The Real Silicon Valley
Bah Humbug (please excuse me, it's just a seasonal expression). While I can feel your pain, this story has nothing to do with SV - it's the story of an entrepreneur. The same story exists in every state in the U.S. and every major city (and most small ones) in the world. Entrepreneurship is very hard.<p>I'm 41 y/o and bootstrapped my first internet company at 24. I owned a nice home, a beautiful vacation (lake) home, a big office building, 2 Mercedes Benz (wife's SUV, my car) & an awesome FICO score before I was 29. It all went away (except for my primary home) by the time I was 35.<p>As entrepreneurs we believe that the charts will always go up and to the right (we can't help it) - but they don't.<p>This year, after TEN (10) F'ING YEARS of working on what everyone in SV would label a little "life style business," we hit $1M+ in revenue. I am confident we will hit $2M+ next year and $100M eventually. Our company is debt free and my co-founder (and best friend since kindergarten) own 100% of the company.<p>My point: It's not easy. We have been working very, very hard for TEN (10) F'ING YEARS on this thing. I lost almost everything along the way...but I never, ever stopped believing in what we were building. When you hear those billionaires claim that "perseverance" is the key to success - listen to them, they are telling you the truth.