I joined a business someone started, personally invested $200k, and forwent income for a year. This is after leaving a prestigious finance job after 5-6 years in the industry and quitting a senior role at a Fintech.
Company’s sales is flat, and it’s running out of money. If this doesn’t work out, I’m a guy who quit the previous start-up (not doing very well rn) after 1 year, blew money, and joined another one that’s also not doing well.
I feel like I’m not employable and that maybe my judgment is poor. Has anyone experienced or gone through this?
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.