
Question for founders: Are you happy you started up?
Decided to start up after a decade in Corporate and startups. Been 8-9 months. Building b2b product. Have some early pilots locked in, paying. But very slow. No cofounder despite having met 10-15 guys. Currently bootstrapped. Its very lonely and on some days i think if this was a mistake, leaving a cushy job, and throwing myself into this thing where everything is a challenge.
Founders who have scaled and reached pmf or beyond - are you happy and at peace you started up? What sacrifices did you make and was it worth it?
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions

There are only two kinds of f"founders" in India -
-
Ones whose choice was decided at birth. - Would come froma business family. Depending on the wealth they have their choice is either family business of expand to another business. People who couldn't sustain, depending on the wealth would pivot to lesser professions like " interior decorator", " consulting" etc..
-
Ones who had no choice. - these are people who couldn't find a decent job or couldn't sustain themselves in a job. Could be due to unable to handle work pressure, or at sometime felt "why should I work hard amfor someone else".. etcthat case. (Like why pay rent instead of emi? Like that)
The whole "want to solve a problem", " passion", "always wanted to do", its just BS we feed to society.
Ps - I fall under 2.

So how's it going for you?

Hey, I'm someone who has been contemplating starting something of my own. Mind chatting a bit?

The first three months will be nice. The struggle starts after that. Unless you have a project or a business dea that can keep the cash flow alive for 2 years. You are entering hell. Timelines may differ. But the progress goes like this -
- First is the period of losses
- Then comes the period of reduced losses
- Then is the period of break even
- Then comes the period of not enough profit.
- Finally at last comes the "enough" profit to be proud.
first gen entrepreneurs fold at 2. Some persistent one reach 3. But by that time competition increases and at 4 it becomes a cash flow jugglery. But once we cross 4, life is better, as at least we have better control over things.
Don't go by the Vc funded startups terms like EBITA, adjusted EBITA, these are bullshit terms. for boot strapped startups, there is only one measure " did we make money"?...

Started up. Quit. In a comfy job again. Don't waste your time, burn someone else's cash and let them have all the headache.
Focus on building stuff and having fun learning new tech stuff.