Ask HN: What was your failure in 2015? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What was your failure in 2015?

18 pointsaforarnold15 comments

Hey,

Yes, I know we all are not open to admit our failure. And actually I started following hackernews to get inspired by others success. But reality is, we all fail.Some of those we share when we get successful but most of the failure we hide or just pretend we did not fail.

Somewhere I read, "smart people learn from others mistake". So here is our chance, lets speak about our failure, it will help everyone. I am starting with my own failure:

"I wanted to switch job because I got too comfortable with my job, not being challenged and most importantly not learning new staff (technology, process and etc). But I got a promotion which came with a handsome raise so I did not switch. But when I go to bed, most of the night I got the feeling I did not do anything significant , basically a wasted day. And when I looked for new job I found I am getting paid well above average and most of the new offer is around average of my level. So the plain the thing is I am afraid of switching because I will be less paid and I can not afford it. But I am still looking for new challenge who knows what will happen in 2016".

Thanks in advance.

My failure was not following my dream sooner. Once I realized this I fired toxic clients and got rid of toxic people in my life. Now I am back to actively working on MY dream, and yes there is less money involved right now. However, I've simplified my life and really reeled in the spending and it's working. I'm getting a lot more interest in my new project and funding is just around the corner - I fully expect first seed funding in Q1 2016. In the end you have to do what makes you happy and the sooner you do it, the better your life will be.

Not managing my time wisely. I keep choosing escapism over learning/reading and that is impeding my learning of new tools/languages/etc that can help me get a new job/better pay.

I've been "drifting along" for years at this point, unable to get out of my own way.

Not staying focused on one idea. If you try to work on more than one idea, you spread yourself too thin, and all the ideas suffer in quality and execution. Also, feature creep, focus only on the minimal features needed to launch. Decide on additional features after you have users and they start to ask for things and patterns start to form.

My biggest failure in 2015 was probably that I was too reactionary. I lacked the autonomy that I often had in the more distant past. Instead of making and following long-term plans, I found myself doing small projects and waiting for people's reactions before proceeding to do something else. What I would do next was too often based on the responses I received. There have been times in the distant past where I was the opposite -- too much autonomy for too long -- leading to building a large project that nobody really wanted. In 2015 I saw the opposite end of the spectrum. Recently recognising this phenomenon has helped to remind me that both ends -- heavy autonomy and heavy interaction -- are bad for productivity. I am now thinking that perhaps autonomous spurts of 3 to 9 weeks at a time are best in the long run. Waiting for a reaction after just a few days of work is too short a time, and building alone for 9 months without validation is too dangerous.

I (we) have been building an app for http://timeblock.com since we invented the TimeBlock method last january.

Sometime after the summer vacation I panicked since I realized that I would not be able to reach the 6k MRR goal I had semi publicly stated.

Instead of openly accepting this I started making bad decisions to boost the MRR, this in turn led to some (of the right customers) feeling abandond and therfore they churned.

That made me realize I was fucking up and in the end I agreed to part way with one of the wrong clients and now we are back on (an even better) track with our app and vision for the product.

But damn it was a hard realization and some hard months living the lie.

Trying to drink from the firehose without taking a break to breathe every so often. I usually don't think about it till the body starts freaking out and refuses to let me keep going.

This year I started 4 new jobs. 1 at a startup after an 8 year long position that I basically grew up in. There were some layoffs and so I picked up 3 contract positions to try to learn new things and pay bills and junk. I also went from a 10 minute commute to almost 1.5-2hrs... which is a big jump for me. The 3 contract thing worked for awhile until the holidays rolled around, and then everything became too much. I was able to exit one contract gig somewhat gracefully and told the others that I wouldn't be working much during the holidays. Just in time for anxiety to kick in. :P On top of that, currently studying for interviews, which I haven't done, ever.

I think I know how to pace myself better, but we'll see...

My failure isn't the good kind of failure.

Mine was inaction.

I didn't dip my toes into affiliate marketing as a side venture like I wanted to.

Putting blind trust into a business partner. Not doing due diligence properly. Foolishly signing a letter of intent. Litigation. Losing my life savings. Saving my startup to only have it fail. Having to start over from square one.

I've learned from my mistakes and I know 2016 will be better. Wish me luck.

I tried to solve the problem of secure code delivery, but the community didn't care about that problem at all.

In Brazil, there is a foundation called, "Fundação Estudar" which is funded by Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Beto Sicupira, some of the wealthiest guys in the world (specially Jorge Paulo Lemann).

They select top Brazilian students and give them scholarships. They usually choose by assessing the candidate's academic and professional track record, besides considering their personality.

They usually select very, very, very impressive young folks.

Fundação Estudar's alumni are really strong. If you are approved, the network you will be part of is a much better gift than the scholarship itself.

For instance, the current CEO of AB InBev (the company which is the owner of Budweiser - among other beer brands) is a former fellow of Fundação Estudar.

Actually, he is won one of the firsts fellows and won a scholarship for an MBA at Stanford.

Every year, some candidates apply for MBA's/LLM's scholarships at top American universities and for undergraduate's scholarships.

I applied for an undergraduate scholarship in a Brazilian university.

I must emphasize that I did not need the money, what I really wanted was to be part of their network.

Actually, this year was my third try. I also made an application in 2013 and 2014.

Previously, I was eliminated on the semifinal phase. Going until this phase means that I was among the best 40/50 out of 80,000 candidates.

This year (2015) I went to the final interview with other 19 students.

On the last interview, there were 20 candidates applying for an undergraduate scholarship for a Brazilian or American university. They chose 18 and cut out me and a girl who was going to Yale.

I was really sad when I received the result because I wanted a lot to be part of their community. And this year I was really close of finally achieving it. I almost got it!

Being refused three times by Fundação Estudar is my greatest failure so far in my life (I have 22 years old).

This third elimination happened in the middle of July.

It has been awhile and I have been reflecting on it a lot lately. The feedback they gave me about why I was not chosen is also clearer now.

The lessons that I took from this experience are:

1 - I am really glad I tried. If I had not tried I would be wondering for the rest of my life what would have happened. I am quite happy that I will not regret not trying.

2 - Every application process I tried, year after year, I noticed that I was getting better. I was better in interviews and my professional and academic track record were improving on the last years.

3 - Due to the application process I met a lot of people and made some new friends. And they are very impressive guys. Hence, my network has been enhanced.

4- It is clearer for me now my strengths and my weaknesses. Knowing what I need to improve is great. Getting this "no" is an excellent way of reducing the asymmetrical information between my perception about myself and what other people think about me.

5 - Self-knowledge is something weird.

Really difficult to measure, usually with little or no science when people talk about it and absolutely important.

This "no's" that I received were the best (and the hardest) way I have ever experienced to improve my self-knowledge.

6 - The process did not change much from 2013 to 2015. I was also older on the third try. But a funny (and IMHO cool) thing is that my preparation was better and harder year after year.

I put a lot of effort every time I tried. And this increased. I read books, searched for info on the Internet, rehearsed, created a notebook for self-assessment and spent many hours thinking about how I could pass. My preparation was definitely over the demand.

7 - I have a few idols. Two of them are Americans: Michael Jordan and Bob Knight. Jordan used to say: I do not accept not trying. And bob knight used to say: the will to succeed is important, but more important is the will to prepare.

I am in peace with the philosophy that two of my idols used to preach.

8 - I took lessons from it.

Hope you guys have enjoyed reading this long answer. My English writing has been a little rusty, sorry for the minor mistakes.

Not to travel.

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