Oh pity the poor funded startup founders of Boomtrain

Welcome to Silicon Valley.

You sound bitter. That article was discussed on HN already and it was agreed it was a shitty article and they were douchers, but you will never get funded by an investor I can see that hatred and bitterness seeps through your soul into everything you do in life. Please stop visiting here and thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur.

Well written post, sometimes bitterness is good, if coupled with action to kill a dying idea and create again.

@kaffegeek

Bitterness is great for venting, then get over it and get back to work. There are a lot of douchy people getting showered right now (Clinkle anyone?) but your job is to be a rainmaker.

ZOMG $30k salary?! I would kill for salary right now

I understand that the sob story aspect in the Wired article is kind of annoying, but it's a welcome reality-check compared to the "I made a cell phone app I'M GONNA BE RICH QUICK" attitude.

It's also helpful to see just how much it sucks to work in an overheated industry where most people are striking out or hitting singles but everyone thinks--or pretends, I suspect it's largely a ritualized performance piece--they're going to knock the ball out of the park.

Now I'm doubly depressed. That Wired article hit me like a ton of bricks, because it is the very roller coaster that I've been riding for going on four years. If I had any feeling left in me I would have cried after reading it, because of the negatives it brought up. Now reading these comments I'm more depressed, because after working my ass off to turn an idea into not only a product, but also create a revenue generating company, bootstrapping for a year (I'm still paying those credit card bills), being fortunate enough not only to raise money once, but twice - once from investors who believe in me and my co-founder, now apparently I'm some kind of douchey complainer because I made 1k more than the founders of BoomTrain who raised a hell of lot more than I did. I haven't taken a salary in 4 months so we could run on cash and I wouldn't have to lay anyone off, take away paid vacation time or health insurance (that we pay for all employees, well except for the co-founders that $500 premium comes out of my 31k) so we could make it around the bend. Meanwhile I get 15 collection calls a day for personal accounts I can't pay, I don't have enough money to pay the co-pay to go to the doctor (no I really don't have $25, I really really don't), because I think I'm on the verge of breakdown after three years of having no life outside work and the crushing debt of my personal finances, why else would I be outing what should be my very private pity party on an anonymous start-up site.

I knew what I was getting into, I knew it would be hard. It kills me that when everything is going great and you say so, people will knock you down for it and when things take a turn and can't concentrate because you're worried not only if, but how you're gonna make payroll and you say "this is really fucking hard" you get knocked down for complaining how hard it is.

So we lock ourselves away in our start-ups, put our heads down, and smile and nod, and when someone asks you how you're doing the only acceptable response is "same old same old" with a laugh and a piece of you dies every time you say it and you're left to wonder is there going to be anything left of me at the end of this.

Hey. Well, the article does raise the important point that Silicon Valley is resembling Hollywood, a dream machine where people come to make it huge and most fall by the wayside, and ultimately become mere laborers in the industry.

I don't feel sorry for the boom train guys, I do have a large amount of empathy for them.

The commenter above who noted that you get to a stage saying "same old same old" has hit a nail on a head. There is a rut, and you have no idea if you are leaving opportunity behind by walking away.

My first startup idea left me with no lunch money in a foreign country one day, and I decided that I had to quit. So I started a far less sexy business that brought in dollars almost immediately and has grown nicely. I have learned lots about business from the experience. I did learn from prior failures, I still yearn to learn from huge success. So now I'm a bit bored as the second successful business needs capital injection to grow but it's not 1000x payback business. And I need a hit.

So, I am seriously considering getting into an MNC as a senior employee and using that position to scout for opportunities. A staging ground, as it were.

I hope the boom train guys make it, their product sounds like it's chasing something useful. When I see "machine learning" though I am concerned, as that could be a dead end, dependent on one key programmer delivering. I'm a shareholder in a start-up aiming to do some machine learning, it's not a guaranteed outcome. You need teams of smart guys to play at that level, or else start really niche and simple.

Either way, they've only been at it just over a year and got almost half a million to get started. More than most receive

Finally, I think convertible notes with personal guarantees are a bad idea. I hated seeing a friend paying off his long after he'd gotten a job after his start-up went busto. He was years ahead of Google and Facebook (which was part of the problem) in aspects of his vision, but that is all he can brag about. He has to put on a worn smile when the topic of those four years - with a faithful wife living in a one room shoebox while he pitches over Skype at midnight to corporate prospects everywhere, "Hey buddy, great to hear from you, let me tell you about..." - is brought up, and he's not able to accept the failure completely.

Like many, he got by on dreams and denial until I suppose family called time

I'm relatively fortunate I deluded myself for a mere year. And more fortunate that I realised I could be a success doing something unglamorous

I'm waiting for a meeting so I'll keep going :)

Almost everybody I know from business school who started a business failed, and failed utterly. Those who succeeded had often simple, ordinary businesses where there was untapped demand. In my case, it was really plugging into a vast established market and being a little better and smarter at marketing.

The hot tech startups all failed. In general, the guys went to work in silicon valley (as I say, Google loves failures) and the women made babies.

It really is time to review this tech VC industry, is it a social plus or minus? I'm open minded, but the debate and awareness has to allow people to express frailty and insecurity and feel good about it

Hey, business idea : The Pity Party!! Screw the pretentious burning man, have a camp where tech entrepreneurs who are feeling the heat meet, eat, drink, laugh and cry. And nobody has to be a success

Jeez, I want to get started on it straight away!!