With a young family to support, I gave up a secure career in a stable sector to pursue the startup dream. I taught myself programming and started working on my idea full time.

Three years and two failed startups later, I had only $200 left in the bank and decided to throw in the towel.

I started interviewing for jobs but wasn't having much luck. This was a real low point in my life, I had asked my family to live on the poverty line for an extended period of time with the promise of success in the near future. But I had failed. And now I couldn't even get back into the career I had left behind.

I started working on a third idea while looking for a job. But after suffering knock back after knock back from potential employers, things were looking pretty bleak. A family friend wrote out at a check for $4000 to see me through until I got back to work. I accepted the check but it was a humiliating experience to do so.

"The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed."

Then out of no where and completely unexpectedly, my latest idea went stratospheric. It was so unexpected that even now I sometimes pinch myself and wonder how it all happened.

I never did cash the check my friend gave to me and keep it in my desk drawer. From time to time, I take it out and look at it to remind myself how far I've come.

Great story. Care to elaborate a little bit more about the idea and the business you're running?

I have hit bottom. Financial issues caused me to declare bankruptcy and the whole affair had me contemplating ending my life.

I'm doing a soft reboot of my life. I love writing software, so there's no need for me to leave my field, but I do need to make a dramatic change in the kind of company I work for. I've spent too many years at big, stale companies, thinking I'm doing the right thing and living the right life, only to end up in more debt and misery that I'd ever experienced. I'd much rather live on less, if necessary, and not end up miserably every day. I'm also considering moving to a new location, if it means getting a better job and living somewhere I love.

This also impacts my family, but so far, the changes have been for the positive. We've spent more time together and both my spouse and I have been happier. It's going to take some time, but I realize I've been living society's dream (big house, big company, etc.) rather than my own to some extent. Hopefully I can carve out a better future.

This site has been a great help. Many people here go off an do things they love, which has inspired me. Sometimes the stories here aren't even about startups, but about a really cool project someone has made, proving it isn't always about the money, but about being happy, and that's what I'm after.

talk to someone about wanting to end your life, that is something i for one never want you to have to think about! thanks for writing this

It happens to the best of us. One good thing about rock bottom, there is usually nowhere else to go but up.

And other times, just when you think you can't get any lower, you are hit with a truck.

Unfortunately, I have gone through at least 3 (depending on how you count) of these rock bottoms. Although it was unimaginable at the time, I am a stronger/better person for these experiences.

Funny thing about humans, we always dream. It is important to go after these dreams, but also equally important to realize that we can fall down at any time. Unfortunately, sometimes you just lose control. It is how you get up that matters.

I left a perfectly plausible career, in a field I knew well, to learn enough programming to implement an idea of my own. (I'll recruit a real technical person when I have enough traction to do so.)

This wasn't exactly pioneering, we did have some savings. I would have been better off stripping off still more cruft and going down deeper, but I've got a family and "bottom" wasn't an option.

It's still nuts, as I've heard from many wise and loving people. Those savings could have gone to many other important uses, and I have a duty to make them back. So every day has had an urgent quality, and there have been many sleepless nights. (Come to think of it, what the hell am I doing here on hacker news?)

Not there yet, but things are starting to look up.

I didn't give up much because I didn't have a great deal, but I voluntarily put myself in a place very low (homeless) in the belief that it would be a better place, and have come back from it to be who I am today.

I'm not the only one.

When I put a summary of my story on HN a while ago ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1201162 ) I received a few emails from individuals who had done similar things but felt that they couldn't talk about it and thanking me for doing so.

So yeah, there are others who have put themselves low just to start from there.

In 2001, after 5 years in the army and three years of soul searching, schooling and very junior web programming work during the dot com, I packed up my snowboard and bought a one way ticket from Toronto, ON to Whistler BC with about $3500 in the bank all told.

It wasn't so much a recovery from rock bottom as a fresh start, and it was probably one of the best moves I ever made, but it took another year or two after that move to "come full circle".

I now live in Vancouver, am married to a wonderful woman and have two amazing kids. While at the moment I'm looking for more professionally, for a large portion of my life since that move I was extremely happy in that area as well.

From what I've seen, a lot of people go through these moments at two key times in their lives: In their early to mid twenties, and again in the mid 40's (the famed "mid life crisis"). I think it's more common than most people seem to realize.