Around a year ago, I left my job as a Developer Advocate to bootstrap a company.

I had around $12K in savings. Enough to cover a year of expenses and a bit more. But I stopped spending money on almost everything.

How hard could that be, right? I create something, find 10-20 clients, and done. I'll make $1K per month and from there grow it to $20K MRR. No problem.

Well. It didn't work that way. You all know that. I didn't. I was naive, and I think I am not the only one who thinks like that.

News? Success stories? Books on self-help? Podcasts? Guilt it of all of that. I thought I was smart enough. If others could do it... me? Even better.

Well. I am broke now. I hate the projects I created. I hate that I spent all my money and didn't make a dollar (well, I made around $60, which is even more painful than $0), not from my projects, not from a client or a company.

So the real cost is more than the money I lost. I made my girlfriend stay home for a year. We didn't do anything, we didn't buy clothes and ate the cheapest food, etc. I feel that I have lost a year of my life.

I got much more from the articles that I wrote here than from any of my projects. And I did those in a couple of hours.

I know how to create, and how to make and many other things, but:

• Every time that I want to promote something, my stomach hurts.

• If I share an article on Reddit, I feel anxious for a week.

• When I go to a Facebook Group to suggest my apps, I feel sick.

• If I send a private message on Twitter or Linkedin, I can't sleep.

All the time, I think people are going to hate me, tell me that I am an idiot, a con maker, that my ideas are terrible, that I suck.

And they did many times, and I can't handle that while making $0.

So, I quit.

I always wanted to write more. I love it. But I felt that I couldn't write if I weren't successful. But I guess there are no rules.