I was let go from a social networking startup because I wasn't implementing features as fast as they wanted. At the time it felt like a death sentence on my career as a programmer.
I spent about a week in the doldrums, but then I felt angry, and decided I wasn't going to let their decision define me. I decided to build an app to show what I could do.
I spent 2 1/2 months building an app called Dashku. It was a realtime dashboard, and when I put it on Hacker News, it went to #1 within 45 minutes, and then the server fucked up because the ulimit config on the app server (which I had set but not persisted between reboots) was 1024, and got the flak I deserved for not making sure that the ulimit config has persisted when I configured the machines.
After doing it, these things happened:
- Bechtel contacted me and asked if they could use it internally. They did.
- I had a meeting with Geckoboard. They asked if I wanted to work for them, and I offered to sell Dashku to them. No bite.
- I interviewed at Forward Labs in London. I had about 4 interviews in the space of 2-3 days, but did not get the job offer. I failed to refactor a fill detection algorithm which was functional and fully tested, but memory inefficient. I had stayed up all night to crack it, slept for 2 hours and had no food when I came in for the interview and was asked to refactor it.
ProTip: Sleep well and eat before you go for an interview, otherwise your brain suffers for it.
Eventually, I got a job in London working for webcasting company, and then open sourced Dashku. Here's what happened next:
- Ninja Blocks gave me a free Ninja Block, and asked me if I would like to work with them.
- An Indian health startup asked to integrate Dashku into their IoT robotics app.
- A BI startup basically took Dashku, slapped a coat of paint on it, and called it their own.
- Another IoT startup asked to use it.
- An energy company told me they were going to drop Geckoboard for my app.
- I discovered a professional social network (called Viadeo) had created a wonderful collection of widgets for it.
Then,
- I got an email from someone at Facebook, they said that they were evaluating it for internal use, and asked me if I would like to interview with them in California.
I had to decline as my mother has health problems and I could not move to another country.
All of this, within 14 months of being fired from a startup.
Failure feels like crap, but don't let it define who you are; you have to move on and prove to yourself and to others what you can achieve. I've done that now and found peace with that period in my life.
Hey there, very interesting story. Can I ask you if you have any similar ideas (for a web developer)? I am in a full time job (finance) and I can't get any attentions from startups even though I am sure I have good junior coding skills (python). However, I can't seem to come up with anything even remotely interesting to the startup crowd (I guess that's because I am a finance dude?).
Working in Finance shouldn't prevent you from working in a startup.
I can recommend trying to scratch your own itch(es) - are there any problems in particular that you run into on a frequent basis, for which existing solutions are poor and you feel could be done in a better way?
Another exercise I could recommend is to ask yourself what would you be doing now, if you were free to work on anything?
My itch is that outdoorers and outdoor clubs (climbing, kayaking, caving, etc.) are still living in the 90'. They have shitty portals and forums. There is no worldwide directory of people and, especially, clubs and events and it sucks (especially if you are an expat like me and change often city).
There you go. How would you go about this? Social network? Forums? Magazine? All of the 3 and more? What about monetization? Don't worry, just being a bit rant-ish, I know those are tough questions.
"There is no worldwide directory of people and, especially, (outdoors) clubs and events and it sucks"
There you go.
I would recommend asking a few outdoors friends whether they feel the same, and see if bringing about this worldwide directory would be a great thing to them.
To me, it sounds like a great opportunity because you have a specific audience to interact with, and there are opportunities to turn it into a business; think of outdoors venues and outdoor equipment companies who would want to promote their products and services to that range of people.
I would recommend asking friends, and in terms of further research, I recommend 2 books: Founders At Work by Jessica Livingston, and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.
Fellow finance guy/amateur python coder here. I, too, struggle to think of startup ideas.
Have you thought about joining a startup? I know some of the larger ones need financial analysts (Uber comes to mind). It's always in the back of my mind.
Hey, you have no email in the profile, you mind if you shoot me one? I think it would be nice to network with a fellow finance pythonista.
To your point: maybe in US yes, but in Europe I have been trying 2 years almost and nothing. Startups don't have the budget to support a full finance guy and when they have, they tend to prefer locals (like good luck getting a finance job in a German startup).
I spent about a week in the doldrums, but then I felt angry, and decided I wasn't going to let their decision define me. I decided to build an app to show what I could do.
I spent 2 1/2 months building an app called Dashku. It was a realtime dashboard, and when I put it on Hacker News, it went to #1 within 45 minutes, and then the server fucked up because the ulimit config on the app server (which I had set but not persisted between reboots) was 1024, and got the flak I deserved for not making sure that the ulimit config has persisted when I configured the machines.
After doing it, these things happened:
- Bechtel contacted me and asked if they could use it internally. They did.
- I had a meeting with Geckoboard. They asked if I wanted to work for them, and I offered to sell Dashku to them. No bite.
- I interviewed at Forward Labs in London. I had about 4 interviews in the space of 2-3 days, but did not get the job offer. I failed to refactor a fill detection algorithm which was functional and fully tested, but memory inefficient. I had stayed up all night to crack it, slept for 2 hours and had no food when I came in for the interview and was asked to refactor it.
ProTip: Sleep well and eat before you go for an interview, otherwise your brain suffers for it.
Eventually, I got a job in London working for webcasting company, and then open sourced Dashku. Here's what happened next:
- Ninja Blocks gave me a free Ninja Block, and asked me if I would like to work with them.
- An Indian health startup asked to integrate Dashku into their IoT robotics app.
- A BI startup basically took Dashku, slapped a coat of paint on it, and called it their own.
- Another IoT startup asked to use it.
- An energy company told me they were going to drop Geckoboard for my app.
- I discovered a professional social network (called Viadeo) had created a wonderful collection of widgets for it.
Then,
- I got an email from someone at Facebook, they said that they were evaluating it for internal use, and asked me if I would like to interview with them in California.
I had to decline as my mother has health problems and I could not move to another country.
All of this, within 14 months of being fired from a startup.
Failure feels like crap, but don't let it define who you are; you have to move on and prove to yourself and to others what you can achieve. I've done that now and found peace with that period in my life.
I should probably thank the guy who fired me.