
Ask HN: I'm a 44 year old (sole) designer at a startup – what am I doing? - abyssina
Some background:<p>• I did marketing design from 2000-2010 and then dove headlong into product design which I still do at a fairly high level in a large city<p>• I&#x27;ve worked at a handful of already successful startups in which I didn&#x27;t really identify with the mission for one reason or the other<p>• Since Mar 2017 I&#x27;ve been working as Employee #1 at a startup on a moderately interesting enterprise workflow kind of tool. The company is 12 people and we will pursue Series A early next year. I have 120,000 options, half of which have vested.<p>The downsides? I&#x27;m 10+ older than anyone there. We work in a really crappy dirty warehouse. I&#x27;ve asked for either more design hires (it&#x27;s just me), a bonus, a raise, or some kind of ramp-down of the sheer number of features and requests made on tight deadlines which, after 2.5 years, still seem relentless.<p>We&#x27;re going live to the public as a SAAS&#x2F;self-serve kind of product in January and it&#x27;s comparable to Slack or Notion in terms of ease of use. Business-wise, I could see it being moderately popular, but who knows. All I know is I&#x27;m totally exhausted and just want to play music and travel for awhile. But we haven&#x27;t technically launched yet.<p>What&#x27;s keeping me? FOMO. Fearing I&#x27;m leaving at &quot;the wrong time.&quot; Fear of resentment. Fear of not knowing what the next move is as a 44 year old designer. Fear they&#x27;ll hire a mediocre replacement, the app experience will suffer, my equity will be worthless...<p>Any advice?
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ent101
I say this with best intentions and based on seeing similar patterns among a
lot of my friends and myself: you seem to be in the very early stages of a
burn-out. Take some time to relax, maybe see a therapist, exercise (if you
don't right now), and hang out more with friends and family.

Best of luck :)

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ilamont
2.5 years and no launch?

At this point, I think it's reasonable to ask for a real vacation. Yes, it
will be tough if you don't have backup but surely the founder can risk you
burning out and/or leaving. Is it possible to arrange something at a
relatively less busy time in the next six months?

