Ask HN: My dream but fuck how to achieve anything?
I have been building popular open-source projects, but got no pay.

I have been working at software companies, experienced toxic work environments, and was massively underpaid.

That was enough.

I remembered the childhood dream of mine, to become an inventor and CEO. Yes, that has been my dream for ages.

I quit the job and had 1 plan in mind, to pursue the childhood dream of mine by building companies from scratch and growing them bigger and bigger.

I get a special feeling that is hard to describe every time I think about the dream. Something that tells me it is possible, only if I don't give up.

I got an idea when I was on the plane home from Paris. It was for a global mega-business which "could earn millions".

But I never realized how big of a project it would need to be.

I was hiding the details from my friends, but told them I had an idea which would make me millions. What happened?

I applied to YC W24 with the project after 79 video record attempts. But I was not accepted. I understand that now, since the project was way too BIG, and I had done nothing more than the start of a static mobile app.

That project was abandoned and I became unmotivated to code.

For almost two full months, I was just playing games. And then I became depressed. Because that wasn't what I wanted.

I started applying to remote jobs, since I was in need of income. But I soon realized I wouldn't get hired as a 16 year old in any conventional way, even if I had 4 years of experience.

1 job offer required you to have experience building Browser Extensions. I didn't have that.

So I thought to myself, let's make one real quick. Then I can say I have experience. This led to brainstorming of ideas. I thought of simply doing a note app, BUT there were already so many.

I finally came up with a twist that could make it OK. Now I wouldn't say this was the ~best idea, but it would at least give me experience with extensions.

I was telling my friends that this project could earn thousands. After a few weeks, I released the project, but got NO SALES (except my friend). I tried doing marketing on Twitter, TikTok, Reddit but it never led to any income.

Then I realized it was pretty shit, became unmotivated and the project kind of died.

I started being more active on twitter and got into the Indie-Hacking community. I saw all these people making tens of thousands a month with these mini-websites.

It looked very tempting, seemed easy and I wanted to try it. This ended up with me creating one micro one-page AI startup to generate Curlyhair images of you. This is also a shit idea which my friend pointed out today: "Who wanna pay $6 to get four pictures of their hair as curly?".

Now I would love to have it free. But as the founder: It costs to have the domain, run the AI and host the website reliably. I don't know how to convert more users, but I guess the idea doesn't have much potential.

Currently I think all ideas I get are bad, which really bothers me. I want to make a successful business, but I need the correct idea + execution. I always have big goals with the project at the start, tell my friends and they get hyped, but then it never takes off.

It doesn't feel good, since this could make them lose trust in me?! I'm scared of the hypothetical scenario 20 years in the future where I haven't gotten anywhere. I don't want that to happen!

Now I know some of you will say "oh you are only 16, don't worry". But when I see other people my age already raising millions and having tens of thousands of followers, I don't feel good since I'm not there yet.

Who am I? GitHub: github.com/robiot, and website robiot.dev

This is mostly a rant I suppose. but idk wtf to do. I just want to quit school rn and build a million dollar startup, but I don't have the idea and marketing knowledge.

I guess I have to find cool successful people somehow, and that way learn the whole business side of startups.