<begin: rambling catharsis>
My startup (UsableHQ) failed.
We did the whole accelerator program thing, landed decent post-accelerator funding (decent for the UK anyway), and spent 2 years working on it. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about what we did wrong, and, honestly, we did a lot wrong. All the usual things that people warn you about in fact. We built a product that no one really wanted. All the feedback was tremendously positive, but the reality was that the problem we were trying to solve was merely annoying rather than painful, so we failed to get any sort of proper traction. We spent far more time on product than on marketing or selling. We added features that were amazingly clever and cool, but that only affected 5% of the users. We used the newest technologies. We deluded ourselves that our idea was huge when it really wasn't. And so on. It was a catalogue of errors.
Then we ran out of money. Obviously.
Since I've been tremendously 'down' in what can only be described as a "mourning period" that felt very much like grieving. I felt like I'd failed entirely and won't ever succeed at anything. My confidence in writing code took a huge knock. I didn't have a clue what to do next. Life slowed waaaaaaaay down. I needed it to.
Thankfully though, through the amazing and supportive network of friends and family, I think I've bounced back a bit. I learned a tremendous amount during UsableHQ about running a SaaS company, building a product, and what makes me happy when I'm working on things. Experience of failure and learning from it is a valuable lesson.
So... I've started a new startup - http://pitcher.io ... doing it all again. This time though, no accelerator and no funding unless it's actually going to help rather than because it's "the thing you should do".