You decided to get out of your comfort zone, at your own expenses - not many people are that brave, and this will always pay out. Even if it doesn't work out for your startup, you know you tried, and you did your best. If you didn't even try, you would have spent your life wondering what would have happened if you did.
This will be a huge learning experience for you that at the worst may land you a highly paid job in some company looking for techies with horizontal knowledge that spaces on growth, marketing, business development, product, etc... - it is very difficult to acquire all these skills while working as employee.
Persistence is key: keep getting feedback (from customers, entrepreneurs, competitors' study, ...), keep improving the product and don't waste your time thinking about failures, depression etc... - they are just energy drainers. Whenever your brain starts sidelining on these sad topics, just think "what can I get done in the next five minutes?" - it may be answering a support ticket, fixing a bug, changing copy, implementing a new A/B test, etc... ANYTHING is still better than thinking about failures. You are failing when you think too much about it and do nothing to get back on track. And you DO have the energy to go ahead, so just go! You'll realize that very likely these 5 minutes will become 10, then 60, etc... and at the end of the day you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment.
You will be rejected a number of times. Your work and skills will be understated. A LOT. Entrepreneurship is a great toughening experience. Be a winner, believe in yourself and always work to proof people wrong.
Also, if you need more customers - would you be able to provide a free account to some early members, in exchange of some valuable feedback? This is one of the best product growth hack.
One advice though: if you don't need to, don't search for funding. Build a MVP that works, that customers love and make it profitable. Even if you have a very small set of customers. You may need funding when you decide to scale it - but that's a much better situation to be in (and your startup evaluation will be way higher).
Now, think about what you can do your next five minutes to improve your product - and do it :)!
Extremely thankful, it brought smile back on my face. Thanks a lot, next 5 mins. yes I am going to do some stuff for sure. Thanks a ton man! Folks on HN are so amazing.
glad to help - I went through many times a situation like this, and I admire people like you who take initiative and get out of the comfort zone.
Whenever something gets really tough - you should be thankful, because if means that you stumbled upon a situation that only few people overcome (for entrepreneurs, many times this situation is depression), and now it's your chance to finally distinguish yourself as a winner.
You decided to get out of your comfort zone, at your own expenses - not many people are that brave, and this will always pay out. Even if it doesn't work out for your startup, you know you tried, and you did your best. If you didn't even try, you would have spent your life wondering what would have happened if you did.
This will be a huge learning experience for you that at the worst may land you a highly paid job in some company looking for techies with horizontal knowledge that spaces on growth, marketing, business development, product, etc... - it is very difficult to acquire all these skills while working as employee.
Persistence is key: keep getting feedback (from customers, entrepreneurs, competitors' study, ...), keep improving the product and don't waste your time thinking about failures, depression etc... - they are just energy drainers. Whenever your brain starts sidelining on these sad topics, just think "what can I get done in the next five minutes?" - it may be answering a support ticket, fixing a bug, changing copy, implementing a new A/B test, etc... ANYTHING is still better than thinking about failures. You are failing when you think too much about it and do nothing to get back on track. And you DO have the energy to go ahead, so just go! You'll realize that very likely these 5 minutes will become 10, then 60, etc... and at the end of the day you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment.
You will be rejected a number of times. Your work and skills will be understated. A LOT. Entrepreneurship is a great toughening experience. Be a winner, believe in yourself and always work to proof people wrong.
Also, if you need more customers - would you be able to provide a free account to some early members, in exchange of some valuable feedback? This is one of the best product growth hack.
One advice though: if you don't need to, don't search for funding. Build a MVP that works, that customers love and make it profitable. Even if you have a very small set of customers. You may need funding when you decide to scale it - but that's a much better situation to be in (and your startup evaluation will be way higher).
Now, think about what you can do your next five minutes to improve your product - and do it :)!
Best of luck!