Back to indie hacking after burning $100k
My last time bootstrapping a startup was a failure.
I lost my life savings ($100k+), let my marriage decay to the point of divorce, and suffered a burnout that destroyed my health.
It took me months of rest, meditation, and therapy to get back on my feet.
I was too broken to continue chasing my startup dreams during this time. I had to rebuild the life foundations needed for dreaming first.
So I took a job for 8 months, moved to a new place, and made more real-life friends to get some stability.
Today, my health is back at 80%, I grieved the end of my marriage, and rebuilt some savings. I’m happy in my new life and feel ready to build startups again.
But I’m also scared.
The reality of building a startup
Having been through entrepreneurship hell, I know it’s 10x harder than the success stories shown in the media.
I know that no matter how many people validate my idea, and how polished my product is... success is never fully in my control.
Building a startup is like placing a bet. I can win (rarely) or I can lose (often). And the game never stops until I sell the company or quit.
Even with product-market-fit and revenue growth, it can collapse at anytime:
- changes in social or SEO algorithms can reduce traffic by 90% and kill growth
- platforms I depend on to build my app (payment, APIs) can change their pricing model or decide to ban me for no valid reason
- OpenAI can launch a new feature that makes my product obsolete
Being a startup founder is like being the captain of a ship in a never-ending storm. It requires constant attention to avoid hitting the rocks and not sink.
And after what I’ve been through last time, I don’t want to endure this hell again.
The reason I wanted to become an entrepreneur was to get more freedom and joy out of life, not less!
So I’ll be doing things differently.
Focus on financial freedom
Once I leave my job next week, I’ll be getting French unemployment benefits to cover living expenses for 7 months. I also have $20k in an emergency fund in case anything bad happens.
I won’t put all my hopes of financial freedom into a crazy startup idea again. Instead, I’m going for the most efficient way to get revenue without selling my time.
While building my last startup, I built up some assets:
- a social following of 85K people
- a podcast with ~750 listeners per episode
- a twitter course that still sells $500/mo
Since I wasn’t focused on financial freedom, only obsessed about growing my startup, I missed on obvious revenue generating opportunities. But now I see things clearly.
I will:
- Write a short ebook about my failures and lessons learned, and sell it to founders who follow me
- Accept paid sponsors on my podcast
- Update my twitter course to bring it back to $2-3k per month (like before the X rebrand)
- Offer $1000/hour consulting calls on social media strategy
With these 4 small bets, I think I can reach $6k per month, mostly on auto-pilot. This is enough to cover taxes, living expenses and emergencies, and give me the time and financial freedom I’m looking for.
Being a content creator isn’t as sexy as a startup founder, but it looks like the right next step for me. Once I get there, I’ll be in a better position to take the risk of building startups again.
So that’s the plan!
Oh, and I’ll be documenting the whole journey in a newsletter.
Every week, I’ll shoot an email with:
- a deep lesson I learned about entrepreneurship
- my best meme of the week
- updates on my journey
If you’re interested, you can signup here.
Let’s get this party started again! 🔥
Love you all 💙
Building Startup is hard, and need lot of grit, wisdom and luck. I am able to completly related with you, gone through the same kind of situations in my life, except a little scenario change where my startup team got acqui hired by bigger enterprise scaleup. But the 4 years of building the company impacted my marriage, financial situation and my relationship with my son. And my co-founder has also gone through same situation.
If I look back today, building the company was worth it. It's just that I wish I should have been able to manage myself better, which I think I am now.
So that 100k spent on building a startup has build your character and has taken you as person to next relam. So , congratulate on your growth and best of luck for the next journey.
thank you vik, i agree with you even though it wasn't easy to see it that way at times. But it's really a journey of personal growth and learning. best of luck on your journey too
Incredible journey! I can relate a lot, having to restart after my last business.
Awesome that you were able to build these assets with your last business, I'm missing these for my business now. Who is your audience?
I think you're on to something with the risk of doing a startup. If you can you should always bring yourself into a position where your life is not depending on the success of something you're doing. Only this way you can truly play the game. Play only happens from a secure standpoint. Otherwise, you will game. Slight difference, one has the goal to keep playing, and the other one has the goal to win. We don't want to win, we want to play. ;)
Love this distinction about game vs play. You nailed it. The stress of playing when in survival mode isn't the best way to take good decisions. My audience is other startup founders and indie makers on X. See here
thanks for sharing :)
Wow! Thank you for sharing such a powerful story :)
you're welcome, thanks i appreciate it
Very inspiring Dagobert!
Building a start-up is very hard, people don't get it 100%. There is some ups and downs, but mostly downs. Resilience is key and I'm glad that you find your path!
I've signed up to your newsletter and following you on X, I want to know more about your sharings. Wish you good luck for the next moves :)
thanks a lot Jipe! good luck to you too
Can relate: a startup is indeed a lottery ticket and I’ve come to love services / small bets again ;-) much success to you on this next chapter.
thanks ardus i appreciate it 🙏
I really appreciate how honest you've been about your journey. People only see the glamorous side of start-up life, but the reality is that there are so many sacrifices and even that doesn't guarantee success.
Happy to see you taking care of your health and getting to a better place. Good luck with the next chapter!
thank you marilyn!
I love how raw this story is, you don't see a lot of people doing it since its a pretty vulnerable situation to be in.
Thanks for showing us the other side of this journey and what we can do to help minimize risk 🙏
thanks miguel! 🙏
It only gets better
That sounds tough, Dago. Happy to hear you are coming back stronger.
Best of luck in your next chapter
thanks a lot luis! 🙏
I wish you the best in the next venture of life.
thank you man 🙏
saving to read later
Wow, what a beautiful piece! Thanks for sharing Dagobert. It felt surreal as I went through something eerily similar last year and lost two loves of my life - my gf and the startup I was passionate about for 5 years. I'm a bit traumatized to go back.
I've reasoned that I will only go back to a Startup when I cover the core parts of my Maslow's hierarchy of needs as I focused on being driven by passion. Indie hacking is what I'm focusing on too (I'm trying to build a webflow agency).
Do you think you'll ever go back to a Startup?
i appreciate your message mate, it's crazy how so many of us go through deep stuff yet few talk about it 🙏 I'm focusing on the same basic needs now as well, taking it slow. I think eventually i might come back to it, but only if i don't feel pressured to do it, but instead do it for fun or a deep sense of purpose.
btw i'm relaunching a podcast and every week I talk about the dark side of entrepreneurship with an indie founder who went through the same struggles we did. here if you're interested https://indielifepod.com/
Thank you for sharing your insights, which resonate deeply with me, especially the part about wanting entrepreneurship to bring more freedom and joy into our lives, not less. I've observed, perhaps due to my own limited perspective, that the current startup culture seems quite monolithic: create a product, attract as many users as possible, continuously expand, and eventually sell to a larger entity. This relentless push for growth often overshadows the concept of building a lifestyle business that allows for a harmonious balance between work, family, and personal life.
It seems that the overwhelming popularity of the traditional startup model has made it increasingly difficult to find resources and communities focused on lifestyle entrepreneurship. The market's emphasis on rapid financial success might be drowning out the voices advocating for building businesses meant to sustain a lifestyle, not just generate quick profits. It would be incredibly helpful if anyone could share resources or point towards communities that support the idea of lifestyle businesses. I'm keen on finding like-minded individuals or groups who prioritize sustainable, fulfilling entrepreneurship over the rush for quick expansion and exit. It feels challenging to locate this "cult" of people who share such values, and I would greatly appreciate any guidance on where to look.
You make a very good point, I actually don't know myself. I'm enjoying the indie hacking on twitter still. But most people are focused on quick growth as you said.
not sure if it's up your alley but i'm relaunching my podcast and every week I talk about the dark side of entrepreneurship with an indie founder who went through the same struggles we did. hthis might fit the bill somehow https://indielifepod.com/
Thank you for sharing. I have some questions, if you don't mind:
I'm asking about this because I'm planning to build a SaaS similar to Logology and am seeking some advice.
hey marlon:
Thank you for taking the time to answer. I have one last question. How did you burn $100k? Did you spend it on paying someone to code the platform?
since we had no income, it was to cover living expenses for 2 people in france for 5 years. we built the platform ourselves
Wow, Its so good to read sincere words! Its definitely looks like you've got the route - Just stick to the plan and you'll get there!
thanks a lot mate, i appreciate it 🙏
Returning to indie hacking after a setback demonstrates resilience and determination. Wishing you success on your renewed entrepreneurial journey!
thank you!
Thank you for sharing.
Excellent! Thank you for sharing
thanks joy!
Good luck on this next round of bets!
thanks steven!
Hell, well done for surviving and thriving!
thanks edward!
Startup failure with an investment of $100,000 lead to a divorce?
Hi, same here: I also burned through a lot of savings while trying to build a successful startup and learned a lot of hard lessons. But because of this hard difficult journey I learned a lot and clearly you did as well.
Hope your next projects will become a success.
thanks mate, you too!
Your journey showcases the resilience and wisdom gained from overcoming adversity. Your strategic approach to achieving financial stability while maintaining creative freedom is both inspiring and insightful. Wishing you continued success and fulfillment on your entrepreneurial path!
thanks!
I like your focus on the aspects of entrepreneurship that align with your needs and values. Kudos.
cheers nathan 🙏
Thanks for sharing your life story such a honest and deep way.
It gave me POV about my stuffs.
Good luck and take care!
Will follow in the newsletters.
thanks a lot vittorio. Best of luck on your journey!
Thank you for sharing your story!
you're welcome melinda, thanks for your message 🙏
Welcome back @dagorenouf, I just subscribed and very interested following your journey again.
Thank you so much Abdullah, I appreciate it 🙏
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. To be honest, I do sometimes feel hesitant about starting my entrepeneurship journey, but at the end of the day, what do we have? Are we living the life we once dreamt about? Why would we keep our savings forever? Even if you fail you can say that at least you tried. Keep up the good work!
Just don't fail. This might sound stupid or funny or whatever because most startups fail. But you don't need to fail just because your company fails. The story of Dagobert (love that name!) isn't so much about fucking up a business endeavour (which happen to the best of us), but more about fucking up everything else, needlessly.
thanks mate. Indeed i absolutely don't regret it, i learned a ton and it led me to the life I really want to live. I recommend going after your dreams even if you f*ck up for a bit. Better than not doing anything at all.
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