My first startup failed because I invested in the wrong developer company who took my $10K and left me with nothing. Yes, I hired local and I even checked refe

My first startup failed because I invested in the wrong developer company who took my $10K and left me with nothing. Yes, I hired local and I even checked references. This company operates 2 miles from where I live. It couldn't get any safer. They slowly quit working on it and then quit and started ignoring me until I sued them. I won in court and got a judgement to collect my money. Apparently this doesnt matter, and the owner of this company simply continues to operate, just without paying bills, such as my $10K judgement against him/company. This was 2008 and my full time job just laid everyone off, about one month after committing my money to this startup. I later foreclosed and went through quite a storm of financial loss, and life changes. All while developing my next startup ideas! Wooohoooo, I'm still alive and I know my persistence will pay. So, my answer? Evaluate your loss if you can truly evaluate it, grab the obvious mistakes and make sure you dont do them again. Millions of people every day don't attempt their own startups due to what happened to me. Fear. Fear of loss. Fear of exactly what happened to me. It's incredibly discouraging that people/companies can get away with this, and it effects more people than just me. See... when i tell my story about failure, 9 out of 10 people get further away from ever overcoming their typical fears about starting up. I'm the only one who "should" fear the future... yet, Im the only one taking more risks. (sounds like i might need a new set of frands, huh?)