Will I Ever Recover?

I have this line from @alexwestco's Twitter bio in a deck of daily inspiration that my planner software cycles through:

> Currently at $300k/yr with http://cyberleads.com. Previously failed with 19 products.

Failing doesn't mean you're a failure. It's just feedback from the world that something about what you were doing didn't work. Sometimes it's product, sometimes it's marketing, sometimes it's behaviors in your own life, sometimes it's circumstances beyond your control. Every time something fails, it's a chance to look at those and try to understand what happened.

And sometimes what you realize is that you just plain don't care about what you were doing, and that's okay. That's a chance to revisit what success means to you.

I know it may not mean much in the immediate aftermath of what feels like defeat, but you did something few people have done: you worked on a startup for 7 years. There are so many lessons you can take away from that -- whether that's how to make your next venture succeed where this one failed, how to "fail faster" next time, or that you hate the whole startup scene and want to do something else with your life.

Just remember, what happened isn't your life's final verdict -- it's just one piece of the puzzle. It could be the stepping stone to a great 7 years to come. Keep your stick on the ice.

Contrary to popular belief, the highest chance of success, and largest entrepreneurial successes, come from founders who are 47 years old when they start their companies.

You are still 10 years away from the statistical "peak" to start your startup.

Yes you will recover.

This experience may be exactly what you need to become great. It's your choice to either hide from it and whither away in regret or face it head on and extract all the value it has to offer. Growth comes from painful reflection on our mistakes.

Studying Stoicism and this lecture series really helped me get through the failure of my startup (Which I spent 7 years building and then had to sell for $1).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PL22J3VaeAB...

Note the lecturer is controversial politically now... but this series genuinely helped me put myself back together after my ego was shattered - I am way better off now (and more resilient) and years later building another company which is doing great so far.

You're not young but you're not really old either at 37, and it's not like there's anything wrong with getting older. Getting older has its benefits in that you have enough experience to not waste your time with things that don't matter. So it's a positive.

> I am interview now but my identity has been shattered.

You are not your work or what you do or what you have or haven't accomplished. You are you, and it's your relationships with yourself, people, family, friends, etc. that matter.

> Everyone tells me it’s not too late to start again

You aren't starting again. You are simply transitioning and growing. Nothing to be ashamed of there. In many ways, many would like to have a clean slate, and you've got a good excuse. Haha.

I recommend seeing a therapist. Just like how a student going to a professor to ask questions about something they're stumped on suddenly realizes the answer to their own question by merely saying it out loud, one can have the same experience with life questions and problems and a therapist. And if you don't answer your own questions, the therapist is there to help you answer them, either by providing answers or finding them with you. Friends, family, and strangers can only help so much. A therapist is paid to help you, and they are trained in the art.

Pick up a hobby or do exercise. Even better if you join club or organization that provides those things.

You are not your job. You never were. Every single person on this planet has intrinsic worth that has nothing to do with what they do or how they think. You are important regardless of where you have worked.

I often find the most painful employers and experiences are the ones that I gain the most out of in terms of development and growth. Not fun to hear in the moment but afterwards it's a gift.

My friend, I worked in a debt protection startup when the housing bubble burst, I was 35, and nearly lost everything including my car and home, over time I've built myself backup, and have found a new purpose, and life in generally back on track.

My story isn't unique, tons of people have gambled, lost, and recovered. It isn't easy, but it isn't impossible, just don't get overwhelmed, don't take it personal, and get backup and start thinking about what is next. Work the problem like an engineer would any.

Best of luck

Youth is horribly wasteful. Be glad you're not young.

Whether you work at Intel for 40 years or hop between jobs and your own projects, the story is the same:

- Find something that works

- Grow it larger until it fails

- Find something (smaller) that works

- ...

i.e.,

- If you want to feel more productive, take smaller steps

- If you need to go faster, take larger steps

The absolutely key issue is taking ownership of how your activities affect you

- If you read bits of news all day, you'll addict yourself to short bursts of new information

- If you relish people's attention, you'll depend on their whims

- If you meditate all day, you'll find the deepest peace, but do nothing

Right now, you have a long process of mourning all that you'd hoped for. It's best to do so deeply - to get it done. So:

- Write down all your faults and failings and how royally you screwed yourself

- Write each once. No need to elaborate

- When you can think of no more, you're done with that.

Now you have X time in the bank. How do you want to spend it?

Remember: if you read news or seek customers or write books, you will become the reflection of that activity: hyper-intellectual, a pleaser, a ruminator...

So, to make something of yourself, do what will make you what you want to be.

Above all, DON'T act out of misery to just make yourself feel better. DON'T try to "build yourself back up". i.e., Don't let your past define you.

That's the essence of freedom

It's very normal to have multiple identities/modes/stages of life, but we only begin to appreciate this after we've been through a couple (aka with age). In the beginning our first identity or two is all we've ever known, so its loss is extremely scary and feels catastrophic.

I felt the same way after leaving my 1st job of 10 years out of college. It was like mourning a death. I was "an employee at X", I was good at it, I liked it. So it was so very worrying, frightful, and confusing when that season of life began to pass, and I was no longer happy with what up to that point had been everything I had been looking for.

Some resources you may find interesting:

[1] On average, friendships last about 7 years (indirectly suggesting that WE tend to change in identities every 7 years or so) - https://mwfseekingbff.com/2012/11/07/friendship-the-seven-ye...

[2] Transitions: Making Sense Of Life's Changes by William Bridges - A great book on the transitions of life, and how society today tries to rush through them, but they are deeply important and must be given the appropriate honor, time, and space. I read this when I was struggling with my own career transition, and it was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. Only by letting transitions run their courses fully can you set healthy foundations for the next stages of your life (and the next stage WILL be fruitful, even if life is full of murkiness and confusion right now).

Take 2-3 statements or other advice that you believe is wise and helpful to you in this transition. Write them down on an index card (not in your phone, not electronic), keep it with you and read it frequently (don't just recall those statements, read them).

Remind yourself they are true regardless of how you feel. Emotions are often influenced more than controlled.

Take actions as you are able that support or aligned with those truths. Regardless of how you feel.

Tell close friends and/or family that you are working to really believe those truths.

Then give it time. At least months, maybe years. Time heals many wounds. The process above will hopefully shave off some of that time.

Been there, it sucks. Restarted at 37 after 15 years & exit with >100k in personal debt. Was shattered, now 46 and ok. It doesn't happen overnight.

Try going to the gym/exercise/running, doing code tutorials to build up confidence. Tech Podcasts & udemy to fill the silence.

Do not try to do another startup right away, the workforce has changed and you need to acclimate.

Employers care about your skills, show them you got what they need. As a founder you will bring a new type of leadership skill and initiative to any team, this won't always make you popular so it's okay to not alway have the answer or share your opinion. Enjoy checking out at 5pm without worrying about how to make payroll. Rebuild yourself for the next hustle, but give yourself time. You know so much more than you did last time you started.

Sounds like your identity was your company and now it has been shattered.

Losing your identity is very scary. However, with time, you will develop a new identity. You will discover new joys and goals.

Try not to panic, the way you feel now is quite normal.

Have fun discovering the new you.

I need to post this somewhere as I have written this out before here on HN [1]:

28 y/o graduate with Engineering Degree

36 y/o left engineering field, became firefighter paramedic (married with a < 1y/o child)

@ 40 started Master's degree in CS (online thru DePaul) (still married, 2 kids @ 4 and 1 y/o)

@ 45 graduated with MSCS

45 - 50 worked pt as remote software dev while a FT firefighter pm

@ 50 left fire dept became full time, remote, software dev

@ 52 start a new software dev, remote job with a major hospital in a couple of weeks!

With this new position they have tuition reimbursement so it is my plan to start another MS degree in August 2023.

In the link below I reply to someone's question about how I got to where I am. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30204355

edit: formatting

Think of it this way. If you didn't do this for 7 years, would you have regretted it ? There are lot of people who are stuck in their miserable corporate/shitty jobs and want to do their own thing. Are they really better off than you ? I would say No. You did something YOU wanted to do. Even if it failed, you learned a lot and should have no regrets. You did what you wanted to do. Many of us don't have that luxury or the guts.

A bit of a cliche but every experience matters. Document what you learned in your journey and plan how you can apply this in sync with your skillset. And can’t emphasise enough, keep giving interviews. And learn from your interviews, refine your resume or portfolio or presentation skills accordingly and you will soon land on your feet. One thing that always helps in interviews is keeping’s perspective that you’re also interviewing the employer. Be inquisitive, and show your genuine interest in a company not just because you want to work with them but also because they interest you. (And interviews are far easier than running Startups ;) ) All the best!

37. Heh. That's the age where you just start being able to use the wisdom you've been acquiring.

I'm soon to be 38 and despite thinking of it all the time never attempted to go ahead with my own startup.

You're much more a success than I am.

What you are going through is grief, for a company ; so even without any more information, as anyone who lost people, I would tend to say: "yes you will recover". Here's one that I saw the other day and really resonated: https://everything2.com/title/You+have+a+sad+feeling+for+a+m...

Yeah, you will recover. Be kind to yourself. The time you spend worrying about stuff you can't change, is better spent working on stuff.

Brother, my 2nd startup was 5 years old, lost a ton of money and time. Had to kill it and pivot to a 3rd one at 36. This one is doing better, much better.

It is tough. But if there was no risk involved in doing a startup wouldn’t every tom, dick and Harry have done it already? You put yourself through big risk for asymmetric gains, isn’t it? This pain is the risk that played out this time.

Just take a break; get onto the salary wagon for a few months; gain back your mental peace and confidence and then come back.

You have 7 years of experience now running a company with limited resources. The alternative is you worked 7 years in middle management somewhere. You picked up a very rare skillset here and have more opportunities than if you hadn't.

I think what hurts is that it's a form of death. It feels like actually losing someone, because you have lost a part of yourself. Companies grow faster than babies, and losing a company of 7 years could feel like losing a child.

Even if you go on to start another company, it isn't the same. It's like having another child or another spouse. It doesn't replace the first.

Whatever it is, you have to make peace with that. Go through the stages of grief. Do all the rituals necessary, which may be crying on the sofa watching TV. Just avoid hazardous coping mechanisms like alcohol and drugs. Death of an identity is necessary for the metamorphosis of a new identity. Don't try to figure out that new identity yet, but allow your startup founder identity to die sufficiently that it doesn't hold you back.

Your next identity might well be another startup CEO. But remove the old identity and commit to the new one. You want to be "Steve Jobs, CEO of Pixar" and not "Steve Jobs, former cofounder of Apple Inc"

I suffered through a catastrophically badly managed startup, back in 2015, and the experience was stressful while it was happening. The aftermath was uncertain. I had some rough months. But then I wrote a popular book about the whole experience, and it has been fascinating to see people's reaction to my experiences. Some say "He should have quit that company sooner" and others say "It's too bad the leadership couldn't pull itself together."

But my career really took off after that. As bad as the experience was, writing about it gave me a new audience and lead to some really great clients, and I've now enjoyed several years doing high level consulting.

For anyone interested, check out "How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps":

https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...

Mourn the loss and take your time building yourself up, there’s no timeline.

I'm 51. 37 is younger than you think it is.

Um. Plenty of us have completely lost our shirt much later in life. Don’t worry about your identity, just get back to work.

A little advise from a 48-year old one:

37 is really young.

I learned that I had to reinvent myself every 10 years as the "old shoes" didn't fit anymore. So from a perspective of a 37 year old you still have to go between four and six reinventions before you really can settle down.

So you still have a long way to go. And from the simple mathematics that you have more reinventions before you than you have already achieved you definitely can be count as "being young".

Honestly, it really depends on what you do next.

Probably.

History is full of famous successes who were failures first. Lots of people are giving you that advice. Famously, IBM was Thomas Watson's 38th try, and the durable lightbulb filament Edison's 162nd.

It's absolutely okay to feel despondent after a big hit, especially if it's one that took seven years of your life along the way. I've been there. It's just an awful feeling, and I commiserate as best as I'm able.

At the same time, pragmatically speaking, you really only have three options:

1. Try again

2. Try something else

3. Give up

You're not going to give up. You wouldn't be here asking if you were going to.

So the real question is, do you try again, or do you try something else, like a day job?

I don't know about your situation, and I don't know how much safety you need, but that's sort of the baseline choice, really. By what method do you dust yourself off and stand up and respond?

At 37, you'll be okay. After seven years (a fifth of your life, or a third of your adult life,) it's going to hurt real bad, and be confusing.

But life goes on. You'll be okay.

It'll be a while before you can see it that way, and that's okay too.

My previous startup cost quite a bit both physically and mentally, as you become very invested in an idea and its execution for a long time. Something which helped me a lot was traveling to a new and sunny location, staying for a while without trying to do anything in particular, while simply focusing on recovering through good food, exercise, and socializing with others.

If you have the resources, I highly recommend taking a sabbatical to recover and give yourself room to breathe and for your mind to wander. Moving to a new space, at least temporarily, helps you get in contact with new people and ideas. With some time, you'll find some new problem space which interests you, or some other new path you'd like to follow.

What really helps you feel less old is spending some time getting in good shape physically and mentally to give you strength for your next adventure. Spend some resources on treating yourself to make that happen. Recovering is definitely possible!

If you continue to have a feeling-sorry-for-yourself attitude, then you probably will not recover (sorry if this is harsh).

You need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, figure out all the lessons learned from your first foray, write them down, formulate a new life strategy, and then get the fuck out and chase it!

Whingeing on HN about how miserable you are won't fix anything.

I’ve worked in dozens of startups in my career that all failed, including 2 of my own. I started another and I turned 50 this year. I’m older, slower, and have less stamina. I’m also more crafty, more self-aware, more experienced. I’m biased but I see many benefits. If you want to keep starting companies it’s not age that will hold you back. M

Everything you’re going through is perfectly normal for a startup founder closing up shop. Everything about it is a painful process, and it can be damaging to your self-worth.

Mourn it, move past it, and treat it as another stint of professional experience. You haven’t wasted time, you don’t have to start over. everyone works on a project that doesn’t live up to expectations at some point in their career. You’ve likely learned a lot and grown professionally.

Leverage what you’ve learned however you see best. Could be another startup, a bigco, academia, etc. The right companies will respect your startup experience. I’d strongly suggest taking 2-4 weeks completely off- no interviewing, no working, just recovery. (It won’t be enough to fully mentally recover- that will take much longer, but should be enough to get you back on track professionally) Lay down your arms so you can fight another day.

It all starts with the body, the mind follows from the rise in endorphins and serotonin, and the spirit is revived

Tons of us have worked at failed or middling startups or been pushed out of one. Sometimes with not a damn thing to show for it. There's nothing wrong with failing - not everyone's gonna bat 100.

I'd suggest developing some other hobbies or activities and not tying your identity up with your job so much.

Yes, once you do what you need to do to trust yourself once again, you will feel positive things, and think positively.

You're currently feeling negatively ("miserable") and thinking negatively ("I am no longer young"). That is fine. [Do that, it's a healthy experience!]

You'll probably want to simultaneously take care of your body and mind, while you are feeling negative. That way your physical experience of Life can be positive.

If you are having unsatisfactory difficulties recovering, get a Licensed counselor to ask you self-reflective questions. That can un-stuck you.

Congratulations on having a start-up of your own, sincerely.

I am not a software engineer I work as an engineer.

Think of your startup as just a glorified hot-dog cart.

I cannot remember a time in my adulthood where I didn't feel like I was behind, it was too late to start whatever random thing I was thinking of. And then I get older and look back and think that of course I could've started then. I say this with as much sincerity as can be transmitted through text on a screen. It is not too late.

You're experiencing grief of the loss of your startup. That's going to take time to heal. You will have more successes. You will feel differently than you do now. Take some time to heal, and take care of yourself. There is a bright future ahead for you.

37 is a great age to start a business, don't feel too old for anything. I also don't see why your startup experience should stand in the way of getting a job, if you'd prefer that now.

You are under no obligation to be who you were 15 minutes ago. I assume "startup guy" was a big part of your identity, and now that is changing, and that's painful. Don't spend a lot of energy trying to reconcile your new identity with your old one; it's wasted energy doing work no one else cares about.

Your new identity doesn't have to be "failed startup guy." It can be something completely different. Maybe it is "I work my day job to make money but my passion is urban windsurfing" guy. We'll see.

These are distinct feelings.

Its not too late to start again and that has nothing to do with your age. You feeling miserable is partially from confusing these things and partially still a distinct unrelated thing.

Do you have alot if debt? Are you on the verge of declaring bankruptcy? Did you read too many articles where you think your future spouse is going to look down on you for not having a high credit score and being shut out of the mortgage market for the next 7 years?

Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. Go make some money to support and maintain your lifestyle.

I wish I had some advice that will help but I have been in a bad place for almost four years now due to a startup not going well after a decade of work. I wasn't a founder and yet my entire sense of self worth was tied to what I was doing.

Now? I cannot even get past the first round of interviews at the vast majority of companies I interview at. I would like to say that it isn't because I cannot code, but at this point my sense of self worth in terms of programming is rock bottom. I make mistakes - sure all people do - but when coding and making mistakes or not catching bugs each instance is added to an enormous pile of ever growing pain that I place on myself: obviously this is why companies don't want me. Obviously this is why I have been making $60k on average for my entire career. Because I am not worth anything. Yes I know that making something is more than making nothing. Yet the way people throw around salary numbers on this site just makes me want to turn away from everything in despair.

To make matters worse I now work at a place that tasked me with leading a team to make fundamental changes to our product which the business is counting on to expand its sales. The employees' spoken language itself is not my native language. The entire system was rewritten with new tech - some of which I had no prior experience using. Oddly I didn't seem to have control over the technical decisions being made by the engineers on my team. When I voiced concerns or laid out criticism, someone complained (a junior with 3 months of bootcamp prior to his joining the company) and the director of engineering told me I was needed to stop harassing the team. One of those "if someone is liked it doesn't matter what they actually do" scenarios. Things didn't go well. We overshot our, I would say, ridiculously optimistic development timeline, which was originally set by the director to please the higher ups, by 50% (1 year 4 months -> 2 years 4 months). The directory threw me under the bus from my point of view.

Now I am trying to find a new workplace. This entire time I continuously ask myself if perhaps I am the problem and it destroys me.

I don't know what to say but I hope you are not mentally where I am. Hopefully you find a way out. As someone older than you I guess I can say: you have more time than I do at least.

It is your identity and ideas about yourself which are shuttered, not _you_. Take care of yourself. << After writing this I realised you wrote, verbatim, "my identity has been shattered." You are not the idea of life you had. Among all things you want to do now, feel you need to do, etc., make space for taking care of yourself, maybe like never before. Unwind daily, relax, feed yourself properly.

This is an opportunity for personal evolution. Think about what you did wrong to get yourself here?

The version of you that failed has been shattered. It’s painful, but this is your opportunity to move on to become a wholly stronger person.

You tested part of your personality in an extreme situation and you found it did not hold up. This is a great insight that will serve you well for the rest of your life (much more lies ahead than behind).

"Everyone" who told you that you are late to start again are idiots. Don't listen to them. You are going to do great. It takes a great amount of resolve to step out of your comfort zone and work on your startup for 7 years. That tells me that you are going to succeed in whatever you are going to do next. Take a breath and focus on what's next.

Your question hints at desperation and depression. I recommend seeking professional mental help before things get out of control.

Reframe it. Detach emotionally from the result by offering the fruit of your past and future struggle to god. It is not a self-induced failure, but something that life has thrown at you. The universe just had other plans. Nature has built us specifically to cope with that.

You will make it.

I can relate to that feeling.

If you wish to have a small chat send me an email (check profile) and I can share with you some things that were of help during some rough times I went through (no bullshit, real stuff for real people).

Make progress somehow. Try art, exercise or a craft to realign your self. I like reading space opera and I find reading settles my thought patterns. Do something different like getting a lottery ticket or go mini golf.

You probably need external support / help. Please seek it out. Talking to others who have faced similar challenges and getting outside of your 'head' is a way to move forward.

The average age of Founders in the US is over 40+.

Only in Tech ( or mostly Silicon Valley ) do people expect you to be CTO by the age of 38 and retire at 42.

I'm currently fully burned out at my job and contemplating (and soon working towards) a career shift from fintech to something (hopefully) more creative. It's absolutely terrifying, in a capitalist society, to consider voluntarily leaving a high-paying job with no guarantee of finding a better one, especially when there are mortgages and bills to pay; so I fully relate to the fear and depression and misery. Especially when I've had four years of being proud of what I contributed to my job, and now hate it all.

All I can say is good luck, friend, and hopefully we'll both find a better source of both income and fulfillment soon!

Isn't the average age of the founder of a successful company at the time of launching, somewhere in the 40s?

The only scarce thing is time, don’t worry, keep trying or not.

Much worse than failing is to feel miserable to have failed.

you wont recover if you think it is too late. you are 37 lol still young, still got a lot of time.

perspective.

I'm 37, and I've never tried to start a startup. You are doing way better than me.

You can be successful, whatever success is to you.

If you have a dream, go for it. Don’t let age stop you.

Hi mate, I will be very happy to have a chat with you, just drop me an email. Cheers!

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

I did this.

At 37 I was marginally employed. In 2019 I was FTE at MSFT.

It was tricky but worked out

You got this, kid

Ageist thinking. Please get over the number, at least. Getting unstuck on this ageism issue can’t hurt your cause.

BTW if you’re that ageist against yourself I hate to think how badly you stereotype others.

You won't belive how relevant your question is to me. Today. In exactly this moment. At least you're not alone. Let's read together. )

You’re still young

Consider that a lot of people were going to war until recently ...

That's up to you, not me.