Start up is hard

When it comes to startup, many people think about growth and becoming the next billionaire. The sad reality is that startup is a journey you might hate it. People must have heard statistics that more than 90% startup failed, only a survived. Many developers have been drawn into start not because they might get rich. Mostly because of the problem startup are trying to solve are new and there is no available solution at the time.

My first job as a developer was at a startup where I was in constant fear that the company might run out of money. I have learnt so much doing from backend, frontend to DevOps. I would not trade those experience for anything. I have massive admire for the first few engineers of those big tech companies. I wonder what has kept them from pushing new code 80 hours a week like that. I remember when I had to work until midnight trying to finish a demo for the morning pitch. I was exhausted after finish the demo, and I could not think of anything other than getting Uber home. Being at a startup taught me to keep calm when things are going south. I lost count the number of time we had to stay late to fix a problem that I did not understand why it happens. Being at a startup means that I have to make a lot of complicated technical decisions. I was afraid that my tech choice could ruin the product. Later, I realized that all I need is picking the tech that can scale up to X amount of users. By the time we get to that number of users, we would have enough resources to migrate to a better tech if necessary. One of the thing that it is easy to oversee is the process of working in a team. A startup is where the chaos happens where the system can operate normally in the morning, then errors flying through in the afternoon.

My startup journey is just the start, but it has been a wild ride so far.