I’m seeing a lot of ego talk, if this business doesn’t workout it’ll be okay… I’ve never heard someone put another person down for trying to launch a business.

So you’re Bezos but the failure version. That’s fine. Startup success rate is a very low percentage.

You should have joined an accelerator, used slicing pie model and used someone else’s money. One of the rules is to always use someone else’s money or to bootstrap with a tiny amount of money.

Also it’s possible you’re not a failure. But you probably already failed. You should embrace that. As for employability that’s bullshit. Suppose it’s true that entrepreneurs or founders face more challenges than others when finding a job and that you need a job. You can remove almost all of that from your LinkedIn except your work history. If someone asks you can say you were a cofounder for one year but spent $200k or $300k on a failed venture and need to work now to pay bills. I think that’s the middle ground between going full blown entrepreneur (which might signal that you will run to do it again) and leaving it out completely. You got it out of your system and you’re ready to go back to work. In other words telling the truth gets you the furthest. It’s possible no one asks at all and no one cares unless you make it a big deal.

Another option is to do the accelerator route again and this time spend no money of your own. I would seriously consider that before throwing in the towel. All the lessons you learned can be applied. Then you can feel you gave it a shot.

A lot of startups are struggling, you’re not alone. It’s almost on a daily basis now that I see someone announcing they’re winding down operations on LinkedIn.

Startups are frickin’ hard and most people within the industry know it. It’s uncommon to see profiles where every start-up was a raging success. But the learnings from these will probably help you speed up/get to PMF / pivot when needed faster as you progress.

Worked with a few myself as well, some faired better, some worse, and I have learned that many startups have “exits” which often cannot even be described as a win truly.

If you still have the energy and motivation to go through it I wouldn’t worry about the background. Past business experience is always useful for new teams, even if the businesses ended up not making it.

Yeah, I have. I got the offer of a ~1% share of a company I worked for in exchange for my overtime payout, and turned them down. Joke’s on me. I left some half-year later or so, and the product I built for them worked so good and reliable that they could successfully scale up. Being honest, at the time I gave that company 50:50 of crashing vs. succeeding, because I thought it might as well go south for reasons beyond my control. They are quite healthy still and growing, so I made a bad coin flip on this one as it would have been a share nice-to-have.

Don’t beat yourself up over failure like this. Figure out what’s inside your control and what’s outside of your control, and take ownership over what you can do.

Everything outside of that, it’s always good to seek council. You must have someone with a law-degree in your circle, right? Perhaps friends or family you can trust? Talk to them, and ask for guidance. I found that lawyers make excellent dialogue partners when it comes to situations like that. I didn’t do that. If I had talked to literally anybody about it, who knows what could have been negotiated instead.

Perhaps there is something you can do to turn it around. Like they say, a chip and a chair. You still got that. You’re not out of business yet.

Hope this helps to lift your mood a bit!

If you worked before, you have some value in the previous company. You can always go back.

Truth is business is not for everyone. There is a steep learning curve and you need resilience for it.

Take some time away. Reflect on what you could have done better. Go back to a job. Build confidence. And come back again when you’re ready.

There are always opportunities. Only question is whether you’re ready for them.

Another guy who got FOMOed by some “entrepreneur” tiktok.

If you got a good prestigious job making you good money, stick to that. You’ll have a better chance of retiring with a few millions there than in business.

Given the amount of capital invested, unless they have multiple investment streams take control of what you can and if it’s a loss leader drop it before you lose more. As long as you have a story and have worked hard despite circumstances you are employable and a lot of employers love entrepreneurial spirit if you plan to work for someone again.

I think part of the fear is across a few areas: 1) you fear losing the money; 2) you fear you won’t get a job; 3) you fear you have wasted time; 4) you fear the sequence of startup experiences pain a picture of you as a failure; 5) you fear this company won’t be successful (sales are flat).

1. the money is gone. It’s not coming back. There is nothing to fear. It just is what it is. Can’t do anything about it now.
2. the only way you could have wasted time was if you spent it doing destructive things instead of productive things. You don’t know what you have prepared yourself for so you have not wasted time. You banked time moving things forward, learning fast, adapting. Nothing wasted.
3. the job thing is an illusion. It is super easy to sell yourself in your CV and your job. Have the best stories when someone says “why did you leave that job?” You will fly though - people live risk takers.
4. same as 2 - just work out the narrative and some key annecdotal stories and you will be fine. Dust yourself off. Ask ChatGPT for some help and learn to present yourself strongly and own your experience.
5. this company is not dead. If it is sales you need, then all hands to the pump. I have been at rock bottom with a company and within a couple of years it became a juggernaut and today it is worth $7bn. It ain’t over yet.

Big part is you owning your fear and then figuring out how to cut through despite that fear being present.

Appreciate the post - I think we all get something from an authentic post like this.

You are not scared of failure you are scared of people’s judgment because when you are alone playing video games , you’r fin when you lose , you just try again

Being an entrepreneur may not be for you, unfortunately. As an entrepreneur, you come to know failure well…as it’s all about failing, learning from it, and improving. There is no magic guide to success…we all fail until we don’t.

Fear is real for most. But not for entrepreneurs. Only thing real entrepreneurs see is opportunity. If you can’t get out of that fearful mindset, you may want to cut your losses.

I’d happily employ someone who had the guts to do all of that, success or fail, that’s a mountain of experience to apply going forward.

Anyone who couldn’t see that is someone you probably don’t want to work for, so I don’t think unemployable is fair.

The more interesting story to me is what you’re doing in the meantime to fix sales in short order. Win or lose that’ll be incredibly valuable additional experience.

Failure is glorious, homie. Embrace it, learn from it. Hardwire the lessons into your brain and don’t repeat them. But failure is a part of entrepreneurship.

I had a similar path. Left a 6 figure job to start my own business. Ran the business for 3 years it was profitable but I never got back to 6 figures and got burnt out. Sold what I could of the business about 2 years ago and transitioned back into the corporate world.

I foolishly thought my experience would translate to corporate environment and get a great job, it did not. With that being said I do not regret trying and you should not either. I still miss running my business and will definitely give it a go again. You should feel good about the experience and lessons you learned most people do not have that. It takes time but after 2 years in the corporate world I consider myself back to a respectable place job title and salary.

You are not unemployable, nor will anyone judge you. Most people will actually be jealous you tried something. The hardest part about the transition is getting that job back in corporate. I would rely solely on your network, your resume is not going to do well in large portals with a lot of candidates (this was my experience). And make a point in every interview to really drill down the point that this is what you want to do with your next career move. I found a lot of interviewers would ask questions about “do you want to start another business”. I do but not for a couple years. Good luck you’ll be fine.

I wanna network, have lots of experience in sales, I use AI a lot currently. Anyone looking to network here