

Ask HN: How have or would you convey failure to an employer? - jpd750

I quit my job 6 months back to set out on my own doing my own startup idea. This idea hasn&#x27;t panned out quite the way I thought it would.<p>How have you or would you convey that your startup failed and you are interested in &lt;x&gt; job now?
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smacktoward
This one's pretty easy: just be up front about it.

"I had an idea. I went out on my own to try it out. It didn't work out, but I
learned a lot along the way."

Then just be prepared to talk a little about the things you learned, and how
they helped you grow as a professional.

No employer worth working for is going to ding you for taking a risk like that
-- even outside SV! Seriously! -- as long as you can make it clear that you
really were working on _something_ during that period, rather than sitting on
the couch eating Cheetos.

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patio11
"The last six months? I did some exploratory projects, but decided against
productizing them."

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pnathan
Honestly, if you told me that, I'd want to know more; it would not be a black
mark (or even grey). I'd consider that to be a high marker for initiative and
hackerishness.

I would, however, be concerned that you'd take off as soon as you found a VC
to buy into your idea and give you a few years of runway. So you'd have to
alleviate that concern (within reason, of course).

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angersock
Here, two from personal experience:

"I worked on a mobile startup, right before iOS got big; J2ME games. Yeah, I
think we sold maybe 50 games once? Anyways, stayed in college, no harm done."

"I tried a startup. After a year, it imploded in not-quite-glorious fashion.
Still dealing with the fallout from that, but I learned a lot about business
and product development."

There's no shame in failing, and anybody worth working with will appreciate
your experience--that is, if you learned anything.

