SoSa - Precursor
Tags: startup, failure
Published: 2020-01-04 17:22:19

This is my story about [SoSa](https://sosa.net), I wanted to share this in a few places so you can view the [Original article](https://blog.sosa.net/sosa-precursor/) there.

I've tweaked it a bit for Dev.to!

Failure is hard and when you're unhealthy, in a mountain of debt and worried about your "baby" it's really hard to just stop and start looking inwardly.

I disappointed a whole community in my breakdown, people lost their jobs and if I had taken some self care it would have never ended that way.

**Who am i?**

I’m James! 

* I’m a tech agnostic developer, with about 15 years commercially.
* Although British, I’m awful at English! (poor grammar get out of free card)
* I love food and caffeine.

I'm developing a online community called SoSa, which aims to be a fun, friendly and privacy first community making it easy to socialise online.

![Me :)](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/h7f6nf551glpltm4nmny.jpeg)

**What Was SoSa**

![Our 4th year banner](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/wb82z5j7hlbrkxfghvvu.png)

Originally called Social Savanna, it was a sub-community made specifically for the imgur community.

In 2013 the imgur community were crying out for somewhere they could engage beyond the 140 character limit. 

During Christmas I was feeling lonely and so I posted to see if they really wanted it or was it just a meme / fad? 

Hundreds of comments and thousands of upvotes later, I got a resounding yes!

At the time, I owned a development studio and until my team came back in the new year I started making mockups and playing about with some ideas then posting them to imgur for feedback!

Over 3 months we built essentially a chat platform that allowed people to connect, we launched Feb 2014 growing to 15,000 members inside 24 hours and In 2015 we opened it up beyond the imgur community.

**What Went Wrong?**

During my 20s I didn’t do much for self care, I started a business at 22 because I couldn’t get in the IT sector!

I had no idea how to run a business! So i did what everyone tells you to do — I grinded.

![Me Aug 2018 vs Nov 2019](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/l34sv1om1z10a7ebwews.jpeg)

SoSa was never expected to grow so quickly, along with other pain points that contributed to our downfall:

* We rushed the build, without proper testing.
* We didn’t actually know what we were building (eg the point of it)
* I had growing health concerns.
* We had mounting debt!

September 2018 everything came to a head and I needed to bring things to a full stop before I did something I would have regretted. I said good night to SoSa.

**New year new me**

After shutting down SoSa, I sat down and started working out what I needed to do to get things where they should be. 

My health was the most important, but I had to clear the debt and get the community back on track.

I shut down the business and started focusing heavily on my weight on my weight, debt and mental health.

![Gym Christmas Day 2018](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/oc8f8qie5u3mtpudsmno.jpeg)

So far, i've lost about 60kg since 2017. Most days i'm exercising, eating right and using a variety of techniques to support my mental health.

The debt has been cleared and I’ve saved enough money to give me at-least 6 months working on SoSa.

I even made time in early 2019 to meet some members in Dublin, Visit Venice and relax in Barcelona! The first holidays i’ve had abroad since 2012!

![Venice 2019](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/leujrzl06qvv7sczfgkc.jpeg)

**What now?**

I'm spending the next 6 months developing 2 apps, a website and a desktop application along side the community that stuck around.

A few things I've done to make sure I don't fail again:

* Made a sustainable daily routine, 
* Built healthy food and exercise habits, 
* Building in time for friends and family.
* Using sprints to manage my work time, with personal retrospectives and posting updates to hold myself accountable to the community
* a Gratitude journal
* Seperated my living space from my working space
* Working with the community, utilising people with specific skills instead of trying to do everything myself.
* Saved enough money to survive comfortably for a year, but aim to go back to work in 6 months.

I'm just finishing my first 2 week sprint, I feel glorious and I have achieved SO much.

Hope this helps someone! being dedicated and diligent is important but self care is even more important. Don't burn out. Burn out fucking sucks.

~James