For context:
- No formal education, no big logos, but worked my way up in design/eng at VC-backed SaaS for most of my 20s, then:
- 1st company was a simple consultancy. Did modestly well for myself. I shut it down to start the next startup.
- 2nd company was a consumer SaaS app. Had a fantastic launch, made enough to pay me, but I raised a pre-seed, got a cofounder, hired a team, and we fizzled out doing performative hyperscale bullshit (should've just kept doing what worked).
- 3rd company was a design agency. Actually did really well, consistently $3m+/year with <10 people until covid turned us upside down, we never recovered. Shut down last year.
- 4th company was a b2b SaaS app. Raised pre-seed and started to raise seed. Did well in our niche but when momentum slowed, domain expert co-founder threw in the towel and the rest of us couldn't maintain it. Shut down 6 months ago.
My team is loyal to the game, they won't quit until I do. We're now hacking on edge-level RL & robotics and we're close to having a rad demo. But after being modestly rich for years, I'm now 6 months from total broke. A lot of people tell me to take a high paying full-time job to stabilize my career, but I can't give a fuck about comfort when it feels like we're on the edge of something great. Nonetheless, I have to figure out my runway asap. Trailer park is looking like the top option.
We need a lab and at least a million to survive working on this. I'm close with all my VCs, but I'm still their serial loser, and now I'm playing in capital-intensive hardware instead of the internet hypeware I have experience in. Also this isn't like an obvious $100m ARR in 24 months thing. I'm just a weird founder doing weird things. But my only interest is grinding out a robotics platform that I think paves the road for the next million (robotics) devs.
- Has anyone else failed VC backed startups 3+ times?
- After 2 VC failures should I just get a job?
- How fucked am I in general?
JohnFen•4mo ago
If I'm reading it right, your two "failures" (scare quotes because I'd count the 2nd company as a half success) are the VC backed ones. VC backed companies are a particular kind of business -- maybe that's not the style that works best for you? But that's not the only (or necessarily the best, depending) approach to starting a business.
failedagain•4mo ago
I realize I'm a diva about VC. I definitely prefer capital upfront and a mission to shoot for the moon, but I have to admit that I've only demonstrated success when bootstrapping and running customer dev from the start.
Further thoughts on your point, I seem to have an expectation that I deserve free money to run a science experiment with low chance of big result, with little proof. This isn't how VC works in practice, so if I want funding, I should have built the case for it, or start now.
If it was SaaS, I'd advise bootstrapping product dev with consulting, but I don't see a path to do that with a robotics SDK. The only bootstrapping strategy I can think of is like robotics-for-coders courseware. Not a bad strategy, but that won't keep the lights on.
fuzzfactor•4mo ago
That would be some of the most expensive money of all, and most subject to loss.
>to run a science experiment
That's the entire thing my business was based on, using tonnes of electronics and instrumentation it was very hardware-oriented.
That was my life's work beforehand anyway, I knew I could make money the same old way if I didn't come up with enough new stuff to be able to monetize a solid 1% of it.
I still wouldn't use "other peoples' money" aka capital because the people who wanted to put up money, it was their retirement funds and stuff.
You can't be a capitalist without capital so I've always been a mere entrepreneur and used my own money.
I was wondering what the hardware was but looks like you've got robot-dependent software, if you're not competeing in hardware, and your SDK applies to a robot from only one company, talk to them.
It your technology applies to more than one company, talk to them all.