I have been working on the side with my partner on an app since more than a year ago. I work a day job to pay off my student loans and lately, have been losing hope on the startup. At this point, I’m only in it because 1) of my co-founder and 2) I have already given it a year of my life. Everyday is a struggle to work on it. I joined my co-founder because I believed in the idea and thought it could be a hit.
Several iterations and several “pivots” later, we have still not launched the app. Pivoting too often and too much was a mistake. Even the current set of features of the app aren’t really good enough.
My personal life has taken a hit, I’m not able to give my 100% to my day job. My personal relationships have suffered tremendously, and there’s also a lot of “tech-debt” that has accumulated because of subpar quality of code by the freelancers. I’m just constantly fixing one bug after another and I have lost the energy because it hasnt been rewarding at all for me. I can’t even sell my positions and exit.
I’m trying to gain different perspectives here and trying to find out what people have done when they found themselves in a situation similar to mine
Honestly, if you haven’t launched then you can’t quit as you haven’t started yet. Get it in front of people and let them use it or not, and then tell you why it’s shit. Fix that and see if more people like it than before.
Don’t feel bad about it though, I’m exactly the same in that I take too long to launch and want it to be perfect. I know the right thing to do but I find it really hard to get past the perfectionism.