Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattzito | Hacker News Reader

"Do whatever you can to keep it going" only applies inasmuch as you're not taking advantage of other people to make it happen. The upthread poster taking money from his parents' retirement account to get "a few more months" on his startup and pay rent is not ideal.

View on HN

I hadn't thought of it that way, but you raise a good point. At what point are people enabling you and at what point are you just being prideful (if you take it or not). Obviously you have to have some discretion, but I've always struggled with that line.

It's kind of like the hippocratic oath - "first, do no harm". You shouldn't be borrowing money from your parents' retirement account to get a few more months on your startup, unless it's a very specific situation.

Agreed. If this is a "I have a signed contract that will give me $Xk next month, if I can just make it to then" situation, sure, go for it. Otherwise, it's (almost definitely) just pissing away someone's money. There's always another way: get a job or freelance for a while and work on the startup on the side, take on funding, whatever.

This makes sense, but I can definitely see how I could get caught up thinking that with just "a few more" months I could get something to happen. By default, don't you have to ignore some data in a startup that says your failing and push on?

Otherwise you'd stop at square 0. I know there is a continuum of bullshitting yourself involved there, but it's certainly a grey area.

Seems like a mentor would be helpful in this kind of situation. I'm envisioning someone who's gone through success and failure, who isn't so emotionally connected with your project, who you can trust with the details even if they aren't flattering or optimistic, and who can help you make some of those judgement calls that get cloudy when you're right in the middle of something. A person like that is hard to find, but I think it's worth looking for.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com