What should I say about the company I tried to start but didn’t?
I spent a year working on my app but have nothing to show for it since it’s not ready. What should I do about my resume? Do I 1) leave the app off completely and have a gap there, 2) tell the truth about running out of money (which sounds like a lame excuse to me), 3) say I dropped the app because I realized it wasn’t going to work out, 4) forget changing jobs?
I know how to talk about the business. My concern is, there’s a difference between getting something off the ground and failing, and not even finishing the thing in the first place. It sounds like I don’t have the grit to get something done. Or that the idea was stupid and I’m not qualified to run their business because I’ll just come up with more stupid ideas.
Say it’s a prototype, say you did a lot of market research, learned about business models, etc. Trying a business and not getting it off the ground is as educational as getting it off the ground. Don’t worry that you didn’t get to an IPO. Of course anyone with a hugely successful business is not looking for a job. So everyone else is looking for a job with a failed business on their resume.
You can say you ran out of money. Its fine. People don’t want to hire someone who is great at building their own company because it means they don’t really want a job. Serial entrepreneurs never get hired.
Penelope