My Startup Failed Six Years Ago. I’ve Been Hiding from My Shame Ever Since
In this postmortem from 2021, @gk1 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 Pandemic Bubble (2020–2022)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 26 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 5 comments
Ever since I read the blog The Last Psychiatrist back-to-front, I've been suspicious of any article that contains the phrase "like a movie".
The author of this article is suffering from a severely miscalibrated valuation of her past; she values other people's observation of her failure over the failure itself. The shame she feels (as the author of TLP says- no guilt, always shame) comes from being observed by others as a failure, rather than the existence of the failure in reality. If she could snap her fingers and erase all traces of the startup from everyone else's memories but retain it herself, she would not be "hiding from her shame", and it is likely that her negative feelings would go away. (The fact that this is true is the root of her problem.) Appearance, not reality- when she tells us what she went through, her descriptions involve important names and visual descriptions; "Madison avenue", "glass doors", "like a movie". It's not her fault; most people think like this. I certainly did, and still sometimes do.
In the first paragraph, she tells us how her pain manifests; it's whether or not she's "interesting enough to talk to at parties", i.e. whether or not other people are impressed by the appearance of her actions, in the present. This makes no sense. If you have an interesting story, how could it become less interesting when other people observe it? If I used to play Major League Baseball (I didn't), would my pride in myself be related to how many people in the present knew I used to play? Of course not- I don't need them to know, because I already do.
(An aside- she didn't experience 'not being interesting enough to talk to', she experienced 'being ignored by a shallow assistant producer who was assessing her for value that could potentially be extracted for personal reasons'.) If your stories are not interesting to the people around you, you are with the wrong people.
To avoid situations like the author lived in for six years, you must accept reality and feel guilt over your own actions rather than shame from your actions being observed. There is nothing shameful about a business venture failing from lack of preparation. It's a hell of a lot more than 99% of the population has done. Who among us has pitched a company to a venture capitalist? You should be able to be a boring person at a party that no one is talking to and enjoy your own memories of swinging for the fences and failing- your past actions, successes, and failures don't change depending on how much people know about them.
It doesn't matter if other people know what happened to you in the past, because you know, and that's what has to drive your emotional state. If you did something bad, feel guilty and don't do it again. If you did something good, feel proud and do it again. If you can learn to worry more about what happened than what people saw, mental peace will find you.
"If you want to be seen as someone who sits up straight, don't sit up when other people are looking. Sit up all the time."
A taster: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/10/power.html
I think what makes me the most crazy is this cult about being a founder. And it's all about the glitz, the glamour, the headshots, the "40 under 40" and all that. It's rarely about results, either business or social. It's about some young people who bet big, and who knows, it might pay off, but let's write about it like it's the next big thing.
On the other hand, I'm sure there are a lot of people doing similar companies, similar things, and wondering when they will get their "break", when press will recognize them for either the same lack of progress, or acknowledge their actual progress in the field, despite being older, less novel, somehow less interesting to write about.
And people honestly drink that koolaid. And those who don't get any are jealous of those who did. We all like to think it's about some kind of meritocracy, and it might be in some small part, but it's just as much if not more so luck.
That's why I really stopped with the hustle p*rn. The 40 under 40's. The wunderkind of the week.
After reading something so well written, I am hesitant to comment. Confronting your personal shame is incredibly difficult to do let alone write eloquently about and post it publicly. This is the kind of story that makes me want to reach out even just to be friends; charisma through shared vulnerability is powerful.
Is it ever acceptable to tell someone they aren’t cut out to be a founder? I feel we are responsible for making “startup founder” so sexy that people feel unfulfilled if they can’t succeed at something that is frankly mind-breaking for most people.