Ok, so here’s a bit of background so you get the hang of it:
-Solo non-tech founder, had the idea about 4 years ago and started executing about 3 years ago.
-E-commerce / crowdsourcing marketplace type of business, emerging market in a developing area of the world.
-Got a huge competetive advantage, due to being really close with a key provider for the manufacturing aspect of the business.
-Validated market, with a steep growth rate.
-Released v1.0 about two years ago, learned a lot but had an internal crisis within the team. Had a lot of other issues in my life about that time too, so I burned out and falled into a depression for some months.
-In April, had an acid trip, it made me quit my 1 pack a day cigarette addiction and started doing sports frequently. This massively helped in my case, but wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
-Kept on healing myself by eating right, doing sports, meditating and distancing myself from negativity and the startup world.
Right now, I am at a crossroads. I have enough saved money to give me substance for this year and a bit of the next. I’m thinking about jumping back in, the problem is that I don’t trust software shops and tech employees anymore (due to me being a non tech and they taking huge advantage of me for it -in sprint times, money wise and by being divas, you know those kind of devs), I could raise money to hire another soft shop, but don’t think it’s wise. And as for finding a technical co-founder for the CTO role, they’d need to chip in with some money, since it’s not a pre-funding startup, so that’s definitely hard to find.
So I’m left with the most logical option: Learn the MEAN stack and implement it by myself. Technology wise, I wouldn’t be doing something “new”. But there is a big problem and I’ve recently come to realize this:
I’m a coward and think it’s a mixture of fear of failure (due to last year experiences) and, maybe, some fear of success – that in a way I could get caught up in success and become a douchebag (I’m not trying to generalize, since there is no direct causation of being a douchebag with success, although there might be a little correlation; there are indeed a lot of great, non-douchey successful people).
How am I being a coward? Can’t even start learning, fucking paralysis by analysis, I got scared. I’m sure that I can learn the MEAN stack, so sure as of someone who has an IQ high enough for it (133, WISC test when I was 12, done by a professional). I’m no genius, I’m really dumb in many ways, and wouldn’t mention the number if I wasn’t anonymous; but I can easily learn any subject if I put my mind into it. It makes me sick not being able to take the first step…
This is an emotional issue, I’m torn between being a vagrant and finding a menial job somewhere or overcoming my fears and keep pushing.
Please, be as critical as you can, don’t hold on anything. Objectivity above all.