Followup: Ask HN: Struggling to pay rent this month. Can I help you with a gig?

I wanted to share with HN what happened, since a lot of these "hey, help me" posts go unanswered.

I was able to successfully pay rent thanks to a few quick gigs that came my way. I was able to work about $2k, a comfortable position while I decide what my next move is.

Said invoice remains unpaid. I'm now a debt collector. There are options to consolidate, but the amount is in excess of $25k which makes things difficult. I do have contracts in place, and counsel I can lean on, but it’s an incredibly exhausting and lengthy process. As a 24-year-old dev-shop founder I have learned my lesson. I'll require pre-paid invoices from here on. There’s more to the story, but in short, I've wound things down after my co-founder (design/sales) unexpectedly left us in early Q2 2015.

The response was overwhelming. I was quickly playing catch-up with the number of emails I received. It brought tears to my eyes, especially coming from HN where elitism is often bred and found.

I'm unsure what my next steps will be. Obvious question of “why don’t you ask your clients?” My answer is either, “they don’t have a need for me where I can make a direct impact” or “they’re too big/too corporate and couldn’t justify being billed by a one-man consultancy/dev-shop, let alone a felon."

What other options may I have that I'm failing to see? As I said, I can't pass a background check. It has rarely hurt me, but I’ve rarely put myself in a position to find out if it will matter. As you can tell, I’m pretty open and honest about it, but a little timid.

If you’d prefer to reach out to me directly, you can send me an email at ptftpd1ad6mz2iw@jetable.org and it’ll forward directly to my email.

All-and-all, I’m entirely thankful (albeit surprised) that HN came through with such a response. The elitism is still here, and I still get a little perplexed reading some comments, but for the most part we’re good peoples.