Difficult situation, I have to shut down my company, not sure how to proceed.
I started the company (Mobile App) at end of 2011, solo, and doing everything on my own. My Wife, who has full time job, agreed to let me go freely to…
Solo and Scared
After several years co-founding with smart people, raising millions of dollars, and making good and bad exits, I’m going solo this time. Not because there…
Depressed, fatigued and unsure about being a startup founder
At the age of 16 I hacked my way of out of high school, literally and figuratively, in search for answers. I built software that has sold in over 50…
What gets me through it as a bootstrapped founder
I left a very high paying job about two years ago in order to bootstrap my own business which I believe will one day solve the many problems I observed in…
Reason #2 why you should not pay others to get funding for you
They’re often lying about who they are and who they know. E.g. this dude who scammed businesses into paying him to raise by pretending to know the…
The Rise of Silicon Valley (Steve Case unwittingly promotes urban sprawl)
Steve Case, billionaire former chair of AOL, is undertaking a theoretically noble endeavor with his “Rise of the Rest” bus tour. He’s driving across…
Racists, Convicts and Narcissistic Assholes — The True Tales of Nightmare Customers
This article appeared in the Founder Confessions series on Inc.com . For most companies, customers are considered the life-blood of their business, and as…
Join us tomorrow morning on SiriusXM to talk about mental illness in tech
Tune in to Doctor Radio-SiriusXM81 tomorrow morning, Tuesday, October 7th from 8-9am ET, when Startups Anonymous cofounder, Dana Severson, will be…
An Anonymous Letter to Serial Entrepreneurs
Dear Super-gassed up entrepreneur that has millions in the bank, Forgive my naiveté when it comes to starting a startup, for I am a fledgling entrepreneur…
Security hole found on weekend, tech co-founder says he will fix it on Monday
So we just received an error message from our server that basically proves part of our website is open to SQL injections because of code written by…
Important lesson about going up against large companies
I saw on TC today that Clinkle finally launched. For those who are unaware, Clinkle is a mobile wallet with gamification features. They raised a huge…
Stupid Cofounders
If your cofounder(s) have more equity than you, you are stupid. Wait, but “they bring more to the table than I do”. Bullshit. It doesn’t matter who brings…
What Every Founder Should Ask An Accelerator
There are lots of articles out there on whether an accelerator is right for you or how to maximize your time at an accelerator. There is a common…
Student entrepreneurship seems rigged…
…for those whose family will keep supporting them so they can plug away fulltime. I’m a recent graduate coming off a failed startup, but I had to work for…
Just about done making it on my own
I’ve started several startups within the past 5 years and even though most of them were good ideas, they never took off. I can program so I felt like I…
Felonies and I don’t know …
I don’t think I could survive in any other context than what I live in now, and it scares me because sometimes I don’t even know how I’m doing or what I’m…
I can finally breathe
Over the past few weeks it’s become abundantly clear that my marriage is over. We’ve had, what I thought was, a normal set of up’s and down’s but, when…
Three Types of Entrepreneurs
There are three types of entrepreneurs – Misfits, Celebrities and Naivetes. Misfits cannot work for any company. Fundamentally not hire-able. They’re…
Single founder living and working alone – life is hell
Out of school, I started studying for a professional course. It was boring, so I taught myself programming and started selling small online software.…
Some things just cannot be done by a startup
I’ve read quite a few unfortunate stories of founders that have spent their hard earned money trying to tackle a “big problem” with a “huge market” but…
Founders confess the secrets they’ve never shared
This article appeared in the Founder Confessions series on Inc.com . If you’d like to be a part of this series, look for the “Topical Confessions” on the…
My MVP is already gaining traction. Should I hire a partner to speed things up?
I started my solo startup and launched my MVP over a year ago. I developed everything, both backend and frontend. My product is a social site that already…
How to save a business …
Back in 2008 I started a SAAS for professional photographers without any outside funding. I brought in another developer around the same time and it’s…
The first customer!
I’ve been working for close to 2 years on my e-commerce startup (while also being Mr. Mum) and last week made my first sale to someone not personally…
Never Start A Company With The Woman You Love
I am a serial Entrepreneur. It is the only thing I have ever wanted to be. While other kids would say that they wanted to be doctors, lawyers, or some…
The struggles of a founder
I’m running a startup on my own. I have no office, no employees yet, and no partners. I was trying to get a board of advisors together, but that never…
A non-tech founder cheat sheet for working with a tech founder
I’m a technical founder with two non-technical founders. We have worked together for over 15 years, but our current business has been around for five…
My company refuses to fire slackers and it really demotivates me
I work for a large enterprise software company in the Bay Area and there are a few colleagues in my department that constantly “work from home” and…
Female founders: listen up … you too suck at managing other women you hire (trust me, I know)
First, I am a female founder. And I sucked at managing other women on the team. Call it tough love? No, the opposite. Female founders for the most part,…
Founder Depression, a Suicide Note and Anonymity — Why Startups Anonymous Exists
Last week we (Startups Anonymous) received an alarming submission from an fellow entrepreneur/founder — it was a suicide note. For many reasons, we chose…