Has anyone left a great corporate job for entrepreneuriship and regretted it?
The added pressure and energy drain from working on your own machinations while working a full time job pales in comparison to the added pressure and energy drain from working against the clock. In my case it became a source of depression and a constant demotivator when I realized I was running into roadblocks. You cannot foresee all of the difficulties you will run into, you cannot rely on stories of other entrepreneurs doing so. They are half truths and tell only the triumphant side of it, ignoring the failures of the hundreds or thousands of others who's companies made it only to the paper stage then died with a whimper, much less being in the spotlight of the medium and techcrunch and online news articles and forums. You're hearing about certain entrepreneurs solely because they're outliers, not the norm - they're a good narrative.
Keep your job. Make the product. Make connections. Get Customers. Then make the company. Not the other way around. If you're the one in a million already has the connections and skills to make it happen then more power to you but statistically speaking, you probably don't. You should acquire those qualities with gusto but also with prudence.
Good luck.
(As an aside, I think the biggest problem I had was lack of a committed co-founder. I had help and support, but it's not the same. Later, I tried pushing again with potential co-founders, but they got distracted and lacked commitment when I really needed them.)
edit: I do plan to get back to it soon. I'm taking a forced six month hiatus to reset that concludes in July, and I'm kind of chomping at the bit for it. But only while doing my dayjob too! Not going to leave that again until I have paying customers.
I did this a few years ago, started my own company.
I failed for two reasons:
1. I wasn't experienced enough as a developer IN THIS TECHNOLOGY to hit the ground running.
When you are self-employed, time = money. You don't have time to learn the technology, figure out your business, and write the code. You have to hit the ground running and burning time on ramping up is extremely expensive.
2. I lacked the discipline required to maintain myself while working extremely hard at my start-up.
Additionally, I didn't take good enough care of myself. I was ignorant about how to be productive. I was working all of my waking hours, martyring myself for my start-up and then getting up the next day and doing it over again.
Here's a tip: This is bad and leads to failure if you aren't careful with your time, food, and sanity management. A lot of people like to glorify this behavior but really, excellence is a 24-hour job.
Working out, eating well, getting a good night's sleep, and then coming into work the next day with clear-eyes beats running yourself ragged with panicked late-night programming sessions every time. ( Although, some people like to work at night and that is totally fine, we all have our own form of productivity. )
My point is really more about taking care of yourself and BEING DISCIPLINED. Unless you are wealthy, you do not have time ( remember, time=money ) to make mistakes. Discipline is your buffer between your degrading sanity and your ability to make good decisions.
I'm pretty happy with how it's gone and I have no regrets over leaving. I was happy and well-treated in the real job, but nothing beats the freedom to work on what I want, when I want, using whichever technologies I want.
The biggest downsides for me:
1. Fewer opportunities to meet and collaborate with other nerds. I love working independently, but "argue with smart people" is a great way to refine your ideas. I wish I had more of that.
2. Fewer opportunities to learn from larger companies. Many companies have internal technologies, tools, processes, shell scripts, etc. that are truly inspired. Former employees get to take these ideas (though not the code itself) with them when they leave, to apply to future jobs or to their own startups. The more time you spend in the corporate world, the more of these tools you accumulate in your own tool belt.
Any advice?
What happened to your company from college-- did you shut it down? Sell it? Did it die on its own?
I don't think anyone can tell you whether it's the right time for you. Neither decision is permanent, though: If you do leave and it doesn't go well, it shouldn't be hard to go back to your old job or find a new one. "I took a year off, started a business, learned a lot, failed, and now I want a job" should go over well with most employers. If you don't leave, you can spend the next year learning more from your employer while tinkering with your idea on the side -- and then leave next year.
As you age, you'll tend to accumulate obligations. Marriage, kids, mortgage, elderly parents/relatives that need care, medical problems of your own -- things like this will make it harder and more risky to quit your job later in life. So if you're going to do it, your 20s are a great time.
My business kind of evaporated given the ever decreasing market share of Windows Phone. I was able to carve out a pretty nice little niche where I created small apps for Windows Phone in even smaller targeted niche markets where there was usually almost no competition. (I built Workout apps targeting specific exercises, I built small little games that were popular on iPhone and Android but never got ported to Windows Phone, alarm clock apps, I created a piano app that did really well, things like that) given the sparse selection of apps on Windows Phone most of my apps did pretty well with no marketing whatsoever.
I tried to pivot to iPhone and Android and saw a bit of success on Android but the business model didn't really translate to those platforms given the oversaturation of the app store, I saw my revenues dwindle down consistently and by the time I landed my first job two years ago my passive income had dropped to about 500 dollars a month, it's now completely gone, nobody uses Windows Phone anymore.
I am working on a much bigger app now targeting iPhone and Android, but the app market is tough to penetrate. I guess the only path for me going forward is to either stick with my current job that I know well and put in more work on the app, or look for a new job where I can learn more and earn a bit more but my responsibilities will most likely increase and I'll be forced to learn a new tech stack which can take a toll and could affect my ability to work on the app in off hours, I've been working on the app for about five months now and I really don't want to lose my momentum.
Anyway sorry for the rant lol, that's my predicament. I agree I could always go back to the workforce if anything goes awry but I'm not even at that decision yet, it's more a question of how do I allocate my time properly until I become profitable enough to make that decision, and how long do I put off moving my life forward given the uncertainty of the app market.
Since then I've tried to find more clients and not had much success, after taking a job and then quitting again. Looks like I may end up back in the corporate world soon enough.
So- no regrets from this attempt to find freedom, even though it's leading me back to where I started. I will say it's become clear to me that our socioeconomic system is not set up to support people becoming more free... quite the opposite.
Maybe if you try to make a SaaS business into something that requires VC-style scaling, it could backfire and cause regret, as you're committed to something that becomes more all-encompassing and lasts many years.
Not that I disagree with you. But I've run into the problem myself. I think what you state is probably the best option though. Just gotta get life in order enough to avoid the energy issue.
At least in California AFAIK the law says exactly what the poster above said which is that the company owns work related their area of business even outside work hours and not on company equipment.
I always think of it this way. You're at dinner (ie, off company time). While a dinner you think of a solution for something at work. Do you own that solution? Can you charge the company $$$$$ to sell them this solution you came up with outside company hours?
If yes then there's an incentive for you to never think on company time. If no then it seems pretty clear there's a spectrum from clearly related to the company's area of business to absolutely not related to the company's area of business. If you work at Facebook and on the side you design a new IoT coffee maker that's probably on the unrelated side. If you work at Facebook and on the side make a new social networking site probably on the absolutely related side.
If you want to be safe rather than wait for a court to decide get it in writing. At least when I was at Google they offered that service. You could bring them the idea and they'd tell you if it was related or not and if not give you a signed contract saying they officially had no interest in your outside project.
Yes, and signing this agreement is a condition of employment.
It takes a load of energy to work a full-time job, then come home and work on your side gig. I used to come home from work and not have anything left in the tank. I couldn't imagine working on a project alongside my current startup without sacrificing growth.
It's also a big social sacrifice. People have families, friends, roommates, etc to come home to. That can cause loneliness, and sometimes you'd just rather hang out with people than work.
There's also a lot to learn as a software engineer launching a SaaS company. Sales and marketing is pretty foreign to most engineers. It's hard to learn that on your own, in your spare time, without spending years doing it.
Do it all as side work, wait for that bigger client/contract, and then do your own thing.
Just over three years ago I left my cushy job at Facebook to start a company. It took a year and a half of grinding to make our first dollar. Now we're ramen profitable and still growing strong. [1]
The reason it took so long is because I was an inexperienced founder. I could build the product, but stuff like getting customers, pricing our product, writing a landing page... These are not things that software engineers at big companies have to worry about. It took years for me to pick up these skills, and I'm still learning loads.
And I'm so glad I learned them because now if I started all over again, it'd take a fraction of the time to build something successful.
Now, different people are different. If you really love solving technical problems and don't really care about sales/marketing/business, being a founder might not be right for you. If you have a low risk profile, or care a lot about work/life balance and comfort, big companies can be great for that.
[1]: https://canny.io
It would be extremely interesting to read what lessons you learned on this road :-)
Don't mean to come off as snarky, but, unless you are targeting corporations and enterprises for your service, your pricing model [2] would be too much for most bootstrapped companies and early stage startups...
[1], [2] https://canny.io/pricing
We don't sell to enterprises.
We've thought about introducing a free tier for smaller companies!
The start-up workplace culture was worse, work life balance was worse, the loud open-plan office was unhealthy, distracting and frustrating to work in.
Even on a generous expected value basis, favoring only high valuation exits or IPOs, and even as a super early stage employee, the compensation was way worse at the start-up compared with a stable high salary, bonus, retirement plan, and benefits.
To be clear, that is even if you assume away a lot of the risk for bad outcomes at the start-up and favor high valuation possibilities. Even still, the equity is manipulated by founders and investors and is so drastically unlikely to work out in a favorable way for employees.
If you are still open to suggestions, lets play out that scenario where you quit your job and start a business. Then you would: 1) Make an overall vision for your business. 2) Translate it to several phases. 3) Translate each phase into tasks. 4) Start working on tasks. If a task is too big, break it down to subtasks. 5) Incrementally start finishing tasks.
Now, can you do the above devoting an hour or so each day to it while being in your corporate job?
Sadly, if your business is in software, then your corporate employer will own your IP, and the answer becomes "No".
I wish we could all collectively refuse employment, but once you get the offer, not everyone has the luxury of saying "no, I'll go with a much lower salary at a smaller company".
The problem is not about entrepreneurship but in not planning for failure and having backup plans.
John Carmack: "There is wisdom that only comes from complete product cycles -- no amount of job hopping can provide it." [1]
From personal experience, I can say go for it not because you hate corporate, but because you want an end to end experience, then come back to an even better role, better pay cheque corporate job, if the gig fails but you have shipped and have good landing zone on failure (some months with expenses in bank mainly). HTH.
[1] https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/761986843319660548?...
You can find a well-financed co-founder and get a commitment for a paycheck for a fixed length of time (1-2 years). You will probably receive less equity in this situation, but you can still get enough equity to feel like a true co-founder along with enough of a paycheck to not be stressed about making ends meet.
I discovered what panic attacks were, and made it to February a few months ago before getting a less cushy day job. Although I had the financial runway to go longer, I didn't have the mental fortitude to keep it up with a wife and three kids I have to provide for.
We're still continuing nights and weekends at a much slower pace, but at a much more sustainable pace. The biggest challenge is keeping a moonlighting team motivated. My decision to fully vest my cofounders up front is paying off with this approach. I suspect it will be another 6-12 months before we go live at this point.
I've seen people who left day job to start companies and became very unhappy very quickly (within 6 months). The key thing is to have the right motivation and to manage expectation.
If the primary reason to start your own company is to look good in front of your other fancy friends, then you'd better not do that in the first place. Doing startup is roller coaster. You won't look good in front of others all the time. Actually, for a long period of time (many months ~ many years), you may look pretty bad, in terms of product metrics, income, company reputation...
Some of my friends asked me whether they should start a company, I typically suggest them to answer these questions first:
* Have you made over $10k on your own? Not from your day job salary. Not from public stock market. Making money needs practice. You start a company to make money. You'd better have some experience of making money first.
* What's your longest project? Have you worked on anything for multiple years? Grit & patience need practice. Building a successful company takes multiple years, even decades. Be prepared.
* When was the last time you were insulted by others? If you grew up in a very comfortable environment (rich family, great schools -- because your parents went to those great schools too, great companies, ...), probably you already get used to compliment for your entire life. Now you are going to face very very diverse set of people who don't know your family background or don't recognize your family name, if you start a company. If you are the kind of people that are easy to be upset, you'd better stay in the friendly corporate.
* What happened when you broke up with your ex or your friends? People relationship is complex. You'll experience a lot of bad people relationship if you start your own company -- breaking up with cofounders, firing employees, fighting evil investors, fighting con man, fighting bad reporters, dealing with malicious users, dealing with competitors (sometimes in person)... All kinds of drama. You'd better practice this kind of things before starting your own company.
No regrets with my decision now. Once my business slowed down (read: I automated much of it), I actually went back and spent two years at a startup + 1 year contracting to bring in some extra money and get new experiences. The extra cash was certainly nice, I used it to setup a nice start on retirement and buy a house. Ultimately, though, my hatred of corporate politics and building wealth for the capital class without equity of my own led me to re-focus on my SaaS app. I've been enjoying the freedom and challenges ever since.
But I've realized with time that I'm just not built for the corporate world so it's not even an option for me anymore. After 6 months working for a corporation, I feel like shit and I have to quit for my own mental health.
After working for startups for a while and taking risks all the time, I'm no longer the same kind of person as the typical corporate office worker and it's hard for me to fit in such environment.
If I didn't have better options, I would probably do contract job hopping from one corporation to another every 6 months... I did that for a while and it gave me a certain feeling of control over my life which made me feel kind of like a one-person startup.
You're basically gambling that the other founders won't scuttle the startup just to spite you. This way, you get to enjoy the possible lottery winnings from the startup eventually making it big, while simultaneously having the safety and comfort of a corporate job.
I think the only factor that I have regrets about was financially. Not so much about having to cut into savings because I had good enough cushions anyway, but just realizing that I could've had 3 more years of high pay and stocks and padding the investment account with more money, and putting myself 3 more years away from retirement (or maybe more considering compound etc).
Other than that, entrepreneurship was an awesome experience that I wouldn't trade for anything else really.
Here’s my project, it’s not launched yet but check it out https://www.ngrid.io
The looming regret I felt coming on in my great corporate job would’ve been not leaving. Having close to no control over your schedule except for PTO is no way to live.
1. I started by switching to contracting, I had a good reputation in my niche and plenty of contacts. Mostly it was lots of fairly short contracts which allowed me to develop my own product in the inevitable quite periods between jobs. I did this for two years before I quite contracting.
2. I wasn't a very good employee, it wasn't until some time after I left the corporate world that I really understood that it didn't suit me.
3. I'm a saver, it would have been much harder to do if I lived from pay check to pay check.
It's a different way of thinking and I like it. The comfort & security that comes from a steady paycheck can go in an instant. Don't let that false security keep you stuck in the rat race. Nobody wants to pay for you if they don't have to.
I went to someone else's startup to escape corporate then success turned it quite corporate as well. The process left me burnt. Now I contract and it's not all roses, but I would never go back to the office life.
Corporate was unhealthy for me in mind body and spirit. You get lumpy, you drink more, you eat garbage, you sleep worse, potential back & cardiac problems down the road and most importantly sex dies.
fwiw, my father was an alimony ridden fine artist and my step father was a senior partner at a big 4 accounting firm. My dad was a really happy, well read and interesting guy. My stepdad's life is textbook american dream perfection and it's a very sad and bland one.