The price of entry

7 months in, zero traction, but did I finally finish paying the price of entry?

I'm a Big Tech engineer who left 7 months ago thinking "how hard could it be?" I was disillusioned by the YC demo days, the 23-year-olds raising millions. I had 6 years of engineering experience, "why can't I do this?".

I've tried a few ideas. None really took off but I'm writing this because the failure taught me something I didn't expect.

I didn't know myself at all.

When I quit, I immediately designed a fake 9-5 for myself. Wake up at 7. Read from 8-10. "Work on startup" from 10-6. Gym at 6. It felt productive but it was cosplay.

I was so conditioned by corporate structure that I recreated it the moment I had freedom. Instead of figuring out what actually works for me, I rebuilt the prison.

Then came the harder question: "Who am I? What do I actually like?"

I couldn't answer it. My honest answers were embarrassing. TV. TikTok. Restaurants. That's not a life. That's the absence of one.

Here's what these 7 months of failing has taught me:

1. Not having a plan might be the plan. If you're a corporate refugee who only knew life inside the walls, maybe the first year isn't about building a startup. Maybe it's about building a self.
2. Coding is your comfort zone, not your edge. Every time things got hard, I retreated into code. "Let me just build this feature." That's hiding. The growth is in the stuff that makes you uncomfortable—talking to people, looking inward, chasing interests you can't justify on a resume.
3. "Get rich" isn't a strategy. Maybe it works for some people. For me, it wasn't enough to push through the hard days. I needed to know why I was doing this beyond money.

I'm not successful yet. I don't have a product people want. But I have something I didn't have 7 months ago: actual interests, a clearer sense of what I want, and the knowledge that this discomfort is the price of entry.

If you're early in this journey and feel lost—maybe that's the point. Maybe you're supposed to be lost right now.

Don't quit before you find yourself.