Building a saas at 40, anxiety looms, your advice...

Starting a business at 40 isn't a disadvantage. In many ways, it's an advantage because experience, patience, and self-awareness often lead to better decisions than simply moving fast.

Feeling anxious before taking a big step is completely understandable. The key is not waiting for anxiety to disappear, but learning to move forward with it in manageable steps. Progress usually builds confidence more effectively than endless preparation.

Focus on validating the problem, talking to potential users, and shipping something simple. Every founder's timeline is different, and there's no age limit on building something meaningful. Wishing you the very best on your journey.

Do NOT build. Just do NOT do that. Reach out to people who you think are you potential customers. Start talking. Start with LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, IH, PH, anything else but thinking "Oh I know JS and Vue". They mean exactly nothing to the customer.

I am turning 37 but I am single after a breakup and been traveling. I have some savings to get by. I put in some weeks to get to something I can show around and now I am focused on talking.

For context, I am a senior (team lead) engineer, worked through 10+ startups across 3 continents, for 14 years. Python, PHP, JavaScript, (learning Rust, from a C background). Linux for 16 years. EUR 100K annual salary range, and I can get that sitting in India. Tech is what I can do in my sleep, so I need to not get invested in it - customer does not care.

Don't give up! I'm 39 with a family and just launching my first app as well. It's tough to find time with family & work. You have to push yourself as hard as you can (when the kids are sleeping) to get it done.

Just ship your MVP as soon as you can, see how people react, gather feedback and make less time consuming, incremental improvements afterwards.

If it becomes too hard, maybe you need to outsource part or find a partner (better to do once you launch an MVP and know what you're dealing with)...

From what you've written it seems like you are on a journey to become "Javascript & Vue developer" instead of SaaS. Just focusing on developing features will not get you anywhere. You will need to start talking to potential customers & understand do they really need all the features on your roadmap which would require a year to build or you can just deliver a couple of features to get them to start paying you. Usually what we think customers need is vastly different than what they actually need.

Also, try to get yourself a mentor (Who has a good understanding of SaaS) to guide you along the way. It will help you tremendously. Trying to do everything on your own is mentally challenging & could hurt you instead.

Good luck!

I have been writing code for 23 years now (started at age 14) and what I have found is that programming is not what you DO it is who you ARE.

Because the desire to code runs so deep, it is not surprising that you are spending so much time on it until the wife is concerned.

I don't think it's a good idea to separate yourself from your passion for the sake of anything else, because then you will just end up miserable and your wife/kids don't want that. See if you can weave your family and your passion into one thing. It doesn't have to be "code or family"...it could be "code AND family".

For example, you could try a Family Demo day where you show off what you've been working on to your wife and kids. Do a pop quiz about "what daddy is working on", have lots of candy and popcorn and treats. Make it fun and an exercise in "supporting each other's passions". Be creative!

And as far as your product goes, YOU CAN DO THIS: don't be afraid to fail, just fail quickly then do better until you RULE THE WORLD 💪

I was in very similar position. It took me over 7 years to make a profit. But it was almost 20 years ago. Now I'm 47. I made 7 figures in revenue with my business but family missed me. Then you start to think if it was worth it. And I'm really not sure. Try to balance as much as possible and build as fast as possible. Definitely MVP or even without.

Validate your idea first. You can even build a fake page that actually doesn't work as a project but validates the idea if users are interested or not.

Never! Never! learn to program on stupid examples. Try to build something valuable from the start. Even a little side project is a good option. You learn and build at the same time. You don't waste time.

And try to put your family in the first place. They need you and care about you more than any customer out there. This is probably the most important thing in this life.

Can you clarify whats the goal for you. Build a business vs learn to code? 3 years is way too much for just starting a business. You need much shorter iterations: build mvp etc. if this is career change to programming then a paid bootcamp/university course would be much more efficient (we have onLy so many years). Anyway you’d better find more efficient way to do it

Hi @Rishi_Uttam

I'm in a similar position, agewise and careerwise and I feel your pain. One thing that has helped me out is to find a mentor - someone you can speak to on a regular basis, once a month say, to whom you can show your product and progress and get brutally honest feedback from.

Find someone who is in the business, who can validate and invalidate your decisions before you build a feature. They may be able to identify areas of your service you can postponse (the best software is software you don't have to write!) until later. They may have connections they can share.

Take 20 minutes with them to set goals and make sure you complete them by the time you next meet.

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On another tack: have you started marketing? I checked your profile and I see no link to your product so I'm guess no. If you start promoting your product with a landing page, and start building an audience, you may find your motivation. Plus traction and feedback will give justification for your wife!

I'd normally say stick to it, but make sure you stay healthy and sane at the same time - spend some time with your family, for them and you! And launching with less features isn't the worst thing in the world - in fact try and launch the very smallest version of your product possible - as Reid Hoffman used to say “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” :) and it's worth noting that making progress (which is easier with a smaller scope) also helps your motivation (which, along with energy may come and go in cycles, so you want to be able to weather those times you're feeling it's all a bit hard).