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I was working in a seed stage B2B startup. But it didn’t go well. Their potential customers lost interest in the product. And I was the one who did all the Product research and built the entire backend infra. Which gave me confidence to build my own SAAS.

After doing some research about which Saas to build. I decided to go with a Social media manager. But very soon I realized that it is not a small project as I thought in the beginning. Then I built a simple feedback management tool that can be embedded in the site.

In that process I read a lot of books on building a SAAS like Rework, the lean startup, Traction and many more. So I was aware of this developer’s hell. Questions like “Just one more feature, just one more change on the Home page, just one more line of code. Why would anyone use it. It can be built by anyone. What's so special about it.” came across my mind which delayed the launch. After so many ifs and buts I launched that on product hunt. Did cold messaging on linkedin and twitter. Got some 50 signups. Nothing big.

Very soon I realized that Entrepreneurship is not my cup of tea. Founding a product is more close to marketing, networking and selling the idea rather than building or coding the product. And I had no experience with that. Even in my circle no one is into marketing or sales. And I am very poor at networking too.

Now I am going for 9 to 5 again. But I am realizing something that Companies do not seem very welcoming towards entrepreneurship. They are ok if a guy has been in only one company since the beginning. It's ironic that Founders of those companies often complain about the lack of an entrepreneurial mindset in their employees. But HRs of the same company will not even consider your entrepreneurial experience.

Has anyone else faced this challenge? How did you navigate the transition back into a traditional role after trying your hand at building something on your own?

designed and developed by Tommy Chow (source)