Should I continue my journey after 18 years of failures?

I'm a developer and I've been working on side projects since 2006, so 18 years so far. I mostly did various SaaS websites and apps. There were social projects, messengers, networks, services etc. I really tried it all. But all of my projects failed. I did learn from them and I improved every time but at the end it led to failure.

For context, I'm 32 years old, I live in a smaller EU country. My budget is limited. Mostly I've tried to push into the USA market for obvious reasons but after years I realized that I don't understand US market and mentality, also I have no connections or history there to be able to grow organically. Also my budget is limited and not enough for the US market. If I try to use social networks for promotion it always pushes me to my country because of geolocation. I've tried to use VPN, it kinda worked (on TikTok), but as soon as I break the usage or turn on GPS or any other way that they can detect me, they push me back to my country.

I also tried to do something in my country, but it's very limited. I created a buzz maybe 2-3 times but the market is bad. There are neighboring countries that speak the same language, but they are all closed inside their own borders, so the product/service/website/app rarely breaks through. But since community is smaller overall it's easier to get attention from people and media.

I've tried to partner up a couple of times but it didn't go very well. Mostly I've saved my money to buy an apartment for myself so I couldn't invest a lot of money in advertising my products.

I think a big problem is that when I don't see any kind of success or when I run out of marketing ideas I give up, usually after a couple of months. So right now I'm on a crossroads, should I take a long pause or keep pushing? Currently, I feel like giving up completely.

Never Lost Hopes.
Just Keep Hard Working Surely Success Will Come.

MinuteRun said:

I'm a developer and I've been working on side projects since 2006, so 18 years so far. I mostly did various SaaS websites and apps. There were social projects, messengers, networks, services etc. I really tried it all. But all of my projects failed. I did learn from them and I improved every time but at the end it led to failure.
fter a couple of months. So right now I'm on a crossroads, should I take a long pause or keep pushing? Currently, I feel like giving up completely.

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You did your best I am sure but the writing on the wall suggests that you pivot and use your knowledge in another areas of Internet Marketing.

Partner up with someone who knows marketing or/and sales.

If you are a real full stack should not be hard.

Unless your ready to crawl in a hole and die naked, cold and alone, Don't give up. If one thing absolutely isn't working then change directions. Also your probably experiencing burn out so take a break without thinking about it at all, go do something fun for a week or two.

you're probably picking up the wrong competition, especially with a limited budget,
try to shift into smaller niches/subniches & scale a couple/dozen of them to get more stable income and fund bigger projects,

you can get much faster results in an easier way doing that,
i'm mainly into seo & from your point & expererience, i'll try to develop a bunch of small websites that will require coding,

just an example that would be a 2-20 tool websites each aiming for around $100 monthly profits,
from there, you can get them running for several months & invest in greater projects or simply flip them for $2k-$3k each and start immediatly,

don't make your work based in estimations, imaginations or whatever, you're not financially able to do so,
make your research, see what's working, hunt for relatively easy oppurtunities and make your moves from there

I don't even know where to pivot or what to try

Learn SAP.
Plenty of well paid jobs as a consultant.

digitalgeckos said:

Partner up with someone who knows marketing or/and sales.

If you are a real full stack should not be hard.

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This.

Most people deep in the game, can use a personal developer to code all their projects.

klique said:

Most people deep in the game, can use a personal developer to code all their projects.

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actually for anyone deep in the game, he should be confident about the possible ROI,
therefore it will be a better idea to hire someone for XX for a single time than to share XXX+ of the ROI periodically,

i would say someone half the way there, with some experiece & already made some decent earnings, typically someone willing to scale a winning model,
secure enough for him to cut down possible loss by partnering up with someone else & guaranteed enough for the other third party,
basically sharing risks & profits

hideath said:

actually for anyone deep in the game, he should be confident about the possible ROI,
therefore it will be a better idea to hire someone for XX for a single time than to share XXX+ of the ROI periodically,

i would say someone half the way there, with some experiece & already made some decent earnings, typically someone willing to scale a winning model,
secure enough for him to cut down possible loss by partnering up with someone else & guaranteed enough for the other third party,
basically sharing risks & profits

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I don't agree. I have a full stack developer that I've been working with for 5+ years, and he not only codes all my projects, but we've also built a good trust and bond over that period of time. Being able to completely trust someone 100% that you've met on the Internet, is not something I would recommend anyone doing... but I can say that I trust him that much. And to me, that's priceless.

So not only does he code whatever projects I give him... but I've put large amounts of money in his trust for periods of time, where he could of easily taken the money and there would of been nothing I could of done, and he didn't. Having that type of relationship with your personal developer, is something that anyone who is really into marketing would desire. I give him the option to code the projects, and I pay him a fee for the coding, and other projects I offer him a % of whatever I earn from it. I wouldn't trade this in for anything, and is one of the best business decisions I've made in the past 5 years.

Take some time off. Browse BHW and make some notes. Review these notes and finalize one method you want to work on. Keep at it for the next 3-4 months. Don't run after any other method during this time.

Don't give up. I am also in the same boat as you, but I've never given up.

Never give up. As Al Bundy once said - Bundy's are losers not quitters. It's better to lose than to quit.

"A Bundy never wins, but a Bundy never quits."

"Bundys are losers, not quitters."

"We don't eat vegetables."

"We don't call the cops. They call the cops on us!"

"Lie if your wife is awaking. Lie if your belly is aching. Lie if you think she's faking. Lie, sell shoes, lie."

"Hooters, hooters, yum, yum, yum. Hooters, hooters, on a girl that's dumb."

"It sees us, it insults us, we kick its ass."

With every attempt you learned something new, is unfortunate you had no success previously but if you have the posibility to try it go for it who knows that you could achieve your goal this time.

Why is bad to quit? Isn't life trying to say something after almost 20 years?

MinuteRun said:

I feel like giving up completely.

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So what happens if you quit? You plan on giving up on life and moving back with your parents or you just meant changing professions?

You could start doing more fun projects for yourself, maybe you're tired of working for clients. See lucky sparks' journeys.

blogmen said:

So what happens if you quit? You plan on giving up on life and moving back with your parents or you just meant changing professions?

You could start doing more fun projects for yourself, maybe you're tired of working for clients. See lucky sparks' journeys.

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I have full time job that pays for everything. My side projects are failing

Just go to try it again, only a few ppl dare to work for themselves not for their bosses. When you was a developer that means you are more successful than 90% ppl in the world. And your failure will give you more experience and confidence ngl. You're still talented

It 's never going to be easy without a solid marketing plan and a decent budget.

There must be a way around your geo issues, you just need to ask about and analyse what others are doing.

Don't give up, take a break.

You only need ONE time to be right to finally make it worth it. But you know deep down also that you gave up sometimes maybe too early. Were your projects all MVPs? because it sounds like you invested a lot of effort before starting something