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markdown1Farza substack 2 3Note: this is targeted specifically at startup founders. But same things apply to anyone 4who’s brave enough to create something from nothing — creators musicians physics 5researchers etc. 6I wanna talk about why companies die. 7And why most people quit. 8Specifically a reason no one really talks about. 9When I got into startups they told me: “most company’s die either because 1) the 10founder couldn’t raise or 2) the co-founders had internal problems”. 11Hm. Simple enough. 12But reality is different. 13While these are two very real reasons company’s die most of the companies I’ve seen 14die around me aren’t these two reasons at all. 15I wanna add a third reason early companies/startups/initiatives die: 16The founder simply ends up in a downward spiral and can’t catch themselves. 17It’s pretty straightforward: 18Somehow the founder ends up in a negative or dejected mental state. 19And while they’re in this negative space they can’t properly solve the day-to-day 20problems they encounter at a startup. In fact the problems bring them into an even 21more negative space. 22The spiral begins. 23For example let’s say for 4-6 days in a row you’re: 24 251. Sleeping 5-6-hours a night on average. 26 272. Not eating proper meals throughout the day. 28 293. Working very long stretches with little movement. 30 31For most people this will likely put them in a very tired mental state. 32And that’s where it starts. 33 34Farza substack 1 35 36Now you’re tired. 37All of a sudden — you have new problems arise. The latest growth experiment didn’t 38work you’re running low on cash the product you though was great isn’t. 39Back to the drawing board. 40But you’re tired. 41You don’t have the patience or mental strength to solve these new problems. 42You begin to get annoyed at your teammates. Annoyed at loved ones. Your fuse 43becomes shorter. The annoyance brews it turns into sadness. Now you’re blaming 44yourself for not being good enough. 45And this spiral continues through too many different emotions. 46You go to bed. 47All of a sudden you wake up head back into the office and put yourself through it all 48over again. You endure a new set of problems that you aren’t able to solve because 49you can’t even seem to solve the ones inside your own head. 50So you keep spiraling for 3-6 months. 51And then you quit — and the company or initiative dies. 52The end. 53… 54It’s always been really surprising to me that no one told me about this. 55Perhaps it just isn’t as cool to talk about as other things in the world of startups. 56I don’t really have a solution to the “founder spiral”. 57We’re all so different and I’m not psychologist or therapist. 58I can just tell you what works for me. 59Ideally I never spiral but hey I’m human. 60So what I do is I’ve just gotten very good at catching myself when early on in a spiral. 61Often in the first 7-14 days. 62I usually catch it pretty fast because I start to 1) get annoyed at others much faster 2) 63have really low energy. I also journal every day and I even ask myself “am I spiraling?” 64a couple times a month just to check in. 65 66Farza substack 2 67 68When I realize I’m spiraling I: 69 701. Stop everything. 71 722. Admit to myself that I’ve lost to my emotions and am spiraling — and that’s okay. 73 743. Go home. 75 764. Spend 1 day doing things that bring me energy — for me it’s watching movies in 77theatres running sitting in a sauna/cold plunge (most effective for me) or hitting a 78sensory deprivation tank for an hour. 79 80From there I get back to a solid routine of eat sleep and exercise. 81The longer it takes me to recognize the spiral the worse it gets and the harder it is for 82me to muster the energy to get out of it. 83My worst spiral ever lasted nearly 2-years from ages 18-20. I can’t believe I made it out 84of it to be honest. But back then — I discovered a deep love for programing and that 85energized me enough to get out of a very dark place. 86My last bad spiral (one that lasted more than 45-days) was over 5-years ago. And for 87that one I remember I just spent 2-weeks straight doing nothing but exercising really 88hard eating right and watching movies. 89Been nearly spiral-free since. 90Again I’m not therapist — so I don’t have great general advice. 91I can only tell you what works for me. 92I still spiral here and there but it’s almost always caught in the first 2-weeks. 93As a founder you gotta remember that you are very susceptible to spiraling and 94getting very sick from it. Your days are long your days are hard — they are full of 95problems from outside pressures. 96So you need to build that internal system that protects you. 97Don’t let your emotions rule you. 98Don’t spiral. 99If you’re reading this and find yourself in a spiral right now take a step back 100today/tomorrow and be easy with yourself. 101You’re kinda like a car that’s overheating so first slow down. 102 103Farza substack 3 104 105Then do some things that energize you or you just get joy from. You’ll feel a little lighter 106— and from there can make some space to create a plan that helps you get the spiral to 107slow down. 108Hope this helps someone out there on the interwebs. 109See yah in the next one homies. 110Keep building. 111 112Hey all been a while. 113Let me tell you a story. 1142022 was one of the most challenging years of my life. 115In 2022 — buildspace raised $10M at a $100M valuation. This company is by far the 116most valuable impactful thing I’ve ever worked on. To this day the company has 117continued to grow and continue to be pretty successful. 118Everything in that sentence above is crazy lol. Especially when you realize this whole 119thing started in 2019 with me homeschooling kids. 120Don’t get me wrong — buildspace is doing really good but it’s still a fledgling baby 121company trying to to learn how to walk on it’s own. And we’re just going to keep 122grinding to make it work. 123In time I’m sure we will. 124So…if all is well with the company…what’s up? 125It’s really weird to look back at it all — the whole journey. 126Nearly every single day for the last ~15-years I’ve given it my all. From when I was 13 127selling blank DVDs on eBay to when I was 18 making YouTube videos every week to 128today when I’m 27 running a company with a huge fanbase. 129Each day I’ve showed up and put in the work. Each day I told myself that I would do it 130bigger and better than the previous day. 131But I’m not a machine. 132This journey I’m on it can get tiring. It can start to lose its meaning. 133In 2022 the things I told myself to keep me going before — stopped working. The core 134goals that motivated me before — all of a sudden stopped motivating me. The things I 135
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built for others that seemed so beautiful to me before — all of a sudden felt like shit and I hated myself for not doing better. No one ever talks about what’s going on inside their head when they’re on this journey. And to be honest I don’t want to tell the world about all of it. But I do want to tell the world about some of it. Because I know it’s bound to help out at least one person. It’s 2023 now. Mentally I’m the strongest I’ve ever been in living memory. But I want to tell you of some of my struggles.
“Did you get your wish?”
What happens when you get your wish? When those things you dreamed about finally
become a reality? What do you do then?
These were the questions that took over my mind in 2022.
With buildspace — I got my wish.
I got a company that’s semi successful found a team driven to create greatness
alongside me and a product with thousands of super fans — its been amazing. At least
a few times a week someone will recognize me in public and tell me how we helped
them get out of a dark place and changed their life.
To me it truly feels like I got my wish.
We built something that literally changed lives at a non-trivial scale.
Sure I wasn’t at Mark Zuckerberg levels of scale or Elon Musk levels of wealth but I
was happy w/ the achievement.
All those nights as a teenager grinding on new projects all those weeks in college
spending late nights coding — it all led to this.
So…what now?
Was I supposed to…keep “changing the world”? Did I even give a shit about changing
the world? If we got 100000 users does that mean we’d need to get 1000000? If we
got 1M in revenue did we’d need to get 10M? If we raised at 100M does that mean
we’d need to one day reach 1B?
If I already did what I wanted to do why would I keep going?
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This is what I was asking myself in most of 2022. When I realized I already got my wish I kinda shut down. What was the point of me continuing to build if I already built the thing I was dreaming of? I lost my reasons for moving forward. My motivations disappeared. I didn’t care to innovate again — because to me I already did. Each day I’d get to work open my laptop and proceed to hate everything I was working on. What was the point? If I already did countless cool things for 15+ years why the fuck am I trying to do it again? All I’ve known my entire life is building. But here I was now feeling like I was being crushed every single day by my own expectations and it felt pointless for me to keep moving forward. I got my wish. And once I got it I was confused.
What then. It’s an extremely difficult situation to be in — when your motivation essentially disappears overnight after 15-years. It’s a crazy feeling. I don’t care about money or achievements. Never have never will. Everything that motivates me is internal. But somehow…my internal motivations and philosophies were out out of touch with what I truly wanted…. At first I thought the company or what I was working on was the problem. But — that wasn’t it. I loved working on buildspace. Even if I shut the company down or started something new I would just end up building the same thing again. And then I would just run into the same problem again. I just felt really alone… The big shift for me when I heard a song by Porter Robinson. For backstory — Porter Robinson made a masterpiece of an album in 2014 called “Worlds”. He topped the charts and everyone in EDM considered him a genius. He created something beautiful that the world loved but afterwords didn’t know what to do.
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He already achieved more than he dreamed. After 6-years of going ghost he released a song in 2020 called “Get Your Wish”. One lyric stood out:
But if glory makes you happy Why are you so broken up?
I couldn’t get the lyric out of my head. This guy had probably been grinding since he was a little kid constantly iterating on his craft and music only to finally achieve what he wanted decades later and get the “glory”. Yet here he was — “broken up” on the side. Even if he did new music — what was the point? Would it be better than what he already put out? Would it give him some new inspiration? Would it finally make him happy? I felt similar. Later in the song he says something that put it all together for me:
Don't say you lose just yet Get up and move ahead And not only for yourself 'Cause that's your role The work that stirred your soul You can make for someone else
I can’t quite explain it… But after I heard this everything clicked for me. I remembered something core to me. That the things that others created that moved me — movies that made me laugh social software that helped me meet my friends experiences that brought me joy — I could make those for someone else. All of a sudden I remembered why I started doing this shit as a kid and all the happiness I got from it.
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I remembered all those nights with my friends making funny vlogs figuring our Adobe After Effects all this days grinding through bugs on apps I was working on while learning how to code all those weeks tinkering and then reaching that moment when something I created would make my heart light up. Somewhere along the way I lost that child-like curiosity and I thought that my job was to create things for the world that made the world happy when really — I was always just creating because the act of creating made me happy. I remembered all the energy that the act of building has given me over the last 15-years all the places around the world it’s taken me all the friends it’s let me meet all the happy moments all the sad moments. And I realized something… Maybe it’s not about being satisfied. Maybe it’s not about being reaching another goal. Maybe it’s just about feeling alive during all of it. And that’s why I’m going to keep building. That’s why I’m going to continue making buildspace the coolest thing in the world and making it better and bigger every single day. Because I get joy climbing these mountains. Maybe the last 15-years building weren’t a waste… Maybe it was a gift that I couldn’t recognize trying to feel alive.
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1 2Summary: This document is a personal account from a startup founder, discussing the challenges and realizations faced during their entrepreneurial journey. It covers the struggles of maintaining mental health, handling the pressures of startup life, and finding personal fulfillment beyond success and achievements.