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.
Lifestyle inflation really makes this difficult at times.
If you had more time you could launch faster and validate the product, but it’s extremely hard to take a step away from stability and comfort when the results of the venture are unknown.
One tip I can give regarding discouragement is to make sure that activities you do for it are well time boxed and not “never-ending”. Break goals and milestones up in ways where you can actually see progress. Also, maybe get involved with the “build in public” community, that way you get some feedback/chat with other makers while you’re still building the product while simultaneously already gathering a small community interested in what you’re building.