Bitcoin Burnout

[btcoverload]

Hello,

I am a co-founder of a bitcoin related startup since the beginning of this year.
I can't believe I am the only one experiencing this, I just can't hear the word "bitcoin" anymore.
It is all over the media, everybody asks me if I am already rich. I sleep in fear that some bug never thought of kills the trust in bitcoin, some people see the right time to publish a better alternative of bitcoin (not one of these forks out there, something completly new), people stop seeing the emperors clothes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes) or more realistically our bank freezes our accounts.
We are being overwhelmed by orders. We handle liquidity problems and everything else very provisionally, I have the feeling that we fix everything with chewing gum and cheap tape. It just have to work so we can move to the the next problem. We delay stuff like book keeping, an overview of our finances or forks, spoons, cups for our new office. In the last time I completly failed to prioritize my todo list there are just too many opportunities. I feel like a little kid that can be in a room full of candy only for an uncertain amount of time and therefore completely fails to actually eat the candy because of too much toughts and pressure to get in as much as possible.
At the same time I sometimes wish the price goes to 0 and everybody falls on an uncomfortable but stable and somehow more real ground.
I just can't hear of bitcoins anymore. Bitcoin hits a nerve on people, there are too many catchy stories of pizzas worth millions and people realizing they become rich because they hit a strange "start mining" or something button on a strange internet download a few years ago.
These stories make the thought that one bitcoin hits many 100k familiar and possible at the same time in two to three days it could be at 0. I don't own many bitcoins, but for me this is somehow just too much uncertainty.
One of our co-founders is travelling around the world for far too long, i am afraid he is just being happy that he bought so many at the very beginning.
I am not going to work since a couple of days and can't sleep struggling if i should quit bitcoin or not.
It's something like gambling addiction, I just can't do it on a healthy level.
On the other hand it's too soon for me too lean back and I find it really hard to leave back what I already achived.

What should I do? [1]
And I am interested I knowing who has similar experiences, I just can't be the only one.



[1] maybe the wrong place to ask :-)



ps:
@mods: can you put this thread somewhere not in "newbies" so more people can read it?

[amoai]

Well first of all, I am not sure I can analyze your situation. I'll try to explain my personal experience.

Is the problem really bitcoin? I realize the news stories from exchanges getting hacks, new technology, and big businesses accepting bitcoins can seem like they are huge deals every time, but you must look at the bigger picture, 5+ years ahead. Try to look at it at the macro level. These things are all happening because cryptocurrency is finally proving to be usable and global, it's a huge breakthrough.

Try to focus on your business and your business only, is this your first business? if so realize that you are working for yourself, and entrepreneurship is obviously not easy, it is very difficult and can be a game with your own self. Be grateful that you are doing things people are only just thinking about. You are taking action seeing an opportunity, and will get rewarded for it.

If you're addicted to working take an unusual break. I take walks for a few minutes.

Personally, I only get to sleep a few hours a day and the rest is programming, design, writing ideas, and reading news stories about the world economy. I don't know about you, but I am doing and experiencing this all on my own, as a one-man team, while my entire friends, family, and culture doesn't even understand, and seemingly won't for a few more years. My family doesn't even comprehend what I am doing, my father grew up on a farm, and here I am. But I have a purpose for pushing through, ultimately, it's because I want to escape the 9-5 work trap that I see other people around me falling into, and fear is in my future if I am not successful. That 9a-5pm job that doesn't actually utilize my skills and uses me as a mechanical tool, and routine is my nightmare. Eventually I want to completely work for my own, and then save enough to test and build my own world-changing ideas and projects.

Find out what you ultimately want from your startup. I don't blame your co-founder for traveling, I once traveled alone to central america for one month for under $1k (including flight) and it not only gave me a new perspective, but I came back with a new attitude and was highly productive. You should try it.

What frustrated me actually was me lurking on these forums for almost a year and never participating, building something, or investing in bitcoin. I sat and watched the whole thing happen, so you can imagine I also get frustrated that I missed an opportunity like no other, while staring right at it. I don't let it get to me.

If what's burning you out is your day-to-day work, find a way to make it more efficient by working less. See if you can hire an online virtual assistance to do the mundane tasks if you need to (just make sure everything is secure).

Hope I helped.

[slythytove]

I swear I've had three nervous breakdowns this year. And I've not been running a BTC business. I thought about it seriously, but I was still reeling from the first nervous breakdown following understanding it for the first few weeks (8 tiring months ago). I felt it was too late for my business idea (variation on a hybrid web wallet) and that someone else must be working on the idea.  Those features are still not here.

For me, just grokking the tech, buying in, following the news was too much alongside full-time work. I couldn't start a business before understanding it more, everything from the ground up as well as researching all the origin stories and the implications of them (that was probably nervous breakdown 2). I couldn't start a web wallet service without learning OpenBSD and figuring out offline transactions, distributing paper wallets etc.

When I dive into most software projects I have a healthy disconnection with the end-game. I know roughly what it looks like and I'll wander around until I see the signs and trek on to the finish line. I have to assume that I can get the result without needing to prove it before chewing off the first, tiny bit.

Bitcoin on the other hand, despite thinking of myself as a fairly useful DevOps guy, feels like I've got L plates on and am about to get onto an Autobahn at 150mph where the cars out front are laying out the road like Iceman. As both of us have found out, you just can't treat Bitcoin that way. It will eat your life like it eats fiat. Take a break, lean on friends. If you want to sell as a going concern (I've no idea what you do, sorry) then you can use that sale to take the BTC/Fiat position you want. If you want to carry on then look for VC funding to take people on and you take the tech lead role. Pay of some of that technical debt.

You might be able to do both - sell, stay on as tech lead. These things might have been difficult at the start of the year but if you went to anyone with any sense and offered them a stake in an established BTC business you will likely get you hand ripped off.

[odolvlobo]

Welcome to the crazy world of startups and the crazy world of bitcoin. That is two crazies, so your world is crazy-squared.

[grux]

I've been having similar thoughts about bitcoin, once in a while I just get tired of hearing it and/or working with it. Not for negative reasons, I just get too much of it.