The first I would recommend you do is talk to your investors connect with them on a human level and explain why the business tanked. I did this in my case and one of the investors went on to land me very good contract.
Second I would recommend analyzing really well what caused the situation. Rarely is the answer running out of money the real reason. In my case the best way I found to deal with this is to give talks in my ecosystem on why my startup failed. This way it gave me a better chance to figure things properly because I had to explain them.
Third I would not recommend things such as Elance or Odesk, but rather direct consulting with people. I have done this personally and the financial payback from direct consulting is incomparably better then online marketplaces of services. The bottom line is that in direct consulting people are looking for your expertise while on Elance they are looking for code and we as software engineers produce code but what we sell is the expertise (ie the code is only the means to the end).
Fourth for your motivation levels I would recommend forming a sporting habit. Personally I run long distances and I find it helps me stay "earthed". On the really off days I find reading science fiction is quite helpful but that is just me.
Finally I would like to point our that your startup has only failed if you do not see the rewards at the end of the journey and only focus on that you missed your goal. As an example Columbus failed to reach India by a new route. If he had only focused on that he would have never gone back with the fact that he had discovered the Americas.
I have been in Beirut for many years now and I am sure that there will be many responses to this post that will be making alot of noise about how beirut has nothing so allow me to add the following:
1- I agree that Internet is quite problamatic for the country but it is not insurmountable with a bit of planning, but that means spending on energy on something you should not.
2- The companies mentioned (like most startups in the region) start out by copying business ideas and models from other places. That does not mean they are not working on some interesting things but the truth is most are not focused on this. Some companies that get no light are working on some really interesting things such as better power management, hydroponics, controllers for elevators, telecom infrastructure, bitcoin etc. These are few and in between but they do exist. Also I dont think focus on Arabic internationalization is an easy manner it might not be as difficult as saying chinese internalization (baidu anyone) but still.
Allow me to give my opinon on the problems of the community:
a- High Cost of living and few opportunities for second chances: Beirut is not a cheap city by any measure and the tech scene is very small (very few big companies) what this translates too is that talent of any kind (business or engineering) is reluctant to do startups where risk of failure is high since they are not sure they are able to pay the bills if it flunks and they cant land a job
b- Too small a market: Needless to say Lebanon and the region is a small market more importantly it is a small market of early adopters so it is very difficult to make a quick experimentation of the viability of ideas
c- Shortage of talent: It is no secret that most talent leaves the country mostly because salaries outside are way more then they can find in the country. Also the society is so small that anyone who stays is bound to know and be compared to someone of similar (or less) skill and making 5 times the salary and that tends to be emotionally tasking and propagates the cycle.
d- Lack in belief in quality from the region: There is a problem region wise where everyone seems convinced that anything coming from Europe, Japan and North America is of higher quality then things coming from the region. Accordingly all companies in the region without connection to outside are short-changed decreasing their chance of success.
e- Extreme selection bias: Everyone in the eco-system from VCs, Angels (the few that exist) and Enterpreneurs judge success and returns based on what is happening with the most successful silicon valley companies and therefore they demand same results claiming same hurdles. This is simply not true. The problems are different and they require a different solution.
Finally let me say Beirut is not ideal I know I have had (and continue to have) my crisis of faith in the matter but the potential does exist. We face similar problems to many upcoming tech communities and then some and we sure can achieve with more constructive discussions which hopefully such a discussion will start.
This is quite the intersting article but I would point out that since most startup owners/product managers do not know the edge cases of their problem or where the tech might fall short, then it is our job as software engineers to actually ask the questions which will drive the owners to actually fill the steps you mentioned. Only then will estimates be sensible and the job done :)
curtis makes some excellent points about the whole concept of freelancing and how to make real long term work by bringing real value to your customers. These will generally not argue on price since they understand and see the value that the price is getting them (either increased income or decrease cost).
With that said, I personally would not think recommend the paid hourly work even with the structure of milestones. I have experimented with both hourly and fixed bid (as well as spent a couple of years working in business to understand their view point) and here is what I have found out from my own experiences (which should not be generalized of course):
* sometimes (read quite often in my experience) a high value solution to a client takes you a very little amount of time if you bill hourly you sell yourself short against the only measure that matters for your clients and that is how much value did this project bring me
* Hourly billing tends to make clients cut projects before the actual objective of the project is achieved so that they can save cost and what this means to you is that for this client (and anyone they talk to) the project was a- a failure and b- not completed by you
* Hourly billing allows you to choose to be lazy. What this means is that you will not take the time to assess the project and its scope because heck your are being paid by the hour and if you are lazy you get in trouble
* Clients need to assess risk to reward ratio of any project they take (just like you should) an open ended project is not a good thing for them. Without a cost it is difficult to assess whether a project ROI is useful.
Now with the above said there are times when billing by the hour is the only course of action. In my experience these are as follows:
* Old clients that have learned that you bring high value who want to grow their business strategically and want you to add iterations to them. These you can bill by the hour because there will be alot of time set aside discussing strategy and building for future and changing things. The key here is that they know you are worth it.
* New clients where are referred to you who do not know what they want. This is when a client can not tell you really why they want the project or what is its success metric. I usually stay clear of this unless I am sold on what the vision is since it is difficult to define success.
Warning however must be said you have to stand your ground when it comes to fixed bids scope. You can change scope a bit if a new change takes out an old one but you have to be firm. In my experience a fixed bid project without a defined metric of success is doomed to cost you more then its worth.
Big moment for us to find ourselves on Hacker News, we're huge fans :-) We looked a lot at the YC model for guidance when setting up the Seeqnce Accelerator Program.
If anyone would like any direct input on the above story from the guys who are in the middle of it (I'm a Seeqnce Program Director), I'm always on HN.
I have had two Microsoft Natural Keyboards (the 4000 and its predecessor). I chose to go with an ergonomic keyboard even though I dont have RSI(thankfully) and i have to say that an ergonomic keyboard is the one of the best things ever. The keyboard allowed me to naturally sit and use a keyboard properly. Furthermore I stopped having to worry about what to do about my elbows and just left them be. I have also found that after extensive use of an ergonomic keyboard, I feel uncomfortable if I switch to a normal keyboard which tells me that the normal keyboard is putting to much strain on my hands.
In the end I would echo rmc's advice which is to be aware of your body and to adjust accordingly.
Second I would recommend analyzing really well what caused the situation. Rarely is the answer running out of money the real reason. In my case the best way I found to deal with this is to give talks in my ecosystem on why my startup failed. This way it gave me a better chance to figure things properly because I had to explain them.
Third I would not recommend things such as Elance or Odesk, but rather direct consulting with people. I have done this personally and the financial payback from direct consulting is incomparably better then online marketplaces of services. The bottom line is that in direct consulting people are looking for your expertise while on Elance they are looking for code and we as software engineers produce code but what we sell is the expertise (ie the code is only the means to the end). Fourth for your motivation levels I would recommend forming a sporting habit. Personally I run long distances and I find it helps me stay "earthed". On the really off days I find reading science fiction is quite helpful but that is just me. Finally I would like to point our that your startup has only failed if you do not see the rewards at the end of the journey and only focus on that you missed your goal. As an example Columbus failed to reach India by a new route. If he had only focused on that he would have never gone back with the fact that he had discovered the Americas.