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I failed. It sucked for a long time. I'm bouncing back. How was it for you?

Hello indie hackers!, I've been a long time member and lurker.

I wanted to write about something that I don't often see get a lot of prime-time in the community: experiencing and working through failure and defeat.

A few years ago during the 2017 crypto boom I decided to write a crypto portfolio tracker app which later pivoted to a price alert app called Moonscape. It didn't get the success I had hoped for. And I realised that I had bitten off a little more than I could chew at the time.

Through the lens of my ambition, this was a failure.

The defeat knocked me back quite a bit and made me re-group and re-evaluate. It took a while.

With the crypto markets picking back up again I've decided to try again staying true to the original vision of being a portfolio tracker.

I would love to hear some of your stories and realisations that you've had on your own journeys of success and failure.

What helped you get back on the horse?

And if you're willing to share, what knocked you down in the first place?

  1. 1

    I have too many failures to share.... learn from each one! What are you doing differently this round to ensure you're not just spinning your wheels on another failure? I think that's the important part here.

    1. 1

      I like your point that you have to view failures as learnings that feed into your future actions, thanks!

  2. 1

    I had a similar story with 2017 crypto boom.

    Launched a arbitrage alert bot on telegram, had some paid customers it was just a side project.

    5 weeks later I ended up shutting down everything and re-evaluate the purpose of that journey.

    My conclusion was that I wasn't ready do deal with a full side project, deal with paying customers and all the support stress that it comes with it.

    The knowledge from 2017, are helping me to build something better today.

    1. 1

      Thanks for sharing! What's changed in your attitude this time?

  3. 1

    Happened to me more times than i'd like to admit, don't let it hinder your confidence.

    I hate to sound all life helpy, but what I learnt after reading a few books:

    • How to win friends and influence people
    • Think and grow rich
      and
    • The slight edge

    Mindset is everything, I hate to admit it but its true.

    "Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right". Its hard to believe in yourself and your capabilities when you hit rock bottom but you have to, you have no choice.

    What helped me was to think back of previous times where I thought "fk this is it", but then again here I am, going well.

    This is what helped me after losing six figures in my first startup, then scaling and selling my second recently and now onto my third (smartwriter.ai) for the past 7 weeks with 10% growth weekly

    1. 1

      Really appreciate your input. I can see the wisdom in your words has been hard-earned so I will do my best to heed your advice :) Thanks for the recommendations!

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