'll likely learn a
lot along the way. If you want to start a business, start a business. If other
people believe in you and want to join, have it in writing who owns what if
things head south. If you didn't have that in your last foray into business,
take it as a lesson and move on.

If you really just want to cut your teeth on real world project, find an open
source project you believe in and support it. If you think there's a niche
that needs to be filled, fill it. The GData Ruby library, for instance, is
drastically lacking (the Google Calendar is supported, kind of, but that was
it, last I checked). Writing a gem for that has been on my todo list for a
while. I'm sure you can think of a few things like that, and it might actually
help you land an internship at Google or wherever if you write an open source
plugin for one of their products. You can even write that GData library if you
really want. I'll let you have it. :)

Edit: My email address is in my profile. If you want someone to work on a few
things, let me know.

------
alexmacgregor
I have some ideas that might interest you or at least get you started. (My
email's in my profile)

Like other's have said, time is on your side.

------
louislouis
Success is 99% failure. Keep trying.

------
bhseo
> Why do so many people talk about youth as some sort of idyllic time in one's
> life?

Because youth is wasted on the young.

It's a good thing that you've tried all that, even those left unfinished. The
next step is to apply the Pareto principle, and stop doing a bunch of things.
Do the easiest thing with the most benefit. Do what makes you happy. Do more
things outside the academic and business areas. Dabbling isn't a bad thing.
Here are some suggestions I find worthwhile, in no particular order:

1\. Sex.

2\. Meet people, help people, make friends, make allies.

3\. Travel.

4\. Improve your body. A healthy mind needs a healthy body.

5\. Teach yourself how to cook.

6\. Read books. (don't be afraid of not finishing them)

7\. Learn more about the rules that govern you. Quite boring but so very
useful.

8\. Become a minimalist. Sell your things and stop buying things you don't
need. Simplifying is good.

9\. Study and practice meditation.

10\. Learn how to grow, collect or hunt food.

11\. Explore altered states. Some do it with wine, some do it with poetry.
Exercise, alcohol, herbs, plants, fungi, pharmaceuticals, music or plenty of
other activities, they can all do the trick.

12\. Conquer fears.

13\. Swim in the ocean.

14\. Lie on the beach.

15\. Don't worry be happy.

~~~
julsonl
I love tip number 6. I get that overwhelming sense of guilt for not being able
to finish a book.

~~~
kalid
I read a sobering fact somewhere -- we'll only be able to read about 1000
books in our lifetime (50 years, 20 books a year or nearly 2 a month). Maybe
2000 or 3000 if you're a voracious reader.

Given that, it doesn't make sense to waste time with a bad book when it's
taking the place of a better one. This helped me with that same guilt.

~~~
sireat
I agree with what you are saying, but a voracious reader could easily hit 10k
books by late middle age. 200 books a year is not that many.

------
zackattack
It seems like you are dabbling in a bunch of areas and improving your overall
intelligence. Your improvements will eventually cross-pollinate and patterns
will indeed emerge, and you will begin to start thinking rationally about your
behavior, instead of acting haphazardly.

You have to ask yourself what you're aiming for. What you want. And then
formulate an attack plan. Sorry, but you're not going to be able to get a
finance internship and a research internship and a coding internship at the
same time, while also becoming a writer. Mastery takes 10,000 hours of
deliberate practice (practicing, and then immediately implementing conscious
corrections based on masters' recommendations regarding the technique).

What do you want... Social status? Peer recognition? Parental recognition?
Access to high-quality sexual partners? Money to buy toys? Happiness?

Carefully evaluate if you are working on any of the above things as means to
an end, or ends in themselves. If you aren't, it's OK: just try to figure it
out what it is you really want, so you can attack it directly. Spend time
investing in understanding your emotions, and it will pay dividends later.

If you really really just want to do math physics chemistry biology economics
politics history computers etc., you can. You just have to focus on improving
your skill levels in each domain in order to create a meaningful impact. e.g.
Improve your social intelligence in order to understand how to build something
people want (figure out why people like talking about sports and dating and
parties and clubs and stuff...hint: it happens for a reason, try to be open-
minded and understand that everyone is human); improve your coding skills in
order to understand how to actually make it. Read history books. Take
advantage of all your free time in college to do more reading. Optimize your
sleep schedule to use polyphasic sleep and spend all your time reading and
working if that is TRULY what you care about. That is one good attack plan if
you analyze your emotions and find out what is really important to you. But my
guess is that it isn't.

My guess is that you just want to fit in and seem recognized as a contributing
human being. Who doesn't?

~~~
anewkid
"Sorry, but you're not going to be able to get a finance internship and a
research internship and a coding internship at the same time, while also
becoming a writer."

Of course not. I apply for all of these internships at once so that, if one
fails (as they often do), I have backup plans.

"(figure out why people like talking about sports and dating and parties and
clubs and stuff...hint: it happens for a reason, try to be open-minded and
understand that everyone is human)"

I'm not condemning them or anything, just saying that we're different. Indeed,
if anything, you (and many others here) seem to be condemning _me_ for being
different.

~~~
zackattack
I'm not condemning you.

But I don't understand how you could be applying pursuing so many disparate
career paths while also solidly understanding your own values. Finance has
little to do with value-creation, and more with wealth accumulation; research
has more to do with the progress of science (and possibly the recognition of
greatness), and (typically) little to do with wealth-creation. Same goes for
writing.

You are not going to get anywhere if you spread your faculties too thinly.
Figure out what you want to do and then pursue it seriously. By the way, I
applied for about ~350 jobs before finding my current gig. I tried sales,
finance, tech, business development ... I didn't find my current job (which
kicks ass) until I buckled down and focused all my efforts on landing a tech
job.

~~~
anewkid
True, thanks for the advice. Sorry if I got upset, I had just finished reading
some other comments which seem to say that the only things worth doing in life
are getting wasted and partying and banging chicks, and that if I'm not doing
those I'm wasting my time.

------
FreeRadical
Focus on one thing, try a simple web app that can potentially gain traction
quickly (maybe twitter related? Finish it.

