Hacker Remix

Ask HN: I am at a loss. What shall I do?

32 points by bloomtowns 4 days ago | 23 comments

I started a startup about 1.5 years ago and raised about $100k. However, most of that is spent on ads, travel and meeting with accelerator mandatory workshops. I have $50k in bank now. I am not drawing salary and living on my savings at this point.

It is incredibly hard to survive without any income on the west coast. I have considered moving but all other obligations doesn't let that happen.

I don't know if I am burned out or something is wrong with my brain. I am just numb to everything since 2023 when my father passed away.

So far we have made $4k but that's it. We released a product in February after significant delay in development. That product flopped. We have made one sale.

I know talking to customer is a cliche at this point. But, I am just not finding anyone to talk to. I have little to no network. Most of our software is for Marketing folks. I am using LinkedIn as primary channel and I do get 3% response. But, it is either not interested or sometime in the future.

I am at a crosspoint now. I don't know if I should continue to work on my startup.

I am relying on drawing from my savings but it is not sustainable. I desperately want to make it work and earn at least living expenses through my work.

I have spent a decade or more in tech but as an introvert and partly autist, I have kept to myself.

How do I find users to talk to and how can I reach out to them? I am finding that building without verifying or talking to users is a costly affair.

I would love to get some guidance.

hardwaresofton 4 days ago

Put the startup on the back burner and go work a contract/full time job. It seems like you need the stability at least temporarily.

I disagree that you’ve fully failed (as the other commenter put it), but the current situation is untenable, you can’t make progress on your startup under that stress and you can’t survive/thrive in regular life.

Put that on top of grief from losing a family member and you’re basically doing the startup on hardest possible mode.

Unfortunately the job market isn’t great right now but if you put the energy you used to build the company in, you’ll find something.

Oh also talk to your investors and be honest/share your plan.

adrianmsmith 4 days ago

Steve Jobs famously said something like "every day I wake up in the morning, and if I don't like what I want to do today, for a certain number of days, then I stop doing it".

In this case it sounds like even if you thought you would enjoy having a startup, the reality is you're not enjoying it.

If you're not enjoying it, then there's no reason to continue doing it.

It's time to roll the dice and try some other lifestyle e.g. salaried employment. And if that doesn't work out for you after having tried it for 1-2 years, you are not locked down, you can still roll the dice again and try something else.

csomar 4 days ago

Do not draw from your savings when you have investors. Instead draw a minimum salary for yourself. Your job is now to raise a next round.

lud_lite 4 days ago

This sounds like sage advice! Instead of paying for ads, pay for yourself to cold call. The investors still get value.

Also don't travel anymore and the workshops are not mandatory unless it is in some kind of contract. Even then negotiate to get that changed as it increases runway. They can record the workshop for you too if needed.

If you do everything remotely you could move to lower COL area.

paulcole 4 days ago

> Most of our software is for Marketing folks. I am using LinkedIn as primary channel and I do get 3% response

Are you using the free version of LinkedIn?

I’ve had great success with random outreach using LinkedIn Recruiter Lite ($160 a month).

I was using it for recruiting and then one day was in a confusing situation and was like how I can I reach people who might know the answer and have more experience than me?

I just sent them InMails as I would if I were recruiting them. But instead of offering a job I just asked my question.

I got about a 70% response rate. Several people thought it was a clever lead-gen strategy for recruiting them (had to burst their bubbles) but everyone who replied seemed happy to give me advice.