The Depression Of Entrepreneurs – The Nasty D.

In the Dec/Jan 2013/2014 issue of Inc Magazine [Print] Brad Feld writes a column called Start Up School. He talks about his Episodes of depression in 2013. It has caused him so much pain and misery, that he has decided to call a stop to his travels for 2014.

Maybe not being shredded into bits and pieces of a sleep deprivation machine will help him outsmart the nasty D. I hope so.

I too am an Entrepreneur who has periodic episodes of depression. I think there are many of us out there, but only a few will talk about it. I hate depression, but I understand it like you would not believe. At times my depression liked to talk me into hurting myself, to the point of attempted suicides. That was many, many years ago.

Killing myself is not something I would ever do, yet I do entertain the thoughts from time to time. Yeah they just pop in my mind and it's like I'm watching Dexter, yet I want to thrust the butcher knife right into myself.

When these thoughts consume my mind I just stand back and watch and say “oh it's here again” There is nothing I can do but let it play out. Sometimes I try to stop it by drinking a ton of alcohol, this surly will put out the fire, but it usually leads me into some kind of trouble with others.

None of these others ever know I have the big D consuming me, and that I'm not really me at the moment. They just think it's the alcohol. Mostly, I work really hard to not let anyone know about this secret, because after all it's like your some kind of loser if you have a problem like this. Who wants to be around a depressed person? No one.

Perhaps it's not really a problem, and it's a gift. Maybe for someone to build startups it's the essential ingredient. If you don't have depression episodes maybe you wont have ideas.

I kind of think that is true. I think entrepreneurs are artist, they create. Creating gifts for humanity, well that's what artist do.

The act of taking a risk and creating, well that's crossing the line. When an entrepreneur crosses the line then the judgment of others comes into play. If it's rejected, well that's a great reason for depression, but artist don't really get depressed from the rejection. They get depressed because they just do. Rejection can make an episode of depression way worse for sure, but it's not rejection that created the depression.

I do hope Brad Feld's depression experiment works for him, yet I kinda think, he's just like me. There's not a lot we can do about it. It's going to come and go. We don't really have a choice. At least I don't. I just recognize it when it shows up, and try not to get into too much trouble when it's rearing it's ugly head. I try to to eat clean and work out a lot when it's flaming up in me, yet sometimes nothing really works except curling up in bed and wait it out.

Your blessed if you have it ~ I'm almost sure.

Burning Bridges Means: Someones Blind

You know it's funny how people will so blindly burn a bridge. Yeah, go ahead, light it on fire, like an arsonist who thinks they are in control of an outcome neither side could predict.

It's a shame when someone burns a bridge and yet this happens often in the startup world. Someone has an idea and pushes it onto others in hopes of finding the right people to help them build the startup.

The others jump in and think, yeah this is a great idea I want to be a part of it, but then after sometime, maybe a year, they decide it's just not a good idea because they don't see any money flowing in from it. Yeah, they start thinking all kinds of negative thoughts. Pretty soon they have developed a full blown resentment about wasting all their time on someone else's idea. So they QUIT.

The quitting part is not easy and it flares up into all kinds of discombobulated weird actions and words. The founder is totally confused, the co-founder is spinning their head around like an Exorcist, what the fuck is happening?

Oh it's just the bridge burning, that's all.

I'm pretty sure there are many people out there who walked away from a great idea because they thought it was trash. They put some time in on it, and they could not hold on to being “patient” They could not stand the stand as long as the founder could.

You see success happens when you don't give up. Success happens when you take the stand, through all it's turmoils, including not making money. Building a startup to be successful is not easy. It's often a long drawn out road of pain and suffering, with no money, no hope, and no one who believes in you. Basically you have to be able to stand up to being ridiculed, tossed into the gutter like trash, laughed at, mocked, whispered about, humiliated, demoralized! Not many can withstand this. But I can.

A lot of people have burned the bridge with me and my startup. I'm sad about it. These people I saw as brilliant people with a potential to shine in the startup world. Some hung on for a bit, others for a while longer. Yet all of them have walked away from me. To the one who doesn't, you will be blessed.

Now VC and Angles and Incubators would all be saying “Oh see, she can't get anyone to help her, she is a lousy boss, or a horrible person to work with, she is a loser if she can't get a co-founder, she is a loser if she can't get others to help her, she is a loser if she can't get someone else to stand by her, her idea is stupid and worthless” Hmmmm, well they all walked away not because of me or my idea, but because they have no experience in building a startup. They did not know you have to work long endless hours with NO PAY. Not very many people can do that. Yet I told them all that. Still they want money.

Yeah it goes on and on, all the judgments against me. The bridge burners keep piling up. The incubators, VC's and Angels ignore me like I'm a piece of dirt on the floor. This is the life of building a startup. It's not pretty, but every step of it across the burning bridge, is one step towards success.

I know one thing – I'm going to be successful. And those who burned the bridge will be, well.............. sorry!

Effort + I know =I did it. But of course I would have rather had - We did it. Yet you burned your bridge.

Risk Takers: Often Looked At, As If They Were Weirdo’s

I've known my whole life that I was different. Oh yeah psychologist say we all feel like we are different. Maybe that's true, but for me, well I am.

I never fit into my family. My mom said, as she slashed her hand vertical in the air, along came all the kids one, two, three, four..... but when you came, you were different. There it was right out on the table, one of her kids was different, me.

The whole entire family knew I was the odd ball. So what happened? They picked on me. Just like in school, the normal group picks on the one who is not like them. This is what happened to me. My siblings did not know what to do with someone who was not like them. So they picked on me relentlessly.

Yes I had a horrible childhood. I don't remember liking one thing about it. I hated it, and I hated being alive. What kid thinks about killing their self when they are 7 years old? Me.

Since I never belonged in the world I was living in, I surly wanted to escape it. I did not know that us humans had the option of taking our own life, so what did I do? I locked myself in the closet or bedroom and went into dream land. I'd stay in there for hours dreaming up all kinds of stories, where I was happy, and all alone.

My childhood is probably why I became an entrepreneur. Since most of us entrepreneurs are loners, it seems to fit me well. But we don't really want to be alone, it's just that being alone seems to be the place that we receive the least amount of pain. If being constantly tortured means being with others, then alone is a better choice.

The other thing about entrepreneurs is that we take risk. Why do we? Well, who cares what others think about us, when being with others is usually painful? We don't care. We take risk because we are not like the group, we don't go along with them to fit in. We know we don't fit in, so we are free to take the risk.

Yet every time I take a risk I expose myself to them, the groups. They seem to have this power. It's the power of judgment. They look at the risk I took and they judge me. It used to bother me to be looked at like I'm a weirdo, but now it doesn't bother me. I know that without risk, discovering gifts for humanity won't happen.

I'm a risk taker, not a weirdo. I don't care what people think of the ideas I come up with. I'm just happy that I come up with ideas.

Keep building your startups

~ jana 

Are Crowd Funding Sites Getting To Crowded?

Currently I am running a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. I launched the campaign for many reasons. First I'd love a social network where voice is the post. You don't know how I'd love to hear the voice of that twitter fiend over in London, or the one in Singapore, or yours.

Second I wanted to see what the crowd funding sites were all about and how they work. Here is a list of what I have learned.

• How to make a pitch video (even if it's bad)
• How to invent perks (at first I felt I had nothing to offer as a perk)
• How no one gives a shit about your campaign
• How there are way too many campaigns for anyone to notice yours.
• That I don't have any friends or family that give a shit about my campaign. 30% of funding should come from them the first week.
• That funders prefer a physical item to fund.

Okay, it's been an interesting first week of my campaign, and I'm pretty sure it's cooked. There is no hope for it. I'm not to sad about it. Because I don't invest a ton of emotion into it. Oh I'm positive that someone is going to or already is building a social network just like Social Strength. It will be in the Internets future. I have no doubt. I'm an entrepreneur and I see things that most can not. Sometimes that's a curse.

The fact is, that yes, I do think the crowd funding sites are over crowded. There was 136 pages when I launched mine. That's one page with 9 campaigns on it x 136. That's just the new campaigns that week, that doesn't count all the ones currently running, and that doesn't count all the other crowd funding sites.

The only way someone has a chance to get funding from these types of sites is if they have a physical thing like a wallet or a technique gadget, like a camera. As I surfed the site constantly trying to learn, I found that people with physical items and especially high tech, well they are the ones pulling in all the cash. No one cares about a vision, or that someone stole all your recording equipment. Dogs and children seem to do okay. But the rest of us, well we better invent a new type of crowd funding site for us, because were F***ed.

~ Keep building your dreams

~ Jana

An Odd Idea Could Be A Good Idea

I know it may seem hard for you to understand how VOICE could be the lead player in a social network. In fact it might seem so odd to you that, you can't even wrap your head around the idea.

One of my favorite quotes from Paul Graham is this “Most successful founders tend to work on ideas that few besides them realize are good.”

Social Strength may be one of those ideas.

Another great quote from Paul Graham.

“If the idea was obviously good someone would have already done it”

Yet entrepreneurs like me, tend to see things that other people can not see. I'm asking you to have faith in me and Social Strength, to believe in the unseen.

It's in those ideas where gifts for humanity can be found.  We have to build things that don't seem like good ideas, otherwise we will never find the one's that truly are.

Check out Social Strength

To Be Like Oprah In The Fat Thin Cycle

I'm suffering a ton of pain. It was my own hands that has caused me to fall into a really deep pit of relapse. It's not that my weight loss coaching product does not work. It's that I chose not to use it. I wanted to eat as much as I wanted and drink a ton of alcohol for months in a row. It was some kind of self punishment disguised as treats and pleasure. It was a big fat lie that I let play in my head over and over as I stuffed in all the treats.

Yes I am human just like Oprah. There she was on national t.v. and her weight went up and down constantly all those years. I'm not as public as she is, and I sure know what it feels like to have to be fat again in a public way. It's horrible.

I also know what it feels like when people whom you thought were friends make hurtful “you're fat” comments. And then the silent looks from everyone else, and surly they are all thinking I'm a hypocrite. Didn't they see me fall into the pit? Why didn't they help me, instead of condemn me? 

People like me who are severe food addicts have to constantly be on the look out for that inner voice that tells us “Oh one more won't hurt” and the worst inner voice lie is “I don't care, I want it”

Yes I invented a product to help myself be free from the food addiction and it does work, when I choose to use it. Yet I am human like you, and I fell into the pit again. Do I want to go up and down in weight the rest of my life? Hell no. I want to be done with this crap.

Truly I can lose the weight and keep it off again. Eat clean, keep track of what and how much I eat, work out, don't drink alcohol excessively. And listen to DigiThin. You see DigiThin is the voice I use to stand up to that voice in my head. I have to hear the truth coming from the outside of my head, because the liar inside my head can overtake me month after month unless I shine that spotlight on it called DigiThin.

Call me a hypocrite, call me fat, call me human.

I have to say that people with food addictions, well, we have it worse then any alcoholic or drug addict. We have to eat every day. They don't need alcohol or drugs to live, we need food to live. So every meal we have to stand face to face with our addiction. And who is standing there ready to push us into the pit? That big fat liar in my brain. “Oh one more won't hurt” well it did.

Don't give up on your desire to lose weight. Use every tool you can get, to stand up to it. Get back in the game when you fall down. You and I will get it. Someday it will stick, and there will be no more falling into the pit. There will be no more snickers and hurtful comments. And your skinny jeans will fit.