Ask HN: I just got laid off. Now what?
I've been kicking around the idea of attempting to start my own business, but don't know if I have the technical foundation. As some background, I've been working as a PHP developer for the last year or so. Before that, I had no programming experience, although I've always been fairly technical. I got a Microsoft certification my Freshman year of High School.
I've been through fairly great pains to educate myself though, and shortly after I started programming for a living, I picked up SICP and read through it and did all of the exercises. It greatly improved my skills, and since then I've digested a good number of programming books. While I feel I have a strong theoretical background (ish), I've not taken on any major projects. Most of the work I've done over this last year has been maintenance on an already completed accounting/shipping/receiving etc... system. I haven't had too much time to pursue projects other than working through books like SICP and a few other textbooks like "Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer programming" as I am also a full time student as well as a competitive pianist. I was also working full time.
Financially, I am neither in a good place or bad. I already freelance successfully, and even without my full time job, on average my freelancing covers about 1.5 times my monthly expenses (about 800 dollars.) I'll have a few grand set aside when I leave at the end of this month.
I have some experience using several frameworks and have implemented trivial projects in Django, Rails and Seaside. (Seaside was by far my favorite.) However, I am very lacking in my understanding of lower level computing details as well as systems administration (non-existent.)
I'm also 19, I don't say this to try and impress you, but I've encountered a fair bit of ageism working in technology. I think I'm competent, but a lot of people don't seem to be willing to give me a fair shake because of my age, or aren't willing to compensate me fairly. (I don't make outrageous demands). As an example, I was being paid less than 15 dollars an hour to do full time web development. I was happy with this because the environment was great, I had an office, dual monitors and a beast of a machine, so I felt pretty taken care of.
I guess my dilemma is this. Do I attempt to start a business or do I continue educating myself and freelance to pay the bills? Regardless of what I choose, I will still be a full-time student...