10 ms·

Confessions of a Startup Founder's Wife

54 points by kylebrussell 3y ago

zwieback 3y ago
She's a much better writer than he an entrepreneur.
- gessha 3y ago
  I don’t think OP posted this so we can judge the husband’s startup and also, judging someone based on their (supposed) failures is not a good way to judge people. I’m tempted to spend more time on this comment but I will resist.
xwdv 3y ago
If you are founding a startup and you have a wife, you are more likely to fail than an entrepreneur who is single. And if you have even more commitments like kids, or other dependents, your chances only get even worse. The best way to keep your chances of success high is to ensure your life is very fluid and open to change, and that there are no liabilities that can drag you down. If that is not possible, the only remedy is to be independently wealthy.
- pton_xd 3y ago
  > If you are founding a startup and you have a wife, you are more likely to fail than an entrepreneur who is single. At the very least, having to explain and justify every choice and setback to a non-involved yet judgmental person sounds miserable.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    They are involved when they're your wife/husband.
    - pton_xd 3y ago
      They're not involved in the startup unless they are cofounders.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        Not being involved in terms of being a founder doesn't make them uninvolved. They're involved in the same way that any of your kids would be involved. Of course your kids wouldn't be co-founders, but that wouldn't make them uninvolved parties to you taking large financial risks and dragging them down with yourself in the case of significant failure.
      - yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
        That’s not how things work in my experience. Founders are still human.
      - jbverschoor 3y ago
        Of course they are.. going on a date, dinner, spending money, reflecting or arguing, basically anything….. It will impact you as a founder, and you, in the startup and scaleup phase, ARE the company
  - jedberg 3y ago
    > At the very least, having to explain and justify every choice and setback to a non-involved yet judgmental person sounds miserable. Sounds like the accountability every founder could only dream of having. Good founders generally seek out others that will hold them accountable (accelerators, investors, peer groups). With a spouse you get one for free!
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    That's simply an incompatibility in choice of partner. Some people want a stable financial life, with steady slow growth, and long-term planning where the trendline doesn't deviate from the projected growth. Others want to take a shot at the moon, and financial failure in this shape is just part of the deal. If you're in the latter category and you want to pursue that but your wife is in the former category there is going to be some strife. You can't give them the certainty they desire. Someone who is expecting the success case isn't really ready for this when they're considering framing post-its after your successful IPO. As an example, I think most partners of founders I know are easier to talk to. It's not that they're all rah-rah "you're gonna do it!". It's just that you need support and a team. Someone to run ideas by who's a friend. And if you're married to the right person, that's your wife.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- evtothedev 3y ago
  > If you are founding a startup and you have a wife, you are more likely to fail than an entrepreneur who is single. And if you have even more commitments like kids, or other dependents, your chances only get even worse. Do you have any references to back that? Because it sure does seem like older founders-- ones more likely to be married and have kids --yield outsized returns.[1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kmehta/2022/08/23/older-entrepreneurs-outperform-younger-foundersshattering-ageism/?sh=76ce6d877a36 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kmehta/2022/08/23/older-entrepr...
  - xwdv 3y ago
    Don’t be fooled, older founders have considerably more assets and a wealth of connections in their industry, as well as older more independent children. This offsets the wife and family effects.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Which... sounds like your original claim is bullshit, ya?
      - xwdv 3y ago
        No, because there are a lot less older founders than younger ones. So when you extrapolate from the data it will seem that having a wife and kids is a negative for a founder’s chances of success.
        slap_shot 3y ago
        You're actually proving the exact opposite of your initial claim, but at least you are now teasing out the confounding variables that actually explain this. There is no significant causation related to a founder's marital status. > Don’t be fooled, older founders have considerably more assets and a wealth of connections in their industry, as well as older more independent children. This offsets the wife and family effects. > No, because there are a lot less older founders than younger ones. So when you extrapolate from the data it will seem that having a wife and kids is a negative for a founder’s chances of success. These are the the confounding variables you were looking for. Older founders _are_ more successful and it has to do with, among other things, the experience and connections they have, and that people are more risk-averse as they start families. _Coincidentally_, the likelihood of being married increases as one's age increases, which is why you see fewer but more successful founders at the ages they are more likely to be married.
- ukd1 3y ago
  I'm not sure it's this clear cut. I'm in the partner and kid stage, and whilst I wasn't when I did my last startup - I was mostly single and could do literally what I want, when I want - which is in a lot of ways awesome if the company is the thing you wanna do...now I am more stable (routine wise?), more driven (for family, as well as wanting a win), more experienced (that's aside from being single or not I guess), but do have more responsibilities. I'm at the edge of starting something new. Wish me luck either way.
  - xwdv 3y ago
    But do you think you are the exception, or the average?
    - ukd1 3y ago
      TBH, I've no idea. One would hope the exception, but who knows. I'm aware it's gonna be different this time around than the first time, for sure. There are obvious pros, and some obvious cons. Either way I'm going for it though lol. I think I just need to figure out what the limits are with the fam explicitly.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  That's interesting. My friends run startups (a couple of billion-dollar valued ones) and to be honest, those with wives and families seem to find it easier to do. Personally, having married, I find that this is a massive boost to my personal ability. Not only was the optionality I previously had a curse, but staying on task is much easier with a partner looking out for me, and for my part I find it easier to make good decisions when I'm thinking about this team of us over myself. Plus there's just the fact that marrying another high-earner means you have a more stable income when the streams are diversified. Of course every person is different and perhaps you perform better single, but my experience and what I observe of my friends is different here in our 30s.
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    Totally depends on the partner. Good partner -> better chance of a good outcome. Bad partner -> good luck with staying sane from being surrounded in stress 24/7
    - xwdv 3y ago
      As an investor, if a founder's partner is considered "bad" or toxic, they will reject investing in them, as it will likely mean the startup will suffer as a result of personal relationship issues. This decreases chances of success.
      - jbverschoor 3y ago
        5 more karma and you can retire ;-)
        xwdv 3y ago
        Not sure I’ll make it. Usually a flurry of downvotes come in and drags me back.
        jbverschoor 3y ago
        lol gotta love HN
slap_shot 3y ago
I'm a founder that let starting a startup wreak massive havoc on his marriage. This shit is real. My suggestion to anyone in a serious relationship that is starting a business: Cofounders often layout an operating agreement when they start a company. A founder and their spouse should do the same: layout your expectations (time, money, opportunity costs, life responsibilities) and frequently have open and transparent conversations about if each party is still comfortable with the arrangement. Hearing the author see his pivots and realizing he would cut off his arm before folding the company (hyperbole, I know) signals he is probably crossing the line of what would have been put in the operating agreement. A good technical founder is forgoing $500k+ a year in comp for a high-percentage chance of nothing. That has an immense effect on a relationship. Watching a spouse who is that committed and failing has to be absolute hell.
- ska 3y ago
  > A good technical founder is forgoing It's easy to make this SWAG on the opportunity cost , but I'm not sure it's true. I've known a lot of technical founders, and probably more than half of them were psychologically incapable of staying in a cushy mid-six comp position at a big company, even when they had the chops. It's part of what drove them to do something else. Others were more driven than technically talented, and sometimes that works well. The "why be a founder when you can get rich at a FAANG" narrative is a bit too reductive, and misses out that people do these things for a broader range of reasons that EV. Similarly, I've met technical people who are far stronger than the median FAANG engineer, but would never work there, because they can't self-identify as someone who would take that job. You can just as easily say: "why do you work at save-the-world-little-co for peanuts when you could be making 700k at BigTechCo?" Sometimes people do these things mostly because that's who they are, or who they see themselves. If you are in a relationship with someone like that, it's part of the package. Totally agree you should have a clear understanding of what that means, going into such a venture.
  - slap_shot 3y ago
    > half of them were psychologically incapable of staying in a cushy mid-six comp position at a big company, even when they had the chops. It's part of what drove them to do something else. This is an incredibly good point. I, myself, left BigCo to launch aforementioned startup, and mentally, I was accepting that if went to zero (it did) at least I was spending the prime of my career doing what felt like the most meaningful thing I could be doing. I did not, however, create my recommended operating agreement or get the buy-in of my wife.
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
I secretly hoped he'd change his mind The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
My advice as a former programmer turned independent who is also married is to keep things safe and not aim for global success. It doesn't really matter anyway. Live more simply and create a bunch of small things that are more guaranteed to work, don't work so hard. The world doesn't need more successful people. ("Success" as defined by our modern western standards.)
- reactordev 3y ago
  To add, it’s highly more likely to go global if you have local success. Build something that is useful, that you can monetize, and that you can market. The rest is up to the internet gods. You’ll have income. You’ll see success and feel that validation you need knowing you built something for you. Grow from there. I feel like this perspective though comes from a few face plants. It did for me.
_fat_santa 3y ago
I get that pivots happen in startups alot but when you're pivoting 3 times with an extra pivot to make mobile games, maybe it's time to throw in the towel and realize you're not cut out for it. His first venture was "TikTok for games", second venture was some devtool for Godot, 3rd was some "chat to make an app" app that according to the article is also dead. My startup is bootstrapped but reading this article I couldn't help but think: "I should talk to investors, I mean they gave money to this guy"
- palmfacehn 3y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schmidt-michelle-ritter-steel-perlot/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schm... After reading this I can't get the image out of my mind. Whenever I see a ridiculous project being funded, I imagine "Steel Perlot". In my mind it has become something like a frou-frou art gallery losing money. How much of the VC space is really like this? After awhile all I see are buzzword backup dancers ripping off willing fools.
- bubub410 3y ago
  [flagged]
jbverschoor 3y ago
> My worst fear was that I'd never see him, and we'd grow apart as he became a staggering success. Late nights of toiling over code would lead to private jets and alcohol-fueled company retreats, and I'd be left behind, reading about his corporate conquests under someone else's byline. I dunno.. doesn’t sound like the “support” I’d want.
- rideontime 3y ago
  Agreed. Chase your startup dream or be a supportive spouse, doubt there's time for both.
- tmpz22 3y ago
  Its kind of wild how people equate having a startup to having money. I guess I take it for granted knowing the dirtier underside to startups, the fact that the investment money isn't a slushfund (unless you commit multiple felonies). That the marketing and projection of the company is ludicrously overblown. And that the community is optimistic to a fault - going as far as to cargo-cult objectively bad solutions. And finally of course that most startups fall on their face. That even many acquisitions can be a net-negative to both the team and product. You'd have thought the Theranos/FTX stuff would cool the ideation but I guess not.
TiredGuy 3y ago
When I attempted a few times to found startups, my wife was willing to support me financially if any of them were to become profitable enough over a certain agreed-upon threshold that we felt justified in quitting my job and taking the plunge to go full time. Not sure if that was the best strategy, but it seemed like a decent one at the time. I suppose if I were single, maybe the decision to just quit and go full time would have been easier despite not having such a safety net. It's tough when more than my own life is being affected by such decisions. I feel for the author and her husband. Who knows if my own marriage would have ended up in similar struggles if I had gone all in. I do feel like I'm probably making more money in the long run by just remaining an employee.
- bubub410 3y ago
  [flagged]
fein 3y ago
Steam deck in the bedroom, watching starwars with the wife... in the bedroom, has a pitbull, pitbull bites your infant in the face, terrible startup ideas, and the wife airs the dirty laundry on business insider - for startup reporter clout. Are these people a meme, is this story even real, and just what the fuck in general? This article isn't even really about a failed startup but rather a pair of messed up people on both sides who now expose their infant to their insanity. What a pair of foul individuals.
- Toutouxc 3y ago
  I couldn’t believe the “let’s kill the dog for scratching the kid’s face” part. People will punch you in the face if you startle them enough, why should the dog be any different? And they won’t ever consider putting him up for adoption or something, it’s straight to the vet and euthanise him? What the actual fuck is wrong with the people. edit: This is very relevant to me because the very same thing happened to me as a kid. One of our family dogs bit me in the face because I was tugging on her tail (like in a painful way). It was completely my fault, no one blamed anyone else than me and no, we didn’t kill the dog. We kept her and I have many happy memories of her.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - fein 3y ago
    The dog didn't scratch her, it bit her in the face. And she didn't even grab the dogs tail, she just startled it.
    - Toutouxc 3y ago
      Yes, dogs can startle too. As far as we know, there is nothing wrong with the dog.
      - lazide 3y ago
        As far as they saw (and based on their decisions), there was. Not our circus, not our problem.
hyperfuturism 3y ago
I'd believe that most people would earn more and still have their sanity in the long-run remaining an employee. It's incredibly hard to create a startup with an exit for the founder. While the EV for creating startups is incredibly high, but the median EV of the startup founder is very low.
slackfan 3y ago
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, the article. The author makes herself and her subject sound absolutely insufferable, doing neither of them any favors. Kind of a sad commentary on the tech industry and its orbiters, really.
bubub410 3y ago
[flagged]
bubub410 3y ago
[flagged]
bubub410 3y ago
[flagged]
LASR 3y ago
Is this really just a consequence of terrible ideas combined with a bad mental model for execution? The way I think about ideas is like the many-worlds interpretation. You want to have a superposition as broad as you can be and then narrow down into a single collapse outcome for your idea. This means that every little move you make, you think about how to deliver on that successfully, but you are continously also thinking about where and how you could pivot without throwing everything away. Ultimately, it boils down to the question of reversibility. So a pivot is not a backtrack, but a course correction from where you are now. Trying a bunch of shit and seeing what sticks is the privilege of the wealthy. A few examples of what I mean: - TikTok games - did you explore adjacencies? What about a TikTok task list app? Instead of some pointless minigame, pull up the list of tasks from say GitHub issues / JIRA / Asana etc and surface that as a kind of focus-mode for your work. - Chatbot -> webapp. Chatbot -> x is just a terrible idea in general. But maybe you could salvage this by thinking more about what 'x' is. But you really can't since whatever you think 'x' is, someone is already doing it. So maybe 'x' is a variable. OpenAI's GPTs is 'x' -> Chatbot. Maybe an inversion of this? It could even be simply a recommendation app. Like above Tiktok for x. Given a problem, it suggests steps / tools to use etc.
simonsaystwice 3y ago
~ founder - ceo of a series A startup here (raising series B soon) ~ I became a shell of my previous life. ~ barely keeping it together with my wife, 2 kids (6,10) + a large dog ~ No riches yet - just sweat, blood and tears (literally and physically) ~ took massive pay cuts, lived off of savings for 18 months before securing our first $1M in financing. This means, building back up our savings with a so so salary these days. ~ No glory until a massive exit. Until then, praying that my marriage doesn't fall apart or my health.
bubub410 3y ago
[flagged]
petercooper 3y ago
I feel such a disconnect with what passes as normality when I read pieces like this. The final few paragraphs are bonkers to me. Out of nowhere, they put their poor dog down because their child surprised it and it bit back and then she feels a sense of pride that he's stronger about putting down his dog because running a startup toughened him up? Everything this author says feels alien to me, I could believe it were transcribed from an ancient scroll.
- joeman1000 3y ago
  Truly insane
- isthatafact 3y ago
  It was a pit bull, as one would expect. Their toddler is lucky to be alive. Getting it out of their home is one of the more rational parts of the article, although you would think they would have put some effort into finding another home for it instead of just killing it.
Mistletoe 3y ago
Why the hell is this flagged? The worst feature of HN rears its ugly head again. I only found it by following someone’s comment history.

54 points by kylebrussell 3y ago

zwieback 3y ago

She's a much better writer than he an entrepreneur.

gessha 3y ago
I don’t think OP posted this so we can judge the husband’s startup and also, judging someone based on their (supposed) failures is not a good way to judge people. I’m tempted to spend more time on this comment but I will resist.

xwdv 3y ago

If you are founding a startup and you have a wife, you are more likely to fail than an entrepreneur who is single. And if you have even more commitments like kids, or other dependents, your chances only get even worse. The best way to keep your chances of success high is to ensure your life is very fluid and open to change, and that there are no liabilities that can drag you down. If that is not possible, the only remedy is to be independently wealthy.

pton_xd 3y ago
> If you are founding a startup and you have a wife, you are more likely to fail than an entrepreneur who is single. At the very least, having to explain and justify every choice and setback to a non-involved yet judgmental person sounds miserable.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  They are involved when they're your wife/husband.
  - pton_xd 3y ago
    They're not involved in the startup unless they are cofounders.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      Not being involved in terms of being a founder doesn't make them uninvolved. They're involved in the same way that any of your kids would be involved. Of course your kids wouldn't be co-founders, but that wouldn't make them uninvolved parties to you taking large financial risks and dragging them down with yourself in the case of significant failure.
    - yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
      That’s not how things work in my experience. Founders are still human.
    - jbverschoor 3y ago
      Of course they are.. going on a date, dinner, spending money, reflecting or arguing, basically anything….. It will impact you as a founder, and you, in the startup and scaleup phase, ARE the company
- jedberg 3y ago
  > At the very least, having to explain and justify every choice and setback to a non-involved yet judgmental person sounds miserable. Sounds like the accountability every founder could only dream of having. Good founders generally seek out others that will hold them accountable (accelerators, investors, peer groups). With a spouse you get one for free!
- renewiltord 3y ago
  That's simply an incompatibility in choice of partner. Some people want a stable financial life, with steady slow growth, and long-term planning where the trendline doesn't deviate from the projected growth. Others want to take a shot at the moon, and financial failure in this shape is just part of the deal. If you're in the latter category and you want to pursue that but your wife is in the former category there is going to be some strife. You can't give them the certainty they desire. Someone who is expecting the success case isn't really ready for this when they're considering framing post-its after your successful IPO. As an example, I think most partners of founders I know are easier to talk to. It's not that they're all rah-rah "you're gonna do it!". It's just that you need support and a team. Someone to run ideas by who's a friend. And if you're married to the right person, that's your wife.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
evtothedev 3y ago
> If you are founding a startup and you have a wife, you are more likely to fail than an entrepreneur who is single. And if you have even more commitments like kids, or other dependents, your chances only get even worse. Do you have any references to back that? Because it sure does seem like older founders-- ones more likely to be married and have kids --yield outsized returns.[1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kmehta/2022/08/23/older-entrepreneurs-outperform-younger-foundersshattering-ageism/?sh=76ce6d877a36 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kmehta/2022/08/23/older-entrepr...
- xwdv 3y ago
  Don’t be fooled, older founders have considerably more assets and a wealth of connections in their industry, as well as older more independent children. This offsets the wife and family effects.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Which... sounds like your original claim is bullshit, ya?
    - xwdv 3y ago
      No, because there are a lot less older founders than younger ones. So when you extrapolate from the data it will seem that having a wife and kids is a negative for a founder’s chances of success.
      - slap_shot 3y ago
        You're actually proving the exact opposite of your initial claim, but at least you are now teasing out the confounding variables that actually explain this. There is no significant causation related to a founder's marital status. > Don’t be fooled, older founders have considerably more assets and a wealth of connections in their industry, as well as older more independent children. This offsets the wife and family effects. > No, because there are a lot less older founders than younger ones. So when you extrapolate from the data it will seem that having a wife and kids is a negative for a founder’s chances of success. These are the the confounding variables you were looking for. Older founders _are_ more successful and it has to do with, among other things, the experience and connections they have, and that people are more risk-averse as they start families. _Coincidentally_, the likelihood of being married increases as one's age increases, which is why you see fewer but more successful founders at the ages they are more likely to be married.
ukd1 3y ago
I'm not sure it's this clear cut. I'm in the partner and kid stage, and whilst I wasn't when I did my last startup - I was mostly single and could do literally what I want, when I want - which is in a lot of ways awesome if the company is the thing you wanna do...now I am more stable (routine wise?), more driven (for family, as well as wanting a win), more experienced (that's aside from being single or not I guess), but do have more responsibilities. I'm at the edge of starting something new. Wish me luck either way.
- xwdv 3y ago
  But do you think you are the exception, or the average?
  - ukd1 3y ago
    TBH, I've no idea. One would hope the exception, but who knows. I'm aware it's gonna be different this time around than the first time, for sure. There are obvious pros, and some obvious cons. Either way I'm going for it though lol. I think I just need to figure out what the limits are with the fam explicitly.
renewiltord 3y ago
That's interesting. My friends run startups (a couple of billion-dollar valued ones) and to be honest, those with wives and families seem to find it easier to do. Personally, having married, I find that this is a massive boost to my personal ability. Not only was the optionality I previously had a curse, but staying on task is much easier with a partner looking out for me, and for my part I find it easier to make good decisions when I'm thinking about this team of us over myself. Plus there's just the fact that marrying another high-earner means you have a more stable income when the streams are diversified. Of course every person is different and perhaps you perform better single, but my experience and what I observe of my friends is different here in our 30s.
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  Totally depends on the partner. Good partner -> better chance of a good outcome. Bad partner -> good luck with staying sane from being surrounded in stress 24/7
  - xwdv 3y ago
    As an investor, if a founder's partner is considered "bad" or toxic, they will reject investing in them, as it will likely mean the startup will suffer as a result of personal relationship issues. This decreases chances of success.
    - jbverschoor 3y ago
      5 more karma and you can retire ;-)
      - xwdv 3y ago
        Not sure I’ll make it. Usually a flurry of downvotes come in and drags me back.
        jbverschoor 3y ago
        lol gotta love HN

slap_shot 3y ago

I'm a founder that let starting a startup wreak massive havoc on his marriage. This shit is real. My suggestion to anyone in a serious relationship that is starting a business: Cofounders often layout an operating agreement when they start a company. A founder and their spouse should do the same: layout your expectations (time, money, opportunity costs, life responsibilities) and frequently have open and transparent conversations about if each party is still comfortable with the arrangement. Hearing the author see his pivots and realizing he would cut off his arm before folding the company (hyperbole, I know) signals he is probably crossing the line of what would have been put in the operating agreement. A good technical founder is forgoing $500k+ a year in comp for a high-percentage chance of nothing. That has an immense effect on a relationship. Watching a spouse who is that committed and failing has to be absolute hell.

ska 3y ago
> A good technical founder is forgoing It's easy to make this SWAG on the opportunity cost , but I'm not sure it's true. I've known a lot of technical founders, and probably more than half of them were psychologically incapable of staying in a cushy mid-six comp position at a big company, even when they had the chops. It's part of what drove them to do something else. Others were more driven than technically talented, and sometimes that works well. The "why be a founder when you can get rich at a FAANG" narrative is a bit too reductive, and misses out that people do these things for a broader range of reasons that EV. Similarly, I've met technical people who are far stronger than the median FAANG engineer, but would never work there, because they can't self-identify as someone who would take that job. You can just as easily say: "why do you work at save-the-world-little-co for peanuts when you could be making 700k at BigTechCo?" Sometimes people do these things mostly because that's who they are, or who they see themselves. If you are in a relationship with someone like that, it's part of the package. Totally agree you should have a clear understanding of what that means, going into such a venture.
- slap_shot 3y ago
  > half of them were psychologically incapable of staying in a cushy mid-six comp position at a big company, even when they had the chops. It's part of what drove them to do something else. This is an incredibly good point. I, myself, left BigCo to launch aforementioned startup, and mentally, I was accepting that if went to zero (it did) at least I was spending the prime of my career doing what felt like the most meaningful thing I could be doing. I did not, however, create my recommended operating agreement or get the buy-in of my wife.

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

I secretly hoped he'd change his mind The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.

vouaobrasil 3y ago

My advice as a former programmer turned independent who is also married is to keep things safe and not aim for global success. It doesn't really matter anyway. Live more simply and create a bunch of small things that are more guaranteed to work, don't work so hard. The world doesn't need more successful people. ("Success" as defined by our modern western standards.)

reactordev 3y ago
To add, it’s highly more likely to go global if you have local success. Build something that is useful, that you can monetize, and that you can market. The rest is up to the internet gods. You’ll have income. You’ll see success and feel that validation you need knowing you built something for you. Grow from there. I feel like this perspective though comes from a few face plants. It did for me.

_fat_santa 3y ago

I get that pivots happen in startups alot but when you're pivoting 3 times with an extra pivot to make mobile games, maybe it's time to throw in the towel and realize you're not cut out for it. His first venture was "TikTok for games", second venture was some devtool for Godot, 3rd was some "chat to make an app" app that according to the article is also dead. My startup is bootstrapped but reading this article I couldn't help but think: "I should talk to investors, I mean they gave money to this guy"

palmfacehn 3y ago
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schmidt-michelle-ritter-steel-perlot/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schm... After reading this I can't get the image out of my mind. Whenever I see a ridiculous project being funded, I imagine "Steel Perlot". In my mind it has become something like a frou-frou art gallery losing money. How much of the VC space is really like this? After awhile all I see are buzzword backup dancers ripping off willing fools.
bubub410 3y ago
[flagged]

jbverschoor 3y ago

> My worst fear was that I'd never see him, and we'd grow apart as he became a staggering success. Late nights of toiling over code would lead to private jets and alcohol-fueled company retreats, and I'd be left behind, reading about his corporate conquests under someone else's byline. I dunno.. doesn’t sound like the “support” I’d want.

rideontime 3y ago
Agreed. Chase your startup dream or be a supportive spouse, doubt there's time for both.
tmpz22 3y ago
Its kind of wild how people equate having a startup to having money. I guess I take it for granted knowing the dirtier underside to startups, the fact that the investment money isn't a slushfund (unless you commit multiple felonies). That the marketing and projection of the company is ludicrously overblown. And that the community is optimistic to a fault - going as far as to cargo-cult objectively bad solutions. And finally of course that most startups fall on their face. That even many acquisitions can be a net-negative to both the team and product. You'd have thought the Theranos/FTX stuff would cool the ideation but I guess not.

TiredGuy 3y ago

When I attempted a few times to found startups, my wife was willing to support me financially if any of them were to become profitable enough over a certain agreed-upon threshold that we felt justified in quitting my job and taking the plunge to go full time. Not sure if that was the best strategy, but it seemed like a decent one at the time. I suppose if I were single, maybe the decision to just quit and go full time would have been easier despite not having such a safety net. It's tough when more than my own life is being affected by such decisions. I feel for the author and her husband. Who knows if my own marriage would have ended up in similar struggles if I had gone all in. I do feel like I'm probably making more money in the long run by just remaining an employee.

bubub410 3y ago
[flagged]

fein 3y ago

Steam deck in the bedroom, watching starwars with the wife... in the bedroom, has a pitbull, pitbull bites your infant in the face, terrible startup ideas, and the wife airs the dirty laundry on business insider - for startup reporter clout. Are these people a meme, is this story even real, and just what the fuck in general? This article isn't even really about a failed startup but rather a pair of messed up people on both sides who now expose their infant to their insanity. What a pair of foul individuals.

Toutouxc 3y ago
I couldn’t believe the “let’s kill the dog for scratching the kid’s face” part. People will punch you in the face if you startle them enough, why should the dog be any different? And they won’t ever consider putting him up for adoption or something, it’s straight to the vet and euthanise him? What the actual fuck is wrong with the people. edit: This is very relevant to me because the very same thing happened to me as a kid. One of our family dogs bit me in the face because I was tugging on her tail (like in a painful way). It was completely my fault, no one blamed anyone else than me and no, we didn’t kill the dog. We kept her and I have many happy memories of her.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fein 3y ago
  The dog didn't scratch her, it bit her in the face. And she didn't even grab the dogs tail, she just startled it.
  - Toutouxc 3y ago
    Yes, dogs can startle too. As far as we know, there is nothing wrong with the dog.
    - lazide 3y ago
      As far as they saw (and based on their decisions), there was. Not our circus, not our problem.

hyperfuturism 3y ago

I'd believe that most people would earn more and still have their sanity in the long-run remaining an employee. It's incredibly hard to create a startup with an exit for the founder. While the EV for creating startups is incredibly high, but the median EV of the startup founder is very low.

slackfan 3y ago

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, the article. The author makes herself and her subject sound absolutely insufferable, doing neither of them any favors. Kind of a sad commentary on the tech industry and its orbiters, really.

bubub410 3y ago

[flagged]

bubub410 3y ago

[flagged]

bubub410 3y ago

[flagged]

LASR 3y ago

Is this really just a consequence of terrible ideas combined with a bad mental model for execution? The way I think about ideas is like the many-worlds interpretation. You want to have a superposition as broad as you can be and then narrow down into a single collapse outcome for your idea. This means that every little move you make, you think about how to deliver on that successfully, but you are continously also thinking about where and how you could pivot without throwing everything away. Ultimately, it boils down to the question of reversibility. So a pivot is not a backtrack, but a course correction from where you are now. Trying a bunch of shit and seeing what sticks is the privilege of the wealthy. A few examples of what I mean: - TikTok games - did you explore adjacencies? What about a TikTok task list app? Instead of some pointless minigame, pull up the list of tasks from say GitHub issues / JIRA / Asana etc and surface that as a kind of focus-mode for your work. - Chatbot -> webapp. Chatbot -> x is just a terrible idea in general. But maybe you could salvage this by thinking more about what 'x' is. But you really can't since whatever you think 'x' is, someone is already doing it. So maybe 'x' is a variable. OpenAI's GPTs is 'x' -> Chatbot. Maybe an inversion of this? It could even be simply a recommendation app. Like above Tiktok for x. Given a problem, it suggests steps / tools to use etc.

simonsaystwice 3y ago

~ founder - ceo of a series A startup here (raising series B soon) ~ I became a shell of my previous life. ~ barely keeping it together with my wife, 2 kids (6,10) + a large dog ~ No riches yet - just sweat, blood and tears (literally and physically) ~ took massive pay cuts, lived off of savings for 18 months before securing our first $1M in financing. This means, building back up our savings with a so so salary these days. ~ No glory until a massive exit. Until then, praying that my marriage doesn't fall apart or my health.

bubub410 3y ago

[flagged]

petercooper 3y ago

I feel such a disconnect with what passes as normality when I read pieces like this. The final few paragraphs are bonkers to me. Out of nowhere, they put their poor dog down because their child surprised it and it bit back and then she feels a sense of pride that he's stronger about putting down his dog because running a startup toughened him up? Everything this author says feels alien to me, I could believe it were transcribed from an ancient scroll.

joeman1000 3y ago
Truly insane
isthatafact 3y ago
It was a pit bull, as one would expect. Their toddler is lucky to be alive. Getting it out of their home is one of the more rational parts of the article, although you would think they would have put some effort into finding another home for it instead of just killing it.

Mistletoe 3y ago

Why the hell is this flagged? The worst feature of HN rears its ugly head again. I only found it by following someone’s comment history.