Comment by bsvalley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bsvalley | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been in this exact same situation. My best advise would be to start your business aside while maintaining your current job. Do not quit until you have some sort of version #1 of your product or whatever that is. You need data before making your desicion. I planned everything in my head but my steps were way too vague. I will build this kind of products or I’m even gonna try that business that has nothing to do with tech since I have these extra skills. That’s BS. In reality the only smooth transision from a guaranteed paycheck to your own net profite is huge. I lost too much time “trying out things” rather that executing tasks that were already planned ahead of time for a specific business. A business I knew from a fact that would generate an income right away based on feedback or prior experiences. In other words, time was the only missing variable in achieving those steps. In which case it would make total sense to quit your fulltime job to complete your tasks. Again, I didn’t have the data prior to leaving my job so I was running off of guesses and hope.

Back to reality after running out of savings and after freaking out, I took a huge slap in the face interviewing for 30 companies... trying to get the same job I hated before, having to go through all the painful and stressful interviews while seing my bank account getting closer to $0. At the end of the day I took a huge pay cut, I’m no longer working for a top tech company and I feel like I took 5 steps backwards in my 9-5 career. There are hundreds of young candidates out there who have the same skills, same background etc. And they all want your job. I don’t have any savings and I’m back at a crapy job at an average tech company. That sucks, but at least I still know I will ot retire from a 9-5 job in 20 years from now. I will try over and over until I’m able to generate a sufficent income from my own business. I had to go through this experience in order for me to learn something. Today I know exactly what to do next. Just need to recover from that free fall.

My best advise would be to start your business aside while maintaining your current job.

If the OP is struggling with the stress of his current role I fail to see how adding additional work is going to help.

At many companies, including all FANG-like companies, you can't start a business on the side. Your employer may claim ownership and you can be fired for breaking your employment contract.

In California, that's not the case. As long as it's not a competitor or in a similar space the company should have no claim to your business or ideas generated while not using the companies resources.

I made the assumption that the new startup would be in tech, in which case it almost certainly overlaps with his FANG employer.

The problem is that 'similar space' is too easily misconstrued. What exactly is the 'space' that Google or Amazon operates in?

I asked a California business attorney this question. She said that you really don't have that much protection. If your idea/company is valuable enough, your huge tech company employer will just sue you into oblivion. The legal costs alone will bury you. The specific California statute that protects what you do with your own time and resources doesn't protect you very much.

It's some protection, and there are niches that none of those tech companies have touched yet. I don't see why people don't see them. If it's a thought that should normally occur in your work day because it could related to your job description or company's products that you could reasonably have an impact on then you're not protected. If it's completely out of left field relative to the previous items then there's no way they could lay claim to it. How could they? Tech is much broader that a lot of people generally think about. Let's say you're doing front end work and your company is some social network but at night you have a brilliant idea for automating biological sample isolation using some robotic system you conjured up during a cup of hot cocoa on the weekend? How is the company going to even attempt to sue you for it when you used none of their resources, the idea was worked on during non-standard hours, and it has nothing to do with them?

If by tech you mean "along the same lines of what I'm doing at work" then you're gonna have a rough time. I do hope that your mind has the ability to wander a bit further from the train of thought you have you typically have while doing what you're paid for.

This goes for the other two replies above as well. If you have an original idea then you're safe. The hard part is having an original idea or even an idea that is several steps removed from a previous idea but still useful.

If you’re working at a FANG company, everything you could possibly do is “in a similar space.” They will lay claim to everything you do while simultaneously employed there.

I would give just the opposite advice - a man with one behind can't dance a two weddings. He has the savings, go for it. If he fails, go out and get another job.

Either decide to go all out or don't do it all. The stress of trying to juggle a full time job and a starting a business and being there for your family isn't worth it.

My point was for him to at least light up something first not to fully run a business on the side. Of course it's hard to maintain a 9-5 job and to run a business at the same time. Do you know Tarzan? It's exactly the same thing, make sure you're getting a grip on another liana when you make a move otherwise it'll hurt.

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