I'm the author of that article.<p>I wrote this article at the beginning of 2021, a few months before I called it a day and stopped wasting time on that project.<p>I submitted it to HN at the time and there were tons of useful feedback: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627081" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627081</a><p>If you're curious, I also posted two follow-ups:
- <a href="https://dsebastien.net/blog/2021-02-28-21-months-in-and-80k-views-later" rel="nofollow">https://dsebastien.net/blog/2021-02-28-21-months-in-and-80k-...</a>
- <a href="https://newsletter.dsebastien.net/issues/developassion-s-newsletter-entrepreneurial-journey-825650" rel="nofollow">https://newsletter.dsebastien.net/issues/developassion-s-new...</a><p>In summary, I would say that I was way too trusting. I found a startup coach who lured me into the project, and I was super naive. I had doubts along the way but continued playing the game hoping for a happy ending. There was none. I was embarked with a super confident but ultimately hollow CEO, and I was way too focused on the technology.<p>I really did a good job with architecture, code quality, etc., but failed to avoid bike shedding for the longest time. Furthermore, I had no experience with startups, hoped that my co-founders really had a portfolio we could sell to and thus could focus on delivering high quality, even if it took longer. In reality, there was nothing but daydreaming and envy.<p>My co-founder dreamt about the Silicon Valley and VC money, but wasn't ready to actually deliver and sell a product.<p>My co-founders also refused to go and discuss with those potential customers for the longest time, and by the time they did, I had run out of money, was super stressed and couldn't go on much longer. Worse yet, those prospects of course had important requests, and we didn't have the energy left to implement those.<p>And when that realization came, my co-founder just quit silently. From one day to the next, there was not a word, not a gesture. He went offline, and I never heard from him since. I was a tool.<p>I made a conscious choice to invest that time and money, but could certainly have made a lot more money elsewhere, hence the title. But I managed to protect my family from harm. I went back half-time as an employee and continued to pay rent and put food on the table. So no harm done in that sense.<p>And it wasn't useless. I learned a ton about myself, about how to actually go about and build something. I learned to recognize bike shedding and to be less naive.<p>The most frustrating part for me is the fact that all this production-ready code is just rotting in place. And there's not much I can do about it...