
Ask HN: Do I give up now? - smokesigns
I&#x27;ve heard failure is good, but 10 years is a long time. That&#x27;s how long I&#x27;ve been failing for now. I&#x27;ve worked on failed project after failed project, and now at 25, I&#x27;m wondering what the fuck I&#x27;ve been doing with my life - my youth.<p>When I was 15 me and my friend started a little hosting website. It was really fun. I learnt to program, and we even made a little bit of money. In the excitement I began to learn about business, startups and programming. I thought it was going to be so easy to make money. I mean, if I could make a bit of money on the web at 15 without knowing anything about business or programming, I&#x27;m going to be great at this startup stuff by 20 right? Well, clearly, I&#x27;m not.<p>And I read a lot. And I think even more. I just have no idea why I&#x27;m not succeeding. Because for the last 10 years I&#x27;ve worked 16-18 hours a day, every day, with absolutely nothing to show from it. Well, aside from the lack of a social life and the book on my coffee table by Eric Ries. I really should book that holiday.<p>Maybe I&#x27;m just not as smart as I like to think? But how would anyone know? I mean, I do okay on IQ tests.<p>Maybe I&#x27;ve just been unlucky? But 10 years of bad luck? Anyway, one must fail to succeed.<p>And even if I say so myself, I don&#x27;t think my ideas suck. And even if they did, I&#x27;ve worked on other peoples ideas too.<p>So when do you give up HN? Because 10 years later I&#x27;m suck in a day job as a programmer. Something I never wanted to be, I just wanted to build a business.<p>I&#x27;ve built my own prison and I&#x27;ve lost some of the best years of my life behind a text editor and a dream. Not to mention the money and friends I&#x27;ve lost along the way.<p>I think maybe I&#x27;ve had too much wine. It&#x27;s Friday night and I have a project to work on after all.
======
formulaT
For me, the process was realizing that my desire to have my own business, and
my dislike of an ordinary job, were based on many different underlying
motivations, some of which, on closer analysis, I consciously chose to reject.

I had always wanted and expected to achieve _great things_. I think this is a
natural and healthy desire. But when I looked back on the last 10 years I
realized I wanted to be a political figure (when I was left wing) then a
famous scientist, then a famous scientist in another field, etc. The only
common thread was the desire to be great and to have a big (positive) impact
on the world.

To let go of this required me to realize that a small probability of having a
big impact on the world was not better than the certainty of having a small
impact. Once I was open to making a small impact, it became very easy to see
the value in my work, and to focus on enjoying the fortunate position of
having an easy job that paid well.

~~~
robbiep
You have to learn to go from stone to stone.

When you're on a big hike, with full pack, you don't look at the top of the
mountain.

You look at that stone. Then you walk to it. Then you look for and walk to the
next stone. and again. And again.

If you look at a mountaintop and say 'I want to be there' and then change
before getting to the top you're always going to think like that.

Churn it out. Stop beating yourself up. Only do things you want to do and stop
thinking that 25 is old.

~~~
formulaT
is this a reply to my post or to the original poster?

------
yazaddaruvala
I think you have three fundamental problems.

1\. You think your best years are behind you. - I hope they will but no amount
of my words will convince you they are not.

2\. You consider this failing - Try thinking about it as learning. Doctors go
through 10+ years of education before they can do what they do well.

3\. You "just want to be a business". - You _need_ to be solving a problem not
building a business. No one is going to pay you because you want to build a
business.

------
nacrikt
You're not alone. I'm 25 and have worked on roughly 5 major projects, and thus
far all have failed due to execution; sometimes failing because of me,
sometimes failing because of other people. Then there are all the small
things, some of which succeeded but I didn't care for.

Being smart and being lucky aren't something you need to worry about. Being
better tomorrow than you are today should be the goal. Even if it's just a
small thing.

Ask yourself what you want in the next 5 years, and focus on that. It sounds
like you want to focus on relationships and travel. Focus less on the ideas
and the business stuff, those don't matter in the long run. Focus on life.

Today, I walked into work knowing I was going to quit, because I don't see the
success. I failed at that, because I know the idea is good and I like the
people, and for me to cut the cord early would fuck everyone else at the
moment. I'm making a decision that means I'm unhappy for the moment, but I'm
doing it for other people's safety.

I'm also suffering from the issue of having left a place I love and everyone I
care for, for a place I don't fit in and can't connect with anyone. My social
life is dead and it's not something I've been able to change in the valley.

I'm thinking about leaving tech, as a profession, because professionally it
turns everything I love into a thing to loath. And going back to the slower
pace of living, without fear of failure or success, just living intentionally
and taking every day and every moment for what it is.

~~~
orthoganol
I'm only a little older and I went through similar stages. Obviously you take
the bad with the good, but moving out to the Bay Area I got a little jaded by
how many people I met in the startup world were so motivated by status. (I
actually had a pretty eye opening experience at my first startup school, lots
of really nice people, but also more than a few bad people (IMO, my
judgement), who didn't care about cutting off or snubbing others in
conversations when that person's lack of importance in the tech world became
clear. Christ, one guy in particular totally cut off my conversation with a
YCombinator guy and didn't acknowledge me when I tried to talk to him, just
interested in networking with the YCombinator guy about his dumb 3-d printing
network or whatever it was). Ranting a little, but that is definitely a
feature of the SV startup world which made me question startups for a while.

Finally did a back to basics by deciding to totally ignore the SV scene and
just work on stuff I like and hang out with people I like or respect. Making
my realize being in the Bay Area is a little pointlessly expensive now, so who
knows.

------
saluki
It's not easy, lots of us are still looking for our first big win.

At 25 you have lots of at bats to succeed with a startup/business.

I wouldn't say you're stuck in a day job as a programmer.

That's why they call it work. Look around few people are making what you make
and are able to support themselves, travel, save for a house, nest egg for a
family. So be thankful you have the skills to pay the bills.

I would work on the work life balance. Focus on your day job during the day,
learn what you can and advance. Save money for runway and funding your startup
when you do come up with your next idea.

A mastermind would be a great idea. To bounce your ideas off of and decide
what to put time in to.

Don't work 16 hour days non-stop, balance your time for family/friends. Use
funds from your day job to pay developers and maybe a VA to handle some of the
time you'd normally put in.

If you haven't already listen to the StartupsForTheRestOfUs.com. They have
great advice for lots of topics you mentioned.

Reach out to people in the community. Rob has the micropreneur academy which
might be a nice way to meet up with like minded people to bounce ideas off
of/get advice.

Lots of people are where you are later in life. Make the most of your youth
and have a life work balance.

Good luck with your next venture.

------
fsk
The people who say you should work 16 hours a day are the ones hoping to get
rich at your expense. Also, after 40 hours a week, productivity starts to go
negative.

Stick to 8 hours a day. Work for a couple of years as an employee and build up
some savings. Then start something on the side or try again with some savings.

~~~
MichaelGG
The exception is if you've been "at work" for X hours, then really get in the
flow and are doing really well, hell, ride it out. This happens now and then
with me, and I'll stay up all night making good progress.

Just beware if you've been debugging a single issue for more than 30 minutes
or so, you may be degraded and stuck. (Or worse, if you're doing perf
optimizations.)

~~~
fsk
Nowadays I only stay late if I'm troubleshooting a production issue.

Otherwise, I just take notes of where I am, what I was thinking, and finish
the next day.

~~~
bingomantis
I'm currently in a toxic workplace ... incompetent management but I stuck
around since I had decent coworkers. Well .. a few reorgs later, and I'm stuck
with the crazies ... my current coworkers are keeners/workaholics who work at
midnight-3am. They are social BSers since they make sure they email
everyone/post questions on Slack. We've been on crisis mode since last fall.

Days like this, I feel like I've had it with tech. Wish I had a plan B. In any
case, I'll likely quit my job in a few weeks.

I like what an earlier poster was saying about respect. Tech is full of the
young and it is a competitive field. We have short memories and it seems we
have forgotten that our field used to be noble. People used to be in tech
because we loved it. Today, it is all about the money and I hate it.

~~~
fsk
>People used to be in tech because we loved it. Today, it is all about the
money and I hate it.

It's Gresham's Law. When most of the people in a field are there to chase the
money, the people who really enjoy it and are good at it don't fit in and
they're the ones who get chased out.

That's why things like Scrum and Agile and open plan offices are popular. If
you have a team of 20+ mediocre people, you need to do stupid stuff like that
to keep things moving in the right direction. It doesn't matter that 2-3
people with real talent would get a better product out cheaper. If you hire
2-3 great people, then you're dependent on them. If you hire 20 mediocre
people, then it doesn't matter when one leaves.

------
harrisonjackson
I'd say get a job in an industry you are actually interested in working. If
you've been doing your own thing from 15-25 you could probably benefit from
some practical experience at a company that's successfully executing in a
space in which you want to break. 1-3 years experience at another company will
give you a ton of valuable insider knowledge making your next startup (maybe
one you even start whilst employed) that much more likely to succeed.

Don't give up! But maybe make a change.

~~~
tempestn
Agreed. Having some real world industry experience is really invaluable. Plus,
if/when you eventually do "succeed" with a startup, the next stage is actually
building a company - and it's going to be difficult to do that without having
actually worked at real companies (preferably more than one) to get an idea of
how things work, and how you want to do things.

------
untog
You're only 25, that's still young. To think that you would have startups
nailed by the age of 20 was optimistic to say the least.

You're not in your own prison. Your programming job (presumably) pays well -
that's more than a lot of other people have to go on. Take that vacation,
clear your head, come home, start putting money aside to bootstrap a busines
venture. Take your time working out what it should be. Then make the leap.

------
vinceguidry
Don't stop coding. What you should do is get a little bit more deliberate
about it. And a little more every time you sit down. Demand more out of your
time. Accomplish more. Spend less time on the computer, but accomplish more so
that you're not actually becoming less productive.

Use the time you're saving to have a life. Travel, date, cultivate hobbies.
Talk to people who aren't in the same bubble you're in. Gain knowledge about
the rest of the world.

To be honest, you just haven't been coding long enough to be really good at
it. 10 years is nowhere near enough. It took me 20. Been doing it since I was
9, now I'm 31. It really took til my late twenties to find a stride. But it's
not time spent behind the screen that's the metric to move. You have to know
what and why you're doing it and for who. There's a bigger economic ecosystem
coding fits inside that, if you don't understand, it's easy to spin your
wheels for a long time until you figure it out.

Paradoxically, it's not time spent coding that makes you the best coder. It's
all the rest of it.

You don't have to stay inside the prison you built for yourself. All it takes
to leave that prison is to go outside. My advice, go to the bar. Talk to
whoever you find next to you. Do it again tomorrow. As many times as it takes
to make you sane again. Maybe make some real friends.

I traveled. It's a hollow joy. I found myself opening up my laptop and going
through tutorials in the middle of paradise. Now I bring my laptop to the bar.
If there's someone to chat with, I'll close the lid and chat. If not I'll make
some progress on whatever project I have.

------
majormajor
I think you need to figure out just what you mainly want. What's driving you?
Just the goal of making lots of money? More or less than the lost friends? Is
it a status thing of having something to show for it?

That paragraph might sound judgmental initially, but personally I don't think
there's anything wrong with being driven by the desire to make a lot of money,
or prove something (whether to yourself or to others - it sounds more like to
yourself in your case). But I think you need to really nail down your
motivations in order to decide what your goal is -- for instance, what's your
objection to having a day job? If you weren't working on side projects too,
would you really be taking trips? Some people don't get as much out of
traveling as others, that's OK, don't feel like you have to do it because
everyone else is. You want to build a business, but that's vague: what's the
part of it do you really want to do? Does it depend on the type of business?

Figure out the details of what you want and why you want it, so you can keep
yourself sane and remember why you're doing it, then get back to the how.

------
hpvic03
I think if you're looking for an idea and constantly switching from one
project to the next then you've got the wrong mindset. Take the time to solve
a real problem for a group of people, and find an authentic way to reach them.
Pick something that you personally care about, that you would work on for free
(because you will be for a while).

My indicator for successful startups is:

1\. They solved a real, significant problem for me (if it doesn't help me then
it's not generic enough and then there's not a big enough market, though this
does not apply to enterprise startups).

2\. I use their product/service every day (or at least once a week)

3\. What they built is cool

Does your work fit that criteria?

And if you're doing it to get rich, you'll have better luck joining an early
stage startup that's clearly taking off. The first 100 employees at Google and
Facebook made way more money than the median startup entrepreneur.

------
hobarrera
Are you working alone?

If so, maybe that's your issue. I myself am a programmer. I consider myself a
good one. I've worked independently for about a year, but business isn't
terribly good.

I recently finally listened to my dad's advice, and partnered up with a not-
very-good-programmer. The catch? He's great at finding clients, leads, and all
that social part. I now realize that the time I'd dedicated to talking about
the project, contacting potential clients, etc were a waste: it's not my
speciality.

I suspect you're doing something similar: you might be a great programmer, but
that doesn't mean you're good at _everything_ that needs to get done. Have you
had proper marketing for your ideas? Did a designer design the UI (or are you
any good at it)? Did someone with business expertise manage the business side
of it?

------
orthoganol
Don't 'give up' but it seems like a real part of you is yearning to invest
yourself in other areas of your life, so you should do so. From 10 years of
coding, I presume you have money saved up. Go sublet your place and spend 4+
months traveling. Develop some passions outside of startups... I mean not
hobbies, but things you really care about and want to work towards, view as
important, and want learn more about. Completely centering your life around
making money from startups is a sure way to quash your inner life, and
paradoxically makes you much less equipped to actually succeed in startups.

------
otterley
Absolutely not. You now have 10 years of experience in what not to do and what
mistakes not to make and you are better off for it than many others. Failures
are just as valuable as successes in the grand scheme of things, if not in the
strict monetary sense.

The key is to keep trying and keep learning until you're successful. Just
because some people made it big at your age doesn't mean there isn't room at
the table for people who make it happen later. I should know: I didn't really
come of age until I was 35 years old.

What doesn't kill you just makes you stronger -- and increases your chances of
success.

Good luck to you.

------
BjoernKW
No, you shouldn't give up.

You should work a lot less instead and take breaks in-between as well. Such a
workload is not sustainable. If you continue going at this pace you'll likely
drop dead before you're 35.

Working so much could also be the main reason why you're not succeeding with
your business and your ideas. Creativity can't be forced. Your brain needs
some downtime in order to be able to get new ideas and new insights. Many
smart people say they get their best ideas while under the shower or otherwise
letting their mind wander idly.

Stop reading (seriously). Reading in the end just means thinking and
reiterating somebody else's thoughts. Get first-hand experience instead. Go
out. Travel. Meet like-minded entrepreneurs. If possible work some time as a
freelance to get industry experience.

Finally, stop looking for ideas and start looking for problems instead.
Working in any kind of industry you're likely to encounter many obvious
problems still worth solving (people who've been working in an industry for
years tend to overlook these because "it's always been done this way").

[Edit]: Speaking from personal experience: I'm 36 and I've been doing this for
18 years more or less. I had some moderate successes. I failed a lot but I
don't consider myself a failure. I'm just still learning.

------
smokesigns
I really didn't expect so my replies from my half drunken post! Thank you for
all the kind advise.

A lot of people seem to be pointing out that I'm still young and that there
are lots people in similar positions to me who have been failing for a long
time.

I know I'm still young, and I know it's not easy to build a successful
startup, but I think that's missing the point. I am still relatively young,
but I won't be as young in 10 years. And what if I keep failing for another 10
years? Or even another 10 after that? Do I really want to spend 20, or 30,
years of my life in a job I don't enjoy that much for a dream that may never
happen?

Don't get me wrong. All I really want from life is to build something I'm
proud of. I don't care much for cars, houses and holidays. They're nice, but
I'd give up any chance of having them if I could build something that fills me
with passion everyday I wake up. It's just, I can't guarantee that the time I
put into having those things will actually get me anywhere. I mean, I've
already gambled 10 years unsuccessfully so far.

I really relate to what nacrikt said:

> I'm thinking about leaving tech, as a profession, because professionally it
> turns everything I love into a thing to loath. And going back to the slower
> pace of living, without fear of failure or success, just living
> intentionally and taking every day and every moment for what it is.

After 10 years of nothing, I feel like cutting my loses and living life a
little slower for a while might not be so bad.

~~~
tempestn
Have you considered seeking out a position at an existing tech company doing
something you feel is worthwhile? If your primary goal is to build something
you're proud of, there's nothing that says you have to do it on your own.
There's also no reason why working for someone else has to be a soul-sucking
experience. There are lots of great companies out there. Especially since your
primary focus isn't simply salary, you can afford to be a bit more discerning
in the companies and positions you'll consider.

------
swframe
Look for your "catch 22". Sometimes the approach you want to use can never win
and you've been ignoring that flaw. For example, you were building solutions
to problems that customers didn't accept, trust or want.

Reanalyze your failures looking for a common cause. Maybe you didn't get
customers soon enough or spent too much time perfecting features that
customers didn't value. Maybe you were too early or late to the market.

Try a new prespective. Maybe you shouldn't code as much as you have. Maybe you
should focus on marketing or sales.

Redefine success. You shouldn't think that building a business is the only
thing that will make you successful. Think in terms of layers of success.
There are layers for friendship, marriage, children, health, career, etc. Not
all layers will be the best but there is a gestalt.

You need to amortize your happiness over your work life time. You have to work
in a way that makes you happy as you go so if your work isn't successful, at
least you had fun. For example, you can work in interesting places anywhere in
the world. Or you can work on an interesting vertical (e.g. special effects
for movies). Or you can work with interesting people, etc.

------
triantos
I would suggest you invest some energy in finding some mentors. Find people
who you look up to. I wouldn't try to find Tim Cook or Elon Musk.. I'd look
for people who've been successful, and who you can connect to through your
network (if you aren't investing time in building up your network in LinkedIn,
I suggest you do so).

There's a LOT of entrepreneurs who take a few times to come up with something
that succeeds. Personally (I've founded 2 startups and worked at 4 others), I
think it's much more about the people than the idea.

Get to know people who are passionate about creating things. Find some amongst
them who have common interests. Build something you love. If others love it,
too, you will build success.

I'm always happy to help people early in their careers (like you, at your ripe
young age of 25). If you can't find others to help you, send me a THOUGHTFUL
intro on LinkedIn, and I'll be happy to talk.
[http://linkedin.com/in/triantos](http://linkedin.com/in/triantos)

Good luck!

------
thenomad
What went wrong with the businesses you've built so far? It's hard to tell
whether you should give up (although spoilers: no, probably not, unless you've
got something you'd rather be doing) without knowing what went wrong.

Did you launch? If so, did you get initial traction? If so, were you just
unable to scale? If not, was it that people weren't interested in the ideas?
What were those ideas?

I'm not sealioning here - I have a certain amount of experience in debugging
business problems, and if you respond I'm happy to try to help. Feel free to
email me if you'd prefer - mail address is in my profile.

If it makes you feel any better, I've been working for nearly 20 years to
crack a specific business sector myself! I've had some success, but "mission
accomplished" is still some distance off.

Finally - you almost certainly SHOULD stop working as many hours as you are.
There's a lot of solid, carefully tested, science-backed evidence that you're
almost certainly harming rather than helping your chances by working that many
hours.

------
MichaelGG
If everyone smart could spend 10 years and hit it with startups, then, well,
things would look a lot different and no one would choose a normal job until
their 40s, and nearly everyone would have made it with a startup and be
wealthy. That's obviously not reality so the 10 years = success thing is just
a wrong idea. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, and it could
even be pure luck!

If you've been at work every day for that long, a: cut back the hours and b:
go disconnect. Take a week or a month or whatever, and just don't connect to
the Internet. (It gets easier after ~3 days.) Reflect on things.

Another trick I've used is to go consulting for a bit. Work on somebody else's
stuff, deal with their problems, collect cash. Importantly: Get a job where
you're not shouldering the cognitive burden of their business (so, not a CTO
role, or Lead Technical Architect Designer Whatever). Look for a more 9-5
thing.

Eventually you'll start feeling the urge to go do your own thing and switch
back.

------
heimatau
Here are a few pieces of advice:

1\. Take it easy. Relax. Rest. Take a break. 100% break for maybe 2 weeks. If
you can't afford it, change your job, work enough to pay your bills and relax
with all the extra time (provided you don't live in an expensive city). Find a
way to GET AWAY from the computer/tech. The break will help you think clearer.

2\. Change your definition of 'success'. Something more like 'doing what you
like and getting paid to do it'.

3\. Improve your skills. Nothing to show for it? I hope not. Either way, find
ways to improve your skills. Code reviews, open source, etc.

4\. Work for someone else. Many people started their own business FIRST by
working for someone else. After 9 months to a year they felt confident enough
to do their own thing. I'd suggest you follow in their footsteps. Support
someone else's business that will pay you.

Good luck in your endeavors.

------
bewe42
Are you a starter but not a finisher? Are you sure you really want to build a
business? Or do you just like the idea of having a business, but not the
grinding work? You say you like to read and think a lot - this could be signs
that having a business is not really what you want. Where have you spent your
16-18 hours a day? On your website, on your framework, on your code editor? Or
on solving business problems, on sales, on talking to people with money? You
don't have friends and say you lost your best time. So start living now. Stop
"building businesses". Work in business. Talk to business people. Get
experience. So yes, I'd say indeed give up. Because it doesn't matter what you
tell yourself now. You are going to change your mind anyway. With 25 there is
so much more to learn and do.

------
sequoia
Take a break, bud. Do something else for a bit. Lotsa interesting stuff to get
into out there. :)

------
andersthue
My "succes" started when I stopped hunting for it, stopped looking for it and
started living.

After a while of just being (I made a promise to myself that I would do
nothing but earn enough to support my family for 12 months) I started
connecting with likeminded (especially the microconf crowd)

Having two mastermind groups, a conference every six months and some friends
who are interested in living instead of making a shitload of money (internal
vs. external motivation) helped me move myself and my business to something
sustainable and wholehearted.

PS. I took 13 years from me starting as self employed until I became
"succesfull" \- and that is 13 years of failure and little money - all because
I was so externally motivated.

------
spydum
10 years of bad luck doesn't sound so bad. Even in failure, you are blessed to
work in one of the more fascinating industries to come along in 100 years.

No doubt, most successful people I know are lucky, but those are not the
people I admire the most. I admire the unlucky who persevered and overcame.
They have the battle scars and experience to know what doesn't work, when to
ask for help, and when to muscle through tough situations. They didn't
accidentally get born into wealthy family with a paid-for college degree, or
join MENSA.

That all being said, don't spend your whole youth trying to grow up, it just
sort of happens. Enjoy your youth and make sure you are constantly learning
and meeting new people.

------
ophilbert
You're 25, you're still young and have plenty of time to succeed. A lot of
people try hard for years without doing so.

There is a huge difference between making a little money from a website and
running a business. It's maybe not your project, maybe the way you communicate
on it or the way you plan to make money on it.

There are lots of ways to run a business and lots to fail one. Take your time
and check point by point what went wrong with your project:

\- Did your project fill someone's need? \- Did you have an exact idea of how
you would earn money? \- Was your communication effective enough (did you
reach your target)?

My thoughts is that you're still young, do not lose hope at 25, try to find
what were your weakness. Keep it up :)

------
wishiknew
Friends are overrated. If you worked that much on those projects, you must
have felt like this was more interesting to you than going out. And honestly,
if you're an introvert, going out sucks, working alone is much more
interesting. Also, have you heard about Julius Caesar who was crying at 30
because he hadn't done what Alexander the Great had done at that age? You
still have room to grow. I can't be of help as far as business is concerned
because I've failed a lot too. All I know is that my most successful project
is the simplest in terms of technology, but that there's an evergreen flow of
people looking for what I offer.

------
partisan
For me, at the stage you are in life, I felt extremely unaccomplished. And I
was. I still am in some sense. I have spent 10 years working on a failure. I
still work on it. But I also know I have made progress. There are things I
have accomplished. I am sure there are things you can look back on proudly.

Can you take a vacation? My selfish fantasy advice: Go somewhere sunny and sit
on a beach for a while. Take your laptop with and code there too if you want,
but don't push yourself. Just take a break and relax. Meet people. Have fun.
You are young. Everything is ahead of you.

Sorry. Possibly too much wine.

------
Turing_Machine
"I've lost some of the best years of my life"

Others have more or less alluded to this, but it's worth stating it
explicitly: 15-25 probably aren't going to be _anywhere near_ the best years
of your life.

Also, at least you've got a marketable skill. Think of all the college
graduates who don't even have that going for them, plus a pile of student loan
debt to boot.

~~~
smokesigns
Actually I went to Uni just so I wouldn't have a job and so I'd have more free
time to work on startups.

I only went to a few classes the entire time I was there, and I got a bad
grade obviously, but it wasn't too bad considering I never went to class.

It was actually pretty good for me though. I learnt a lot about startups in
uni thanks to all the support and help they can provide. Also, it's a decent
environment to find other people working on startups which you can learn from
and work with.

I will mention that I'm from the UK though, and back when I went to uni
student loans weren't too bad. Thankfully, I should have them all paid off in
a few years.

------
empressplay
Well, I wouldn't stop working on stuff, but I wouldn't keep my nose to the
grindstone either -- you should take that vacation!

------
late2part
Sounds like you've had some bad luck. It's okay, it happens to everyone. It's
no fun to fail. Find a few things that you can succeed at. Do those and get
used to succeeding. Then do more and greater things and succeed at those.
Success breeds success. Start investing in success.

------
4ydx
"Hard work" is relative. As a baseline, if you are able to feed, cloth, and
shelter yourself, you are doing just fine. If indeed you have actually been
working that much every day then perhaps you need to take some time off and
relax.

------
MahJohn
Although 10 years is not a short time,but your experience among these years is
priceless.

"Work longer, work harder and work wiser, you must not only choose two of
them."

Maybe you didn't find your way yet. Work wiser.

Anyway, keep Forward..

------
justifier
you are fine, try to see it

something is broke in your mechanism

thinking this way is unnatural and a result of external influences

who broke it is up for debate but it is up to you to mend yourself

you sound like you want someone to relieve you of your self imposed
responsibility

do something for yourself, ask yourself what that is and do it

make it something that you are so sure and proud of that even if people deride
you for doing it or complain that it is taking you too long you can
comfortably know you are spending your time the way you should be

go for long walks in your city at all hours, stumble upon unique corners that
you would otherwise ignore or miss on a bike or bus or in a car, allow your
mind to wander, build ideas up in your head

go to a city in a developing nation far from your home and do the same

achievement comparisons are superfluous thoughts, but if you need an extra
jolt of energy now to start tackling your fears i present to you some
highlights from the age game:

    
    
      Vincent Van Gogh :: 

* first picked up a paintbrush when he was 26.. note similarities to your own age..

* he was universally despised throughout his life.. he either sold 2 of his paintings or 5 depending on your source..

* died in poverty, but is now considered an essential element in the development of visual media
    
    
      Bill Withers ::
    

* first picked up a guitar at 30, wrote some of the greatest songs sung and remixed by many musicians since and is an accredited influence to many contemporary musicians
    
    
      Walt Whitman ::
    

* published only one book in his lifetime.. with five revisions.. leaves of grass at 36

* i personally think he is the greatest author ever to write.. even though i do see areas and room for improvement, yet i believe he is the best of the best.. and historically he is essential to contemporary life

* without whitman we may have had to wait longer for the beats, which means we would have had to wait longer for the drug and sexual revolution of the 60s which would have meant we needed to wait longer for all of the wonderful derivatives of that movement: civil rights, gender rights, and on and on

------
hmans
If you haven't made it big at 25, you can just as well kill yourself now,
because as everybody in tech knows, your life is practically over. </s>

------
lmg643
too much wine. having a job is not a prison. being in prison, is a prison.
you're just biding your time until you figure out what works. you also need to
find some happiness in life away from your work. People are good for that.

------
amahdee
this will answer your question: Angry Birds was Rovio’s 52nd game. They spent
eight years and almost went bankrupt before finally creating their massive
hit.

------
justintocci
a mentor can help you cull your ideas and help you plan valid testing for
them. for a twenty five year old i would suggest you find someone in their
fourties

------
guiambros
It seems you're trying too hard. It might sound counter intuitive, but you
should let it go, take care of yourself, and do more things you enjoy - and
because you enjoy it, not because "it will make you successful".

You should reframe your perspective. Instead of " _failing for 10 years_ ",
you should look at all the knowledge and skills you've acquired during this
time. That alone is already better than the majority of the population, and I
bet lots of people would kill to be in your position. And you're only 25.

Also, it doesn't surprise me that you didn't succeed, despite your effort. The
odds are simply against you [3]. Failing _is_ the expected outcome. What is
wrong is your expectation of success, just because you spent 10 years trying
hard. Sorry to say, but that's not how it works [4].

You should take a serious look at your professional career, and consider other
options. Building your own business is not the only way to cultivate a
successful career, build a strong network, and learn to be a better
professional. And remember that many successful entrepreneurs started after 30
(or 40, or 50), so that option always exist. Different challenges, but still
doable.

You mentioned that you like to read. Here's some references that I wish I had
when I was 25:

[1] The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of
Them Now [http://smile.amazon.com/The-Defining-Decade-Twenties-
Matter-...](http://smile.amazon.com/The-Defining-Decade-Twenties-Matter-
And/dp/0446561754)

[2] Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success,
Happiness (and World Peace) [http://smile.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-
Unexpected-Ac...](http://smile.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-
Achieving/dp/0062116932/)

[3] The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can
Sink a Startup [http://smile.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-
Found...](http://smile.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-
Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304/)

[4] The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator [http://smile.amazon.com/Launch-Pad-
Inside-Combinator/dp/1591...](http://smile.amazon.com/Launch-Pad-Inside-
Combinator/dp/1591846587)

[5] This Is Water: The Original David Foster Wallace Recording
[http://smile.amazon.com/This-Water-Original-Wallace-
Recordin...](http://smile.amazon.com/This-Water-Original-Wallace-
Recording/dp/B003NGXOIS/)

(all are clean links; no affiliate)

------
michaelochurch
_I 've heard failure is good, but 10 years is a long time. That's how long
I've been failing for now._

You're considering "giving up" after 10 years? You have no fucking idea. No
offense, but you're just spoiled by a culture of instant gratification. In
most societies and in most of history, it took _generational_ timespans to go
from nothing to wealth. People moved to the towns at 15 as laborers (often
worse off than peasants) so their kids could join the working class and their
grandkids would have a shot at joining guilds so their great-great-grandkids
would be wealthy merchants and their fourth-great-grandkids (whom they'd never
live to see) just might join the gentry or the lowest edge of nobility.

It's not your fault. The crime of the pseudo-meritocracy that exists now is
that (a) well over 90% of the people who have knock-out success by age 25 had
parental lift, but (b) society does a damn good job of making sure that it
looks like they earned it. It makes rapid ascension look not just possible,
but normal. It's not: not even fucking close.

You feel like a failure because you're comparing yourself to people who have
all sorts of ridiculous, but also invisible, advantages. You shouldn't beat
yourself up that you can't compete with the kids who close $5 million seed
rounds fresh out of Stanford. That's like trying to compete with a cheetah in
the 100m dash: you just weren't born with it.

 _When I was 15 me and my friend started a little hosting website. It was
really fun. I learnt to program, and we even made a little bit of money. In
the excitement I began to learn about business, startups and programming. I
thought it was going to be so easy to make money._

It sounds like you didn't fail. Not making money is failing. Having to turn
off the lights is failing. You learned how to program and turned a profit on
your first project. That sounds like success (albeit minor) to me.

 _Because for the last 10 years I 've worked 16-18 hours a day, every day,
with absolutely nothing to show from it._

Yeah, you should probably change that. That's unsustainable. You sound burned
out. I'd be worse off than you are if I worked that much.

You need to exercise, you need a social life, you need things in your life
that aren't work, and you need some damn down time. Don't just "book that
holiday" (it's not a bad idea, but it's not enough). Stop working hard and
start working smart. If it's not important, don't do it. If it is important,
you probably want to be well-rested when you do it, which rules out 120-hour
weeks.

 _Because 10 years later I 'm suck in a day job as a programmer._

Well, if you drop back to an 8-hour day, you'll hate it a lot less. Give
yourself a break. Most people don't hate being in day jobs because most people
don't work so hard as to make themselves miserable. They show up at 9:00,
leave around 5:30, socialize a bit at work, and once they've been at the job
for a year or two, they figure out a way to work mainly on the parts of the
job that they enjoy. You should try it.

And for a dirty secret: you can probably get away with 2-3 hours per day of
actual work at most day jobs. I don't advise slacking to that extreme. It's
bad for your career to fuck around, and even though you probably won't get
fired, people will notice and not like you and it'll make your life
unpleasant. But you're literally working an order of magnitude more, right
now, than the minimum not to get fired.

Also, stop reading Techcrunch because the 25-year-olds whose startups turned
into unicorns or thestrals or chimeras or whatever the fuck mythological
creature they are using to describe hot-shit companies had so much parental
lift (and luck) that it's useless to make a comparison.

You mention being stuck "as a programmer". Do you not like programming? If you
don't like it, then stop doing it. That's not giving up. That's choosing not
to do something that you don't enjoy. If you do like programming, then find
your way to projects that you're enthusiastic about, and find a way to blow
off or delegate the dreck work (see the above about slacking, and learn a bit
about office politics).

 _Something I never wanted to be, I just wanted to build a business._

Then, you have three options. One: get some capital and start a business. If
your social life is as pathetic as you've claimed it to be, then you probably
have some savings. But don't do this until you've taken a break because
starting your own business will call for some long hours... and you need some
time to slack (relative to what you've been doing) and un-burn-out. Two:
bootstrap a business using the time not spent on your day job (unless you're
getting rapidly promoted, we've already gone over the fact that you shouldn't
put more than 40-45 hours on it). You've shown that you can work smart but you
need to work hard. Three: get into a top-5 MBA school. If you're a half-decent
engineer than you're already smarter than 97% of Harvard MBA students although
you may need some work on the social polish aspect. That's not going to help
you as an entrepreneur but it'll get you into VC and then you can become a
founder or startup executive after your time in VC.

 _I 've lost some of the best years of my life behind a text editor and a
dream._

15 to 25? Those aren't the best years of most peoples' lives. Being a teenager
is terrible in the U.S., college is overhyped and socially disappointing for
most people-- especially men-- and pretty much everyone from 22-25 is
confused, rapidly losing touch with his previous self and likely falling out
of contact with old friends, and working in a job that's below what college
trained him to expect.

Most of the older people I know say that the best years of their lives are the
last healthy years, typically meaning 50s and 60s. Until your health goes for
good, it keeps getting better, and the end is usually not far after that. My
mother said that the best years of her life were her 50s, except for the
health issues (cancer) that she had toward the end of the decade (she died at
59). I think that's common: most older people are happier than when younger
and don't want to go back to who they were or the life they had when they were
younger. (Obviously, no one would turn down having the body and health of a
25-year-old forever, if that were an option, but almost no one thinks that
those are the best years.)

So, no, you haven't lost the best years of your life. You are slowly becoming
less physically attractive, but it's surprising how little that matters, and
it's also easy to do something about. (If you stay in shape, you'll be
considered good looking for a _long_ time.) Don't worry about it.

 _Not to mention the money and friends I 've lost along the way._

Well, again, you should fix that pattern. My advice: getting emotional about
money "that got away" is pointless. It's business. Emotions put your eyes on
the scoreboard rather than the ball. As for friends, you can always get in
contact with old friends. They fell out of contact with you, just as you did
with them, right? That happens, and people are pretty forgiving. It happens to
all of us, especially those of us who work hard and are ridiculously busy.

Good luck. It doesn't sound like you're as much of a failure as you think you
are. In fact, I'll bet that you learned a lot. You're just tired and need a
rest.

~~~
iamcurious
_15 to 25? Those aren 't the best years of most peoples' lives. Being a
teenager is terrible in the U.S., college is overhyped and socially
disappointing for most people-- especially men-- and pretty much everyone from
22-25 is confused, rapidly losing touch with his previous self and likely
falling out of contact with old friends, and working in a job that's below
what college trained him to expect._

I already knew that, but it is nice to hear it from someone else. Thank you.

