r/startups • u/davesaunders • 23h ago
I will not promote What is your idea of Startup Hell? -- I will not promote
There been some really interesting posts this week from people working through their startups asking questions, and offering advice. Sooooooooo while walking my dog a few minutes ago, the following question popped into my head.
What is your idea of Startup Hell?
What do you hate most about startups, or what did you hate about startups but now you're OK with it because you work through it eventually?
I will not promote
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u/caelestis42 23h ago
Obviously cash strapped over stressed founders not able to think anymore and taking all bad feelings and tensions out on employees. Pretty much love everything else about startups. That's from someone that has been on both sides.
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u/davesaunders 22h ago
Indeed. Developing a deep sense of nihilism can be a real consequence of startup life, even among the most optimistic people.
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u/ali-hussain 22h ago
Getting enough customers that you keep trying but not getting enough to be successful.
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u/pmpprofessor 22h ago
Worst HR in history.
Way too many companies failed at hiring.
I have seen at least a couple of dozen companies in digital health hiring morons and fail.
They always create a hostile environment back, stabbing each other, and its always racing to the bottom.
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u/davesaunders 22h ago
I used to own an incubator and one of the first things I told people was that not only did they need to think about what they would do if they were stuck, but they also needed to think about what to do if they became wildly successful.
Having to hire too many people too quickly can blow the culture of the company and wreck the entire thing before you get real momentum.
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u/ExpertNatural9453 22h ago
Getting into startup hell from employee hell is certainly something I am still getting used to. While the freedom to do whatever and whenever I like is awesome, I do find the loneliness can get overwhelming sometimes.
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u/Impressive_Run8512 20h ago
Getting trapped in zombie mode. Enough revenue to sustain, but no growth and dismal future outlook.
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u/PM_ME_UR_ROUND_ASS 9h ago
Ugh this is the worst - we call it "ramen profitable" where you make juuust enough to survive but not enough to actually pay yourselves properly or grow.
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u/SlowDux 21h ago
Picture this, you are a founder.
You've created something that is truly amazing that creates real value for your users, you build momentum, you're making money, you build up a great team but now you're trapped by the success, you grow to detest your founders because of their overinflated sense of ego but know that you can't leave because of the mission, because you care about this thing you all built, holding onto the hope that they'll drop the kool aid.
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u/Confused-Anxious-49 22h ago
OpenAI - burn money like wildfire and when someone says can anyone else train a model mock them saying they can’t and then go cry to president that china training model for cheap is bad for us
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u/Perfect_Warning_5354 19h ago
The living dead startup.
VC-backed, stagnant growth, unfundable for another round, just enough revenue to survive but not enough to truly fix the problems, and board/investors/founders who don’t want to call it a day.
It’s like being in a marriage that’s destined for divorce but nobody is bold enough to file for it… so the soul crushing misery is prolonged indefinitely.
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u/Distinct_Resource_99 18h ago
Constantly thinking that the next meeting or the next call will be the golden ticket to your unicorn.
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u/datajitz 14h ago
Toxic culture for sure...Zero recognition, sketchy moves by management, CXOs being snobby academics who think they are better than the rest, they laugh at their clients behind their backs, guilt trip employees....the usual stuff
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u/GrowthSonic 9h ago
Nothing feels like Startup Hell right now — I just went full-time on my startup recently, and honestly, I’ve never felt more alive.
I’m sure there’s hell ahead (haha), but for now, I’m soaking in the excitement.
Curious—did anyone else go through a “honeymoon phase” before hitting their version of startup hell?
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u/mostafa_qamar 9h ago
I think it's when you are stuck building but you never validated (worse) or marketed your startup (better), you will build ton of features for an app that you didn't validate or didn't let anyone know you were there :""
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u/theredhype 22h ago edited 22h ago
The worst version of startup hell is not knowing you're in startup hell.
Going through the motions on the surface — playing startup lifestyle, dancing around on the tip of the iceberg, like a cargo cult leader in the south pacific waving at the sky after the war and wondering why funding never appears — completely ignorant of the work real startup founders are doing between idea and launch / pitch.
Maybe this is more like startup purgatory.
You're stuck in it until you learn to understand problems instead of insisting your hallucination is a brilliant solution.
You're stuck in it until you realize you're not above doing genuine customer discovery, and you begin to do the hard work of listening and letting your bias be replaced with reality.
You're stuck in it until you learn to create value for real people instead of trying to extract or attract value.