I'm going to give you tough love, because you seem to have come here without having gotten it from someone else. I've been here myself, so take it as "me in the future giving me advice" rather than someone being condescending.

> I started a startup about 1.5 years ago and raised about $100k.

That's a very short runway when you have ~$0 revenue. If you couldn't raise more or bootstrap, it was probably a sign to move on.

> It is incredibly hard to survive without any income on the west coast. I have considered moving but all other obligations doesn't let that happen.

It sounds like you know you need to get a job with a salary. You can't move somewhere inexpensive and you can't survive as things as now. Start applying feverishly to jobs.

> I don't know if I am burned out or something is wrong with my brain. I am just numb to everything since 2023 when my father passed away.

Nothing is wrong with you! You're having a normal human reaction to two of the most common human experiences: failure and grief. It would be weird if you felt fine right now.

> But, I am just not finding anyone to talk to. I have little to no network.

Then this business wasn't a good idea from the beginning. Your network is your startup. Sales is always the hardest part, and having a network of buyers already is a huge advantage.

Most startups fail, and most of the time it's because other people are learning this same lesson. You are not alone at all.

> I am at a crosspoint now. I don't know if I should continue to work on my startup.

Absolutely not. You've already failed. Lean on friends/family, find a therapist, and move on. Most startups are failures. There's no shame in it. But don't shoot yourself in the foot by trying to make it work when it has objectively, fully failed. You're almost out of money and you don't even know how to spend money to get revenue. That's a fully dead business.

> I desperately want to make it work

Why? What's wrong with a corporate job or something sustainable that isn't a startup?

> How do I find users to talk to and how can I reach out to them?

You either build your network through extroversion, unpaid favors, friends/family, college, etc. or... you pay for that network. And paying for it is insanely expensive.

Your personality hasn't lent itself to the former, so you're faced with the latter, and you don't have the money for that. So the answer is: you can't. You can't find users. Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Your personality isn't "startup founder who sells sells sells".

Put the startup on the back burner and go work a contract/full time job. It seems like you need the stability at least temporarily.

I disagree that you’ve fully failed (as the other commenter put it), but the current situation is untenable, you can’t make progress on your startup under that stress and you can’t survive/thrive in regular life.

Put that on top of grief from losing a family member and you’re basically doing the startup on hardest possible mode.

Unfortunately the job market isn’t great right now but if you put the energy you used to build the company in, you’ll find something.

Oh also talk to your investors and be honest/share your plan.

No one wants to buy your product. Your marketing-to-revenue ratio should tell you that. If you're not making more money than you put into ads, then your product sucks. Time to drop it and get back to full employment.

When you realise your start up isn’t working, the smartest thing you can do is either sell it to someone who has the resources to do perhaps what you cannot to make it a viable product or service, or give up and move on to something new.

To persist endlessly in something that isn’t going to do anything but drain your resources financially and emotionally, is a much bigger failure in the long run. What do you have to lose if you persist with this start up that’s going nowhere vs, what do you have to lose if you just cut your losses now?

Honestly, most start ups actually fail. It’s a part of the process. People always think their start up will be the one that doesn’t fail, but it’s because humans are inherently over-optimistic about their businesses. They always think they’ll have them established more quickly, for much less money and work than it actually takes.

Take the lessons you’ve learned from this try, and try and apply them to a new idea or start up.

If it makes you feel better, I too started a business last year. However, I knew it would likely fail, but I still wanted to give it a go to see if it would work for my lifestyle and I was using it predominantly as a tax deduction anyway. After about 6 months however, I realised my business model was quite frankly not sustainable for the long term and was probably going to cost me more than I had to gain from persisting. Thus, I applied for a job somewhere, and I am in the process of shutting my business down.

Does that mean I’m done with trying new things? No. It just means, I’ll do things differently next time. For now, I’m taking the time to ‘recover’ from the burnout, and I’m thinking about new ideas for things I can try later down the track when I’m ready to go again.

Sounds like you have done your best, if you have any invested funds left - return them to your investors. Seek some employment and healing. Grow strong and try again with a fresh idea and a wealth of experience another day.

Hey, I really hear the weight of what you're going through. Losing your father and then trying to navigate the brutal startup world on the West Coast with limited resources sounds incredibly tough, and the numbness you describe is a very real response to that kind of sustained pressure and grief.

It's easy for advice to sound like clichés, especially "talk to customers," but the struggle you're having to even find those conversations highlights a core challenge. Building a network, especially as an introvert, takes time and intentional effort. LinkedIn can be a numbers game, and a 3% response rate, while not zero, can feel disheartening when you're up against the clock.

Considering where you are financially and emotionally, and being honest about the traction so far, it might be worth seriously considering hardwaresofton's suggestion to put the startup on the back burner for now and find some stability with a contract or full-time role. This wouldn't be giving up on your tech experience or your entrepreneurial spirit, but rather hitting pause to address your immediate needs. That steady income could provide the breathing room to process your grief, recharge, and then revisit your startup with fresh eyes and a more stable foundation, or even pivot to a new idea with the lessons learned.

Think of it as gathering resources – both financial and emotional – for your next chapter, whatever that may be. The decade you've spent in tech is valuable, and finding a role that utilizes those skills while providing security could be a powerful step forward right now.

It's okay to feel lost and burned out. It's a natural reaction to what you've been through. Taking some pressure off yourself to "make it work" right now might actually be the most strategic move you can make for your long-term well-being and future success.

Do not draw from your savings when you have investors. Instead draw a minimum salary for yourself. Your job is now to raise a next round.