Thank HN: 127 days since I asked for your advice. | Hacker News Reader

Thank HN: 127 days since I asked for your advice.

253 pointsthrowaway26744 comments

127 days ago I posted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2005314 which asked for some specific assistance going corporate, and generally stabilizing what was a precarious scenario. (moving to a new city without full-time employment, with $100k in debt hanging over me.)

Since that time, things have been going well. One of willheim's suggestions was to reach out to alumni of my alma mater, and that one turned out to be the winner.

I felt strange at first, but I started sending emails and LinkedIn messages saying "I'm new to Philadelphia and I see you also graduated from my alma mater. Would you mind grabbing a cup of coffee with me, and maybe giving me a little bit of your local wisdom?"

I did this a ton of times, and wound up with three very positive outcomes:

1) I got a social life, which was emotionally fantastic.

2) One of my fellow alumni works in HR and they gave me great, honest feedback about my resume and some of the cover letters I'd written that (I believe) made it much easier for a hiring manager to understand what I bring to the table.

3) Another one of my fellow alumni tipped me off about an unadvertised position in their firm that's a great fit for me as a first step back into corporate life.

tldr; 127 days later I have a network of local friends and acquaintances, a great job, and my debt is shrinking at a $6k/month clip. And a large part of this is because I took willheim's advice about reaching out to alumni networks that (honestly) I never would've thought to tap.

Out of curiosity: Damn, $6k per month? What kind of work are you doing to have that much left over for debts?

Yea I'd be interested to know this too!

I'm working as an IT Director.

We're living extremely frugally when it comes to absolutely everything other than career-related expenses, and my fiancée is covering all of the shared bills.

If you saw our apartment, you'd probably guess that our combined income is around 10% of our actual combined income. (It's terrible, but it's a short, well-lit, heavily populated walk to the Broad Street Line, so it seems safe.)

This one fact alone means you have WINNER written all over you. Bravo!

And that you found a WINNER. Don't let her get away :)

Damn straight, I found one like that and I'm glad to be with her every day :)

Congratulations! Way to not only capitalize on your talent, but to make sure you're not encumbered by debt in the future. Best of luck to you and your soon-to-be-wife.

I'm interested in hear more about what your job is like. Would you email me to chat a bit?

Congrats, on both finding the right gig and fiancée! For those who missed it, here's his story on how he actually trimmed his $200k debt into $100k in just a year: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2008818

Do yourself a favor and continue living as close to this as possible. It will be the quickest route to financial independence.

awesome news! keep up the good work.

on a side note, perhaps this is a benefit of attending college that a lot of the anti-education crowd here on HN might not realize --- connections with alumni from your alma mater. of course, you still need to take massive initiative like OP did, but at least that option is available to you.

Hey, pgbovine, I think you and I go to the same school! Also, I think this is true of other organizations too (I've met people through Barcamps, gyms, hobby clubs...)

Would you mind grabbing a cup of coffee

Agreed, this is key. Meeting people in person has amazing power. Call it serendipity if you will. For it to work, make sure you tell the other person that you are not looking for a job at their company.

I know I'm repeating myself, but http://letslunch.com does exactly that for entrepreneurs and tech people. Serendipity, no hidden-agenda get-togethers.

where is the serendipity in using a website to meet influential people, for the purpose of talking about your business?

You meet your peers. You don't know who are meeting when you sign up. So you bump into ex-Yahoo employees starting cool startups, a Zynga employee, etc... To me, that's extreme serendipity :-)

The VIP stuff (meet Drew Houston and Trip Adler) is just the icing on the cake.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Using the website could mean that you are open to serendipitous lunches?

Either way, I just signed up to see what it is all about, and +1 for the Princess Bride reference.

Meeting the love of your life by banging heads as you both reach for the last copy of your favourite magazine is serendipity. Arranging a date via an online dating site is not.

Thanks for the link, this looks interesting… I recently tried to have lunch more often with my existing connections (former colleagues et al), but it would be great to expand my lunchmates.

Link - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2005314

Awesome story and congrats. I second pgbovine's point that maybe the diplomas that grant instant kinship to fellow alums is worth quite a bit. I wonder if we can hack the kinship part without the tuition part?

Another question. Paying down your debt at $6K/month is fantastic (implying you are above and beyond you and your spouse's living expenses and the interest on the debt). However, based on your last post that debt was $70K credit card and $30K IOU to co-founder.

Now that you are back on your feet, have you considered declaring bankruptcy or defaulting on the credit cards? It'll ruin your credit and stress you out, but saving $70K while building a $6K a month nest-egg seems worth considering.

I hate suggesting that people walk away from their debt, but 7 years of bad credit vs. $70K today is the trade. Bankruptcy / consumer credit laws exist to help the little guys; the ABS traders and investors who package and buy your debt price in a certain delinquency / default rate in all their credit card deals. That comes from my own experience working on a hedge fund ABS desk. You'll probably miss the $70K a lot more than the people who have an unsecured claim on it.

Edit: OP responded with a firm "NO" to defaulting on the debt. Congrats again, much respect!

Now that you are back on your feet, have you considered declaring bankruptcy or defaulting on the credit cards? It'll ruin your credit and stress you out, but saving $70K while building a $6K a month nest-egg seems worth considering.

Maybe he thinks he is part of a society larger than just himself, perhaps he has some kind of moral framework, some notion of wrongness, or some self-respect that would stop him from reneging on his promises.

Not to mention that declaring yourself bankrupt when you have such a good income is almost certainly illegal.

Not to mention declaring bankruptcy with a high steady income guarantees that judge/trustee will not rule in favor of walking away from debts. The most that will happen is a longer payment time on some of those debts.

Yeah. I'm no bankruptcy law expert, but I'm pretty sure you have to show that you can't possibly pay back your debts, not just throw up your hands and say "Whoops, bankrupt! Can't possibly pay back the debt I'm currently paying back at $6K a month!"

Unless you're Donald Trump!

With the immoral practices of most credit card companies once you're in such deep debt, defaulting almost seems more than fair.

Morals work two ways.

> have you considered declaring bankruptcy or defaulting on the credit cards?

No. While I believe bankruptcy is an incredibly useful tool to help people take risks and recover from bad situations, I don't want to abuse it. I have plenty of earning power, and a year and a half of modest living won't kill me.

That, sir, is a very noble answer to an issue that doesn't deserve to be treated nobly. For most people, the snowballing effect of fees on maxed-out credit cards' interest rates + fees = impossibility, and bankruptcy is the only option. For a long time there was no cap and no limit on how much credit cards could gouge people, and that alone was the profit engine of banks. The fact that the US government made it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy (2005 or so) does not help.

> I wonder if we can hack the kinship part without the tuition part?

Y Combinator? Seriously, it's' the future graduate school that teaches you how to be an entrepreneur and pays you to do it! You know what the kinship to fellow alums is like in the Y Combinator network :-)

1. Congrats. It's amazing to hear and read a story like this; I'd love to read a post with even more details down the road!

2. Why is your name in green on HN?

The green means the account is new.

Hey! That's awesome! Thanks for coming back and letting us all know how you did and that I played a small part in it. (small as in that was one tiny blurb I mentioned and all the hard work was done by you alone). It made my day to read that.

Enjoy Philly!

Your decision to share that advice may have been small, but it helped me identify a large opportunity.

My thanks to you, again.

Without any intention to be rude trying to get in your personal life, you don't mention her at all. And I guess she played a major role in your "recovery", no?

It was incredibly useful to know that I had complete freedom to pursue my career however I wanted and that she'd provide support, advice and a financial runway to the best of her ability. As such, I wholeheartedly recommend finding a wonderful, supportive and loving wife.

That said, I don't know how to replicate my success in that matter, so I don't have much to say about it on HN.

CONGRATS! I though would appreciate some input on the resume help you got. I'm almost on the edge pf having to convert to corporate as you did. PM me please.

If you're going to @PhillyTechWeek, which I expect you are, hit me up via email.

I won't be attending any of the events due to conflicts with work and an already packed schedule.

It looks fun, but I'm slammed for the next month or so and can't justify taking the time off for events that are only tangential to my career at the moment.

I'm from Philadelphia, too! What neighborhood are you in?

near Passyunk and Broad.

Just curious, do you think this same strategy could work for finding someone to date? Cold emailing asking for a cup of coffee? Do I need to sneak in a hidden agenda?

If it is entirely out of the blue and you have nothing in particular to discuss, it might come across a bit weird or creepy. Expanding your social circle is probably a great start though.

If you're charming enough, it might work, but if you're charming enough, you probably don't need tricks like these.

This can work in rare occasions, but has a high probability of coming off as creepy.

The entire reason for dating sites, more or less, is to create a list of people who are open to a cold-email for dating and facilitate the process.

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