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.
Two years is a long time to sink into something at high pace, with no return. Very curious as to what the actual project is that holds such promise. Step back and look at the big picture and assess whether this is still actually worthwhile - two years of work on an idea doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.
If it is, depends on money circumstances, a break or at least a temporary change of your work direction is probably the best bet. Or at least cut down on the hours by 70%+ for a couple months or something. In your position, if money is a worry, I'd be tempted to take up some contract work for a couple months to think about something else.
Take care of yourself most of all :meow-hug: Even in a purely money-making sense, it sounds like you are very much part of the product, so you need to be in top shape too.
You're 100% right, 2 years is way too long. If I were to do this again, I would have done more to cut scope and made better choices about incremental releasing. 6 months should really be the max for the MVP. Thanks for the kind words and advice, it is helpful.