Yeah, you probably are. So fix that. Step one, learn to code (better?), and get a development job. Do that for a bit, save some money, then figure out step 2. You can't change the past so don't let it unduly influence what you'll do next.

I wish I could have told this to my wife when we were 22!

"I'm sorry, babe! You need to pay the bills and support me while I work to get my startup off-the-ground! You'll see! We'll be raking in the money in no-time. Our 130K of student loan debt will be paid off before you can say `boo'."

</sarcasm>

First? I'd argue this is as much a relationship issue as a career issue. Treat it as such. When you are down, and relying on your support network to help you out, remember that you are relying on your support network to help you out and act accordingly. I mean, every relationship is different, and I can't tell you how to act in yours, but be conscious that you are using your support network.

(this can cause problems for you as much as it can cause problems for other people; accepting help can be hard. But either way, it's something you need to come to terms with.)

Next?

>My current view is that my only way out is through entrepreneurship. I need to keep trying until I hit upon something that works. I know I have a few potentially good ones but I don't have enough money to launch them correctly. I have to boostrap from small ideas to larger ones.

See, after a business failure? I really like to work for other people. Usually when I get a full time job, people think I'm pretty great, and generally I make more money working for other people than for myself (Apparently, I am not a particularly competent business person.) Anyhow, working for other people tends to rebuild both my damaged self-esteem and my damaged financial situation.

Another thing? Unless you are going for VC? Now is the worst time to bootstrap (unless you are selling to the VC funded... and if you plan on selling the company, rather than selling a product to the VC funded? I suspect you are too late on the bandwagon.) - It is difficult to compete with people who have VC and don't immediately need to make payroll.

So yeah; were I you? I would focus on contracting and/or on getting a regular job.

Now, I live in Santa Clara, not Santa Clarita, but from what I've seen? there are a lot of old guys in the embedded systems market. Can you handle VHDL or the like? Can you handle contracting?

I'm assuming that your contacts are stale or otherwise not all that useful. (First thing? call everyone who worked for you in the past. I've found that ex-employees generally think more of me than I think they ought.)

If you really don't have contacts (or want easy work... in my experience, if I get a job through contacts, I actually have to /work/ - if I can attract a random recruiter, usually the standards are way lower.)

That is... honestly, I don't know exactly what it is. I have really, really good luck with recruiters, and I don't know why.

Part of it is that if a recruiter spams me about a job I'm qualified for (and it is spam; none of them put any effort into vetting me first, as evidenced by all the offers I get for jobs that I'm obviously unqualified for) I respond.

But... part of that is that I'm on the recruiter mailing lists, and my resume kicks off the keyword searches. I don't know why or how this happened. The last recruiter who contacted me (I wasn't interested, but I referred him to a friend who got the job.) He said that he found me on Dice... but I haven't been active on DICE for at least four years, so I don't know if the guy was lying or if the net was just that wide.

I've even gotten jobs responding to craigslist ads (posted by body shops.)

But yeah, I... don't really understand why I seem to have such luck with recruiters. But, body shops and recruiters are a good way to go if you are down on your luck and need to get your foot back in the door.

It's like a handsome, successful, wealthy, socially well-adjusted man who has trouble finding a new girlfriend because he only goes out with his current one. Any developer's first reaction to a new project is to wish they could raze it and start over from scratch, imagine how much more intense that is when the initial development was done by an MBA.

i always feel disgusted by this sort of attitude. sure it mitigates risk, but as secular and reasoned as i like to think i am its just morally reprehensible as an attitude to take...

i treat other people's money with /more/ respect than my own. maybe thats just me being backwards.

always taken the attitude that if you need someone else's money to start then you aren't really ready to enter that business. maybe you should start a small business and build funds first... instead of taking a risk with other people's money when the sum total of your experience is approaching zero.

sure its their own fault for investing the money... but that doesn't make it easier for me to swallow.

i do not consider this irrationality to be a bad thing

Jesus, almost sprayed coffee all over my monitor on that one...

But yea, I know the feel. I worked in tech for a long time and didn't have any connections. Its frustrating hearing stories of people getting funding jsut by knowing teh right people and being able to secure hundreds of thousands for a seed round. While I'm strong in tech, I am complete trash when it comes to design or sales.

Luckily I met my cofounders through a mutual friend. they get me funding and I can focus on building our startup. Since I worked in a few other startups previously, I was able to benefit from watching and avoiding the mistakes they made that caused them, to fail. Now get to call the shots when it comes to engineering and we've been growing steadily and getting traction despite the bad economy.

Bullshit. They are trying to make millions for themselves, not me.

I'm trying to make millions for myself through my SaaS that I work on nights/weekends.

If they want to give me founding ownership of their company then I'll reconsider, but otherwise I'm just going to do the work assigned. I'm not going to be enthusiastic or care if it succeeds. I'll just do the work to the best of my ability, and then save the rest of my energy for my business, not theirs.

Yep that is one of those pesky traits...not getting discouraged from rejection.

I think everyone should at the least start their own business, even if just to become a better employee in the future through their failure and gaining perspective of how difficult starting and running one successfully is.

Before this turns into a rant about how soft the world has become and I share my unacceptable opinions, I will just say that if you allow fear of failure to keep you from making the attempt you fail by default.

Fake it until you make it.

> I made a mistake in trying to chase the startup dream.

Its only a mistake if you didn't learn from it.

Do not feel defeated. You seem to have the necessary skills and knowledge. You can do this. Sell yourself.

Source of experience: 15 years of tech experience

>1. Go do your own startup. 2. Turn down the job and work somewhere else. 3. Go work for some mega-corp that pays you well.

man, that looks like 3 choices.

I don't know why, but comments like this rub me the wrong way. Not that I don't agree that entrepreneurship is extremely difficult, it is!... just that I think people have a way of surviving and developing coping mechanisms for whatever life throws at them.

The fact that you have sleepness nights and puke from the stress tells me that you are not cut out for it.. yet, you are doing it...and without regrets.

Humans have a way of being resilliant.There is only one measure that determines if you are cut out for it or not...and that's if you try and it ends up ruining your life.

This idea that entrepreneurs tell others - that they are not cut out for doing a startup is really just a classic case of putting others down to prop yourself up.

If you want to do a startup, DO IT! Don't let others talk you out of it by convincing you that you aren't cut out for it. Short of a therapist encouraging you to avoid it, I would discount that advice as an insecure founder trying to make himself feel better about coping so poorly.

BE VERY AFRAID. I did this thinking I could get something off the ground fast enough to generate minimum income to live. It's possible ONLY if your level of support is "I live at mom & dads house".

I had enough social support to undo my mistake but it took close to 4 months to find another comparable job. It took another 2 months to pay back my friends for their generosity. 6 mos down the drain living on shitty couches and damaging friendships when I could have been saving money to make a less halfhearted attempt.

I will do it again, but a more realistic amount of money to start a business is 20-30k if you're on your own. This initial cash is your runway of sorts. If you have a few co-founders you could probably swing 40k all together. And 30k is enough of your own skin in the game to get an investor to double or triple that. 50-100k is enough to start a real bootstrapped business.

Also be wary of working on your new project while working for your current employer. Most have non-compete and ip-assignment clauses in the contract. If you're running a dog walking business it isn't worth their time, but if you ever build a business to the multi-million level they will swoop in and take everything you have.

Do you actually trust them? It sounds like they haven't lived up to what you feel was promised in terms of helping with the GTM and getting the business off the ground.

You gave up control very early for money. Who knows if it was a good decision or not, but if you aren't at peace with the deal you made that is a very shaky foundation to be starting on.

> While the time with them is very helpful, I can't shake the feeling that if I'm doing 99% of the work + came up with the idea, I'm better of finding a co-founder and start my own company.

Since you are not CEO, presumably they own your IP - so your options may be limited with striking out on your own.

Hmmm...maybe build your company anyway and keep more equity for yourself.

ycombinator != only route to startup success, obviously.

This is probably the biggest factor (money is the least). I've had numerous failed projects. I have a current project/business (it's in my profile) which I believe to be in the process of failing. I don't know if I have another one in me.

Sure, I've learned a lot. From a purely technical standpoint, each new project has been superior to the one before - and in the case of my latest, I've at least produced something that I find useful. But, the ego can only take so much abuse.

Not sure I trust myself with ideas anymore. I need someone to tell me what to build :)

why dream? just do that now. if you fail, do programming again.

What do you believe in? Have you thought much on this? If you haven’t I’d recommend it. Introspection and mindfulness can really help you suss our what _you want_ from your career and life in general.

I’m with you on general disillusionment with the tech “industry” as you’ve posed it, but really that’s only part of the picture. There are still people on the fringes doing some pretty cutting edge work. It’s not where the big money is, but is much more engineering focused.

Regardless it’s worth double checking your assumption that you should completely strike out on your own. Chances are if you think about what you believe in, you’ll arrive at what you want, and from there you’ll find people with similar goals working on interesting projects.

Feel free to email me if you’d like to discuss. I’ve gone through a very similar “crisis” recently.

Yes I have.

>>Most people are not supportive, including developers. You might even lose friends over it. You are going against the norm and most people can't relate and find it strange.

Software is one of the few industries where leaving a stable job and striking out on your own is an acceptable and relatable career path. The reasons are two-fold: low cost of entry and the many inspirational and well-publicized stories about famous software startups. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook... any developer who has been in the industry for more than a few years will be familiar with how those companies got founded.

All of my friends were supportive when I started my own business. Not everyone approved, but they all understood. If you've lost friends when you started yours... maybe you should pick better friends next time.

> TLDR: being a pre-funded entrepreneur SUCKS in a lot of ways, but I’m pretty sure if I ever “make it”

This guy needs to get his head out of the funding bubble. He sounds like the only goal and metric of success for his startup is to get funding. Getting funding won't make you successful; running a startup with funding that isn't growing sucks even more. In fact it will escalate the pressure and your work/life balance may get worse.