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Comment by orthoganol | Hacker News Reader

I've shunned founding startups or working at startups for the last ~3 years, and instead worked 15-20 hr/wk usually remotely.

Time is your greatest asset, personally and professionally. It's how you stay abreast of the great opportunities of our time. You need that freedom to explore things that pique your interest or move you. Founding a startup means becoming mostly blind to the other great opportunities, which is why I'm so reluctant to do a startup, unless I think it's "the one."

IMO, the opportunity cost of startup jobs is far more sinister than you think. Only do it if you need the money or if you believe you're changing the world in the greatest way you can.

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Out of curiosity: do you do contracting / consulting work, or have you found a stable 15-20 hr/wk job? I think the latter sounds excellent, while the former sounds stressful.

1 datapoint: I was doing 15-20hr/wk consulting the past few years and making as much as my FT CTO/COO position now and the stress of constant sourcing definitely was stressful (but the extra hours and lifestyle of commandeering your schedule/location was a third dimension to optimize).

How did you make that much? How often did you have to source contacts and how many did you take at a time, and for how long? I'm trying to do similar and am absorbing any input I can about this.

If I had to guess, he probably billed by the hour at a certain rate and estimated timeframe but got the work done orders of magnitude faster so his effective per hour rate is orders of magnitude higher.

E.g I tell you I am $50 an hour and the task will reasonably take 10 hours. However what you don't know is that I am extremely skilled at the task and have done it many times before so I can get it done faster than anyone else. I have frameworks already set up, and a lot of boiler plate infra from previous projects. So I get it done in 1hr. I am now effectively making $500 an hour.

That's pretty dishonest. I would never charge like that. I would rather be completely upfront with a client and charge them $500 per hour for 1 hour, if I know that I can get it done that fast, and it's really providing that much value.

It seems like the gap between your two ways of thinking mostly stems from how silly "hours worked" is as a measure of work done. You're of course right to be skeptical of being dishonest about the number of hours worked, but he has a point as well: it makes no sense to get paid less for a job simply because you're more productive (and make no mistake, most clients would lower the total price of the same task based on your ability to complete it in fewer hours).

The way people typically do it is charge by value of project -- "this component is worth X dollars". Businesses want to solve problems costing D-dollars in T-time for themselves.

They couldn't care less if you spent 1 vs 10 hours on it if they can't do it themselves, so why bother oversharing your time expenditure?

I'm a machine learning specialist tackling interesting/complex problems of a certain worth. There is definitely an "applying the ML hammer to every single nail/problem" thing going as well.

Example: say a company with 1B in revenue and 500M in costs: being able to give them 10% efficiency or 5% increase in revenue through optimization is a 50M value prop to them. So to spend 5M to achieve those extra $s is entirely worth it.

Of course doing things that result in that optimization are nontrivial as well, but that's what people pay me for. :)

The 15-20hrs a week thing is often a client constraint, because I'd ask for data and what not and would have to wait for them to provide me with what I ask for, or that their data has issues and I need to understand how to sanitize it.

I have stable clients. I've only had 2 main ones over the last 3 years. I think there are maybe some misconceptions about what a consulting life must be like. I agree it does sound stressful if it were my long term goal, but it is not, it's primarily a type of life that keeps me as open as possible to finding something truly worth pursuing (IMO at least), which may or may not take the form of a startup. I have my candidates here, which change as I learn.

Same here. I've gone for long periods working primarily for one or two clients, and 1) I made more working part-time than the employees did full-time, 2) I got all the 'fun' new projects while the employees spent a lot of their time doing maintenance and bug-fixing (which they only asked me to do occasionally once I was a 'trusted' contractor), 3) I could go on vacations pretty much whenever I wanted.

There are plenty of downsides, of course, but it's a far cry from the initial fear I had of a life of constantly hunting for clients and constantly playing the 'is my client an asshole / will my client pay / is my client a micro-manager'-roulette.

Mind expanding on some of the downsides that you've experienced?

Finances (billing, quarterly taxes, yearly taxes), lack of colleagues (I feel at best a semi-colleague if I'm somewhere long enough), lots of costs, some hidden or vague (insurances, office space, travel, laptop, utilities, etc.), possible dry spells / less job security (not an issue yet, but still), no perks (paid learning, conferences, outings), proposals and discussions about how much things cost, even with longer-term clients.

And of course the fact that I can't rely on the more 'default' paths of promotions, specializing, etc. I have to choose to grow, or I just keep doing the same thing or risk falling behind.

I don't find all these downsides. For example, I'm rather happy to not have to be around the same group of people day in, day out. Or to feel forced to go to some work event and be a 'team player'. But still. Sometimes I think I miss it, at least.

Thanks. I'm not sure it is as much misconception as it is wild variation in what the consulting life is like for different people. Not everyone has those one or two stable long term clients. In many ways, the wide array of different possibilities in the consulting world is both its blessing and its curse.

Weird stance. Startups are not really about money. They are about greater risk.

For a startup founder it is not unusual to spend a lot of time, and still make zero money. And it is also possible to spend only couple of years, and make so much money that you can leisurely work for couple of days a month, and go surfing for the rest of the month. And do that same thing for the rest of your life.

As an employee you will surely make some money always, and only spend certain amount of time. As a freelancer/contractor typically your risk is a bit greater (you might not get good gigs or something), but as a reward you can earn more money for less time.

So it is not about whether you value your time or money. It is about your risk appetite. It is not that uncommon to do this kind of "lifestyle business" thingie where the primary goal is freedom and time, not necessarily money.

I'm not sure I understand your position. They entail risk, but they aren't motivated by risk, they don't exist because of risk.

> Startups are not really about money

I agree,

> Only do it if... you believe you're changing the world in the greatest way you can

They are about pursuing a vision. Even YC has said they dislike opportunists, and for good reasons (they make bad startups).

I like opportunists, they don't necessarily make great startups, but ethical and hardworking opportunist usually does good for the world.

>So it is not about whether you value your time or money. It is about your risk appetite. It is not that uncommon to do this kind of "lifestyle business" thingie where the primary goal is freedom and time, not necessarily money.

Why the condescending tone for those businesses?

The main motivation behind startup is making loads of money. Similar to casino players, hoping to the big payoff. There's more risk of course, but that's not the motivation -- else startup founders would be as likely to be daredevils like Evel Knievel.

Startups don't care much about the actual business aspects (actually making money from what they do) as much as getting VCs to pour money in and then exit.

OTOH, the motivation between lifestyle business is not just freedom and time, but also the product. A custom motorcycle shop or some company making a software tool like BBEdit, for example, with extremely passionate people putting tons of hours into what they do, are "lifestyle businesses". Where in a "startup proper" a founder can be just as happy to sell their to some giant company that while close their main product (acquihires and tech acquisitions).

> Why the condescending tone for those businesses?

I didn't read his tone as condescending.

> Similar to casino players ... don't care much about the actual business aspects

That's quite the generalization. Is it possible you've over-fit to a few observations?

If I'm not mistaken parent is talking about 'working for a startup' that IMHO isn't as risky as 'co-founding' the startup, which of-course has its whistle bells. Why would a 10th employee join a startup for the risk and not for the money ?

The OP as well talks about "founding a startup". I agree it is unclear what he is talking about.

From where I stand, it looks like you have your numbers backward. The reason you start a startup is so that you can work those 15-20 hour weeks (or less) without anybody giving you grief about it.

Shipping software works just fine on a few hours a weeks. Maybe a quick burst up front to get v1 out the door, but then you can ramp it down as far as you want to go. I've gone entire months without opening the IDE for some of my paying products.

The problem with client work is that as soon as you stop working, the client stops sending you money. SaaS doesn't work that way. Take advantage of that!

Most would refer to what you describe as 'lifestyle business'. I mean 'startup' as the type of startup you would see come out of YC. You work really hard, all the time. Company culture is encompassing, which means employees sacrificing a lot of time and mindshare. As a founder it becomes the only thing you think about, for years. That's startups of the YC vein, and they only want to fund startups that work this way. (Take a look at Sam's 'How to Start a Startup' course if this doesn't ring familiar).

Indeed. That's the definition on paper, but it's your business so you get to run it how you like. There is surprisingly little correlation between hours worked and end result.

I could have easily worked four years of 80 hour weeks, ruined all my relationships and given myself health issues building the product that pays my bills today. I can't imagine the monthly recurring revenue numbers would reflect that effort. It really is more calendar time and marketing that moves the needle. You can do that and still have plenty of time for product development working 10 hours a week.

You can make up quaint terms for it, but really all that does is flag it in your mind as something that's not for you. You really need to be doing that 80 hour week boiler room thing, else you're not startupping enough. So you do, and you're unhappy.

The end goal is to replace your salary by building a product. Call it a lifestyle business if you like. But be sure to do it.

I've tried and failed many times to come up with some kind of small SaaS app that I can just keep running in the background. All of my ideas seem to be just too niche, like solving some tiny problem that no-one would care to pay for. Mainly a lot of different integrations and synchronization between various services. And then I tried my hand at blogs with advertising, or Amazon affiliate sites that went nowhere. And monetized Youtube channels.

Do you have any advice about coming up with ideas for real products, that solve real problems for paying customers? I guess another issue is that the market is getting more and more saturated with mobile and web apps now. It seems like you have to be very lucky to stumble on the gold ideas: where it's very easy to build, and people really want to pay for it.

Or maybe I'm aiming too low, trying to find some minimal weekend app or website. What would be an average amount of effort that you need to put into your projects before you start seeing a return? Or do you crank out a whole bunch of app ideas until you find one that sticks?

EDIT: Really big coincidence, I just read the "How I Built a Side Project" post: https://stayintech.com/info/sideproject

That's almost exactly what's happened to me, 3 or 4 times now. I come up with an interesting idea, build it, post it on Reddit and Hacker News. It gets maybe 20,000 views, then traffic slows down, then I just end up paying a lot of money to keep it running. And it's usually something basic that's very tough to monetize.

I've been meaning to spin this into a full blog post, but here is the list of criteria that I use to evaluate new ideas:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9883697

Naturally, then you need to do all the traditional market validation steps, but this at least filters your ideas down to ones that maybe stand a chance.

I don't have any direct answers, but the more ideas you execute on, the better chance something 'sticks', and the best thing you can do is make it as simple and as painless as possible to launch prototypes. Each time you do a project, take time to abstract the code into reusable components, templates, etc. and integrate it into a generator infrastructure with nodes that represent different 'types' of apps. Then when another idea comes to you, go to your generator node that is most similar, and spin something up with most of your codebase there, front end and back, incl. a stylish landing page. This is a serious time investment to get going, but if you're serious about launching an online business that 'sticks', you're most likely going to need to try out a lot of things.

As far as getting good ideas, I think they almost always have to come to you organically because you have a fascination or interest in the area, or you experience an obstacle somewhere, or you have a need for it personally. PG (or maybe it was Sam) spoke about getting into the right mindset for idea generation in the Stanford startup course, and the gist of it was 'go travel'... i.e. by default be in a 15-20 hr/ wk (max) work setup so you have time to explore things as they pique your interest.

I'm not sure if a lifestyle business is seen as a degrading term when hurled at someone. The only people it's a lifestyle business for is people who already have the lifestyle of not necessarily having to work - investors.

What we have left is a term that's used to whack people who could add value in a lot of way to only think they can do it if a VC gives them their blessing of worth, validation and permission to innovate. I don't think that's accurate or fair to anyone.

For entrepreneurs, there is no lifestyle business, or owning a business until it can run without you.

There are plenty of SaaS businesses in the $1M to 5M/yr range that would be perfectly suitable "failures". To me, it doesn't seem unprudent prudent to collect a few of these "lifestyle failures" and be ready to build the $100M company instead of taking moonshots without any experience in building a business.

> The reason you start a startup is so that you can work those 15-20 hour weeks (or less)

I'm pretty sure any startup in the bay area is a counter example of your argument.

Being able to work remotely and at 20-40 hours a week would change my life - seriously. I know there is lots of information around on becoming a freelancer, but do you have any particular insights?

Getting to 40 hours/week is trivial (or rather, the difficulty is all on the emotional side) - you walk out the door after 8 hours every day, and you do it consistently.

Getting down to 20 is much harder, as is getting remote work - all I can suggest for that is being upfront about it, and only working in positions/contracts that are explicitly remote-first.

> which is why I'm so reluctant to do a startup, unless I think it's "the one."

IYO indeed. That you have found your way of doing things is wonderful and also incredibly lucky. That you consider opportunity cost a universally objective measure is complete fantasy though.

TL;DR: Always be highly skeptical of anyone claiming their way of life is the right way to live.

I'm proposing a very general rule, certainly, but I think you would still agree there are better and worse ways of spending your time.

What about founding a startup to try to make big money and then have the time to explore things?

There's a poor risk/reward ratio there.

It takes way too long for the average startup to be successful, and the overwhelming majority of them aren't successful enough to provide the economic freedom you are referring to.

If you can love the chase of a startup, and love the thrill and long hours, great!

If you are doing it so you can have "more free time later" there are many many better strategies.

Good point. Can you share some?

Here's one: Get a high-paying software job in a high COL area, work for a decade or so while minimizing your expenses (live cheaply/with friends) and investing as much as possible in a diversified stock market portfolio.

Then when you're sick of it, move to a cheaper area, get a part-time job and sell 3-4% of your assets every year to make up for the deficit. If you're lucky, the safe withdrawal rate of 3-4% will even be enough (or close) to have the ability to quit working for a living completely. Or perhaps your part-time job can cover all your expenses and you can just keep letting your portfolio grow at the expected long-term rate of 6-7% per year.

Really good advice; this is what I tell everyone who has a high value skill like coding. The actual time frame is probably even shorter than 10 years if you are aggressive about saving.

At what point during this sequence do you expect to have children? In what kind of area are you going to raise them?

This is exactly my strategy. I'm a developer and I invest my savings. My three kids keeps my away of applying the rest of the strategy right now :)

If you're happy with and able to have children after the 10 years of aggressive saving and investment, this strategy will also give you an extra financial buffer for raising kids. The basic strategy is not incompatible.

But obviously, your total spending will increase, so you either have to earn more after having kids or save up more before having kids. If you want to raise your children in a high cost-of-living area, this will of course be even more pronounced.

Here's one good article I've read on achieving economic freedom: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...

There's still a massive risk. What if you put three years of your life into a startup that becomes defunct after all that time?

Then you've lost three years of your life and have to go somewhere else.

Sure, you gain knowledge and experience through that time, but joining another company would still take time to work your way through the ranks there. In that three years, you would've had a great head-start on both professional experience and financial health.

Food for thought. Your statement just assumes the startup will do well and that's not a guarantee. There isn't a guarantee a company you work for will be around forever either, but the likelihood is far greater.

1) low probability

2) even lower probability if you're an opportunist as described (note that smart investors like YC actively avoid them).

3) large minimum years investment required, especially if acquired or acqui-hired, maybe 4-10 years, during which you suffer the opportunity costs I described.

4) just easier to explore and be open to the rare opportunities, while still making decent money, by doing something like consulting at low hours. From this position you can always do a startup if you see something great.

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