Ask HN: Overwhelmed between day job and side projects; what would you do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Overwhelmed between day job and side projects; what would you do?

11 pointskylebragger5 comments

I'm reaching a point where I am feeling pretty overwhelmed out between my day job, and a few side projects I've got going. I founded Forrst last January, and it's now me plus two full time guys, with a third on the way. We're raising some money and doing pretty well in terms of growth. Starting to look at the business side a bit, but only casually; the community is still pretty new and wouldn't benefit from us trying to turn the revenue knob up to 11 quite yet. I also built Streak.ly and Facto.me as experiments, in September 2010 and January 2011 respectively. The former has something like 4k users, with about 500 using it regularly, and the latter somehow managed to grow to 5,600 users, 30k facts, and 500k pageviews in 19 days. Both were intended to be fun distractions from Forrst, and both ended up getting a tiny bit of traction (Facto even ended up in some CNN article). Finally, I have youshouldworkwith.me going on the side, which has been pretty fun thus far, and a nice bit of extra income; it's pretty low impact (I'll do a few hours a week). Anyhow, fundraising is intense, and I'm generally feeling pretty overwhelmed with the side projects, specifically support and wasted potential. I didn't really plan for either Streak.ly or Facto to actually go anywhere, but now I'm sitting on a ton of support requests and feel guilty as hell for not putting any time into either, as I think both could be successful in one way or another. I thought about trying to sell both side projects, and would be open to offers there, but moreover am just looking for some insight (or a good kick in the ass) about what could be done about it all, aside from the perhaps obvious "don't start any more side projects" bit. I figured this situation is likely nothing new to the HN community, and would be glad to hear anything you've got.

Offering a well intentioned "good kick in the ass" on HN is fraught with quite a few risks but I believe it is the most helpful thing I can give to you.

Try to take a step back and look at your situation differently -- If you boil it down, you are essentially complaining about gaining traction.

Countless entrepreneurs would love to have your problem. Even in your 'fun' projects you have shown a real knack for delivering something desirable and useful enough to gain traction.

The traction results in an increased support workload. On the technical side, the traction results in an increased server workload. Since you are not profiting from the traction, you are unable to scale.

You get the same amount of time in each day as everyone else, so if you don't plan to scale, the time you have will become impacted with things you would rather avoid.

Selling off your side projects is an answer but it is not the optimal answer. A better answer is two fold; (1) find a way to profit from the traction, and (2) use those funds to hire someone to take care of some of the added workload.

Every successful entrepreneur learns to manage the constant cycle of acquiring new responsibilities and then delegating those new responsibilities to others. Since you can only fit so much food on your plate, the answer is to keep adding people holding empty plates.

It sounds like all your side projects have the potential to grow into full-fledged startups. Maybe you should try to get some of your friends (who are as passionate about the projects as you) interested in joining as co-founders. Share the load.

Also, if the side-projects are generating profit, then use that to hire people (for support, etc.)

And lastly and perhaps most importantly, send me an invite to Forrst!

What's the old quote? "No one can serve two masters?" I think you need to find a way to divest yourself of some of your "stuff." If Forrst is your main business, I'd suggest finding a way to get out of working on the others and focus on Forrst. Selling is an option, or maybe take on some new partners and just step back to a low-demand advisory role, but it really seems like you need to lighten your load. Not only is it probably better from a business perspective, but you also don't want to burn yourself out or lose your sanity.

But the first, absolutely first, "action item" is "Send mindcrime an invite to Forrst." Do this and all else shall become clear. ;-)

Gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

Its nice that you have side projects that are growing and doing well, but realistically, you have to look at the hard reality that they'll probably fade in time. You gotta stick with your main bread winner, and that looks like Forrst.

If someone was holding a gun to your head and asked you what you want to do before he kills you, what project would you choose?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com