So I decided to go and do a startup with an old coworker of mine about two years ago because I actually really like programming and I had enough money to live off my savings for awhile. So I'm building an open source piece of software, we have no real monetization scheme and that's fine. Maybe some rich company will adopt us and we can get a service contract, or we can trick some investor in giving us some money and we'll burn it all on bloated salaries.
The problem is that I've been doing this for 2 years and I'm throughly burned out. I've been working like a dog, 12+ hour days, rarely any time off. I don't have any hobbies anymore and my relationship with my partner isn't great. I want this to be useful to people because it has the real capacity to make peoples jobs easier. It abstracts away like 90% of what data engineers have to do and in my opinion it is actually innovative (fully outside of capitalism). I'm just at this point where I'm mentally done with the idea and I just don't have the energy anymore to see the rest of it through. I've been getting in a lot of arguments with my cofounder recently about product direction and I think it's just me being anxious about getting this adopted. We still don't know who our target users are and I just want anyone to use it and I don't care about 'personas' and product market fit.
I'm not going to drop the link here because I don't want it coming up in a google search but you can DM me and I can show you what I've done. I honestly don't know what I should do at this point, just quit and get a real job or take a break and then just try to trudge through it.
Thanks of listening.
You had the audacity to change your class? Just like that? Like flipping on a light switch? Now your labor belongs to yourself. You are self-exploiting. Congratulations. Welcome to the petit bourgeoisie. I did that too some years ago, and let me tell you it hasn't been easy. We are surviving though, and it really is true that unalienated labor hits different. My business is in an entirely different field from yours, so I can't offer much useful advice for your situation. We manufacture physical widgets in meatspace and deliver them bodily to clients. I will say that easily the most important thing is your relationships with your business partners. You really gotta care about each other deeply on the human level. If you get to a place where you don't like the idea of working hard for each other for many years, then you have a real problem. Also it's important to make time for big picture discussions. That can be really hard to do during busy seasons. Also it really helps to be rich going into a business venture, but being poor keeps you out of a certain class of dangers that monied startups often succumb to: things like overextension and over-leveraging. Nobody wants to lend money to poor people, so there's no danger of getting in over your head with debt lol. I wish you the best of luck, and I sincerely hope that you and your partners (business and otherwise) find ways of living interesting lives with security and dignity.
I grew up poor and I don't have the demeanor to interact with investors and I know that. I say words like 'fuck' when I don't know something and I don't like to spin the word salad that they like to hear. My cofounder is much better at this than me and I know its important to have a good relationship or it really won't work out. I honestly doubt that I'll ever get anything more than if I worked for a top 5 tech company for the same amount of time but I hope I can make it a living. Thanks.
Yeah if it's money you're after then go work for a big tech company. If you want that sweet unalienated labor then be prepared to face a brutal economic system designed to prevent you from having it. The juice is often not worth the squeeze as they say. You only have so many years before you're dead. Starting a business is literally gambling with your life.
This almost reads like a copypasta.