Why You Should Keep Building
At some point, most people who try to build something end up failing. Sometimes it happens quietly, when a side project loses momentum. Other times it happens after years of work, when a company, product, or idea simply never takes off. The usual advice is to “learn from failure,” but that phrase has been repeated so often it has lost its meaning. The real lesson is to keep building anyway.
You can spend years preparing for an opportunity that never arrives. You can study the right subjects, take the right internships, and position yourself perfectly for a field that changes just before you enter it. In college, I imagined that by 2025 I would be working in private equity or quantitative trading. Neither happened. Instead, I continued to build in industries I was interested in.
With AccelNode, it did not reach the monthly recurring revenue I expected, but it was acquired. I still have a majority ownership, and I have not quit my day job, so you can infer that it was a modest amount. But it is something. It represents progress, even if it was smaller than imagined.
Most people stop building when they stop getting feedback. That is the real failure. Whether you are writing, coding, or starting a business, the process itself teaches you more than the outcome. Each attempt gives you a clearer understanding of how systems work, how people react, and what actually matters. Even the smallest project can sharpen your sense of direction.
You do not need to build something world-changing. Build something that helps you stay connected to the field you care about. If you are interested in finance, build tools that help people understand markets. If you are interested in policy, write about how systems could operate more effectively. If you like design, prototype something that solves a small problem. Every project you create, even if it fails, strengthens your ability to create the next one.
There is a kind of quiet resilience that forms when you build repeatedly. You start to understand that outcomes are unpredictable, but process is not. You control whether you keep showing up to work. Over time, the difference between people who succeed and people who quit often comes down to that one decision.
The internet has removed almost every barrier to participation. You can publish, design, or ship products without permission. This is the best time in history to create something new, yet most people hesitate because they are waiting for validation. The truth is, you do not need anyone’s approval to start.
You should keep building because the alternative is stagnation. The world moves forward whether you participate or not. Unless you are over sixty or about to inherit a fortune, you cannot afford to stand still. Create new businesses, change jobs, or find new projects that keep you moving forward. Many people imagine that a universal basic income will appear or that the right President will fix everything, but that is naive. A small percentage of people understand that most of what you want will never be handed to you. The act of building, whether it is creating, writing, coding, or designing, keeps you connected to progress. You may not know where it leads, but you will have something to show for it. Even modest progress is real. Even unfinished work is experience.