I am quitting my job. Is this a good idea? | Hacker News Reader

I am quitting my job. Is this a good idea?

10 pointsheyyouyou19 comments

Hi HN, I am 25 years old and working as a programmer for 2 years now. I have a good amount of money saved up (>75 k cash) and I am planning on quitting my job and trying to figure out what to do next. I don't hate my job I make good money and I get to save a lot. But I don't love it either. I have a couple of ideas for startups and some random apps that could potentially make money and I am planning to quit in the coming months. I wanted to know from other people who have been in the same situation, what are the most common pitfalls? Is having 75k enough of a runway? If I fail how long is the average job search? What are some things I should know about before quitting? What are the most common reasons people fail?

Thanks!

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You probably want 2 years of expenses saved if you want to do a startup. Generally during the first year you are adjusting your idea for market fit and figuring out how to get your product in front of your potential customers. I would also budget an extra 4 months to retrain and find another job in the advent the startup fails.

An option would be to see if your employer is willing to let you work on a side project for money (they might be OK with it provided the side project doesn't relate to what they employ you for). If so, while you are figuring out the startup, you will still have income and can quit if it takes off.

Unfortunately my current employer is fairly unopen to the idea of any kind of commercial development on the side.

That's not the only option.

You can create your software on the side, offer it for free and only quit your job and start charging when the software takes off.

The hardest and least predictable thing is finding product/market fit. I don't know how to do it (other than launching a product and waiting to see if it takes off) and while I lurk in startup-related forums like r/startups, most of the ideas I see seem very unrealistic (from the point of view making money).

Second hardest thing is finding users (i.e. marketing and such) even if you have a decent product.

Also, beware procrastination. Many people underestimate how easy it is to not work when you don't have to. You might be an exception (you can test it by doing 8hr of work on your project on Sat/Sun and seeing if you can keep it up for e.g. a month).

If you have an anti-side-development employer I am not sure your loophole will help. I would suggest to OP simply not having any public product at all until after you leave your employer, and even then waiting a couple weeks to make it less obvious that it was ready to launch before you left.

Otherwise you are opening yourself to lawsuits from employer.

Do it! But only if you believe in what you are building. Actually, do it even for the sake of trying :) If you manage your money right >75k is plenty. You are at the best age to take risk, it will only get harder as you get older. Also, I think you are asking the wrong questions, you can't start off with an "if I fail" mentality, be optimistic. Are you European? :) haha jk

The journey is ...Fun, challenging, stressful, extremely stressful, rewarding, requires huge sacrifices, unfair, vicious, a great learning experience, mostly filled with lows but the highs are totally worth it.

I don't know if I have answered your questions but the best way to find answers is to try, you really have nothing to lose but a whole lot to gain. Godspeed!!!

I am also 25 and have been working for my current employer for almost 2 years and its like I wrote this post myself. I feel exactly the same way you do only I have a side project that I am passionate about, but not enough runway to pursue it full time. It's hard to walk away from a steady income and easy to say you will work on your projects on the weekend but the real difficulty comes in evaluating how much you are losing by not investing your all in something you believe in. I am still trying to make that decision.

Keep your day job . . . keep saving . . .

Explore/validate your startup ideas/apps as side projects.

Minimize any public connection to your side projects, privacy protection for your domains, don't discus them with anyone with a connection to work.

Review your employment contracts for any IP clauses.

Don't log in to, browse to or work on your side projects at work.

Creating a startup is hard and can take a while to ramp up to bringing in decent revenue.

Explore learn and polish your skills on the side as long as you can while working and saving.

Decent jobs are hard to find, enjoy the one you have if you work another two years you could have a 150k runway or more.

If you employer is really against any outside projects and you do have clauses in your contract indicating they own IP rights to anything you do another option is interview and try to find another job that is completely open to side projects.

By the way . . .

"But day to day its very slow and a bit boring." -OP

That's why they call it work.

It sounds like you have the desire to run your own startup. I would prepare and lay the groundwork while you're employed as long as you can saving as much as possible.

Check for any documents you signed when you started your current job or any other binding agreements with them, you could even hire an attorney for a few hours to see if they would have any claim to IP/ideas you start while working there.

If they say they wouldn't have any IP claims I would work on your ideas 'under cover' as long as you can till one gets traction.

Have you listened to StartupsForTheRestOfUs.com? If not check it out.

1. Grass isn't always greener elsewhere.

2. You're young and have time to learn from mistakes.

3. Do what you want and don't overthink things.

4. Remember that if you make a move and don't like the new job you might want to find a third job that's good rather than going back to the first one, so try to find a job that's at least as good as the current one before you make a move.

Why don't you look for another job?

Instead of spending 75K on living expenses while figuring out your "startup idea", why don't you do this:

1. Take 40K, and spend 4 months traveling some part of the world (Asia, South America). Meanwhile investigate a startup idea and find a co-founder. Work out of internet cafes/hostels etc. Now at least your money was well spent. Start building something (prototype).

2. Now you have an idea, prototype and cofounder, raise money (YC) and build your startup. If you can not raise seed funding, apply for jobs and get a new job. Do not burn through all your savings please.

Just to say that I agree with this but you could do it on way less than $40k in SEA. I spent ~$10k in a year and did not live frugally.

75k really is about 6 months of expenses and costs. Biggest mistake people fail is not having enough runway. If your living in the midwest and your monthly costs are $3-$4k a month (remember you need health insurance) then you'll have 2-4 months additional runway. Best recommendation, take some time away from work, but get serious about having a schedule and having a date/metric about when you must get another job. Another big thing I've seen is lack of execution, the technology is the easy part, running the business consistently is hard. Use freshbooks.

Thanks for the response. I like the idea of having a date/metric that I should stick by.

Considering people can live on $30k a year...which is what some jobs pay.

>> 75k really is about 6 months of expenses and costs.

What kind of expenses and costs are you talking about?

Save more money and start developing some of your ideas on the side. At some point you'll figure out which one scratches the right itch - then pull the trigger.

The average job search is about 3 months. Sure if your good you'll get tons of job offers but if you want to get the right one, it takes that much time. Expect multiple rounds and multiply reviews that take 3-6 weeks from first in person to offer.

Thanks! I'll need to factor in a few more months of runway for a potential job search.

I'm doing almost the exact same thing - but I'm moving from San Francisco to South America to learn spanish + work on my projects. 75k is definitely enough runway, but if you can move to a lower cost place it'll go even further

I think you should elaborate a bit on why you are quitting your job. Is it because what you are doing now is "just OK" and you think working on a startup would be more fulfilling and exciting?

yes definitely. I think my current work is not very fulfilling. Don't get me wrong there have been some technical challenges that have been fun to solve over the past 2 years. But day to day its very slow and a bit boring. Everything kind of speeds up before a release and its fun for a month or two and then everything kind of dies down.

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