I regret building it, but not for any ethical reasons, except for maybe that it's become nothing but corporate ads.
My real reason for regret is just the entire process that happened after it became successful. It took off and was over 50k DAUs ~5 months after I launched it. I tried supporting it the best I could, and had aspirations for the future of it, but I was young and dumb. I got caught up on feedback, took it too personally and started having trouble in my personal life due to it.
I ended up selling it to another company for far less than what it was worth, even while I had 2 competing bids because I let one of them get to me emotionally at the time. I also agreed to continue working with them on it, at what I found out later was vastly underpaid, to the tune of being ~10k below the CA minimum for a salaried SWE. Our time together lasted less than 9 months for a myriad of reasons.
I regret it, mainly because I always look back and think of what could have become if I had the strength to continue it solo, or had spent the time to look for a better partner to carry my vision forward. Instead now, you can get your latest [insert corporate media here] watchface from it for a mere $4.99/mo.
Hey man, I know this might seem patronizing, but I'm proud of you for recognizing what happened and why, and I hope you can give yourself some compassion (especially because well, you were young. It happens).
You've learned from it, and it shouldn't be a continued weight on your shoulders. You did nothing wrong.
I look back at it like I assume a lot of people would if they got scammed out of money. You gotta learn from mistakes in the past, and I think that combined with some other issues soon after it have led me to be a lot more thoughtful with large impact decisions.
It had some good upsides, like the fact it launched me into my SWE career ahead of schedule (i.e. No college degree). But that comes with it's own issues, like companies just flat rejecting me due to it.
I regret building it, but not for any ethical reasons, except for maybe that it's become nothing but corporate ads.
My real reason for regret is just the entire process that happened after it became successful. It took off and was over 50k DAUs ~5 months after I launched it. I tried supporting it the best I could, and had aspirations for the future of it, but I was young and dumb. I got caught up on feedback, took it too personally and started having trouble in my personal life due to it.
I ended up selling it to another company for far less than what it was worth, even while I had 2 competing bids because I let one of them get to me emotionally at the time. I also agreed to continue working with them on it, at what I found out later was vastly underpaid, to the tune of being ~10k below the CA minimum for a salaried SWE. Our time together lasted less than 9 months for a myriad of reasons.
I regret it, mainly because I always look back and think of what could have become if I had the strength to continue it solo, or had spent the time to look for a better partner to carry my vision forward. Instead now, you can get your latest [insert corporate media here] watchface from it for a mere $4.99/mo.