I'm still alive after my startup failed. This is how I felt
In this postmortem from 2013, @tresew candidly breaks down the dissolution of their startup, examining the fatal assumptions, misallocated resources, and market dynamics that led to its shutdown.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Early signals were often rationalized away instead of prompting an immediate pivot in distribution or pricing.
The psychological toll of running out of capital compounds operational friction in a solo or small team setup.
Key Antidote: Validate paying willingness before committing months to building sophisticated product features.
Community Debate Themes:
Community discussions on HN centered on identifying product-market fit early, avoiding vanity metrics, and the emotional recovery process after shutting down.
CATEGORY Postmortems & Failures →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 14 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 4 comments
For some people the hyper-focus is essential to their wellbeing and sense of purpose. I can understand why you feel depressed for putting your all into something and having it not work the way you had imagined.
Sure you may have lost out on some relationships, and sure you may not be able to get that time back, but it definitely wasn't time wasted, or no life.
Imagine what it must feel like laying on your deathbed, full of regret, knowing you never "went" for it. Playing it safe is the surest way to mediocrity after all.
Try not to fixate on the failure, as it's really your informal education. Take what you've learnt from this failure, and apply it to the next endeavor, whatever it may be.
Always move forward. Keep your head held high. Be a good person. You'll be okay.
You sound like an old co-founder of mine. When he latched onto something, be it developing code or burning a DVD collection, he went all in, and dropped everything else for extended periods of time. While I do this at times as well, I think it's best to live a balanced lifestyle (http://www.pathways.cu.edu.eg/subpages/training_courses/Wellness/images/W_I_Page_01.png). I believe you can have a family and take vacations and still build a killer startup. Look at famous people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the CEOs of many fortune 500 companies - many are married with kids - and yet still very successful in business.
I feel for you, but it's not the end yet.
There are two important things you can do.
1) Looks like you wrote some cool code, so at least "github" it, so that you have a resume item & some cred when you want just a salary job.
2) Talk to people. They won't understand, but they'll occasionally do something good for you. Maybe a pancake dinner cooked or late night "dinner for losers" on a saturday night.
I worked on something for 5 years to drop it completely and move on - was heartbreaking but that CVS repo got me a job and indirectly, paid my bills.