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Comment by mdoerneman | Hacker News Reader

As a 31 year old with a full-time job to pay the bills and a family to raise, I feel like there is not enough time to act on my ideas so they just continue to collect dust. Stories like this give me motivation but I still haven't found the answer to the question: "how can I focus on my ideas full-time and still pay the bills and support my growing family?". In other words, I don't have the savings for two and half years of hustling on no salary and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I will continue searching for the answer. Thanks for the story!

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As someone who is somewhat in your position and I'm now in my third start-up (last two failed miserably but taught me SO much)I think you are asking the wrong question: "how can I focus on my ideas full-time and still pay the bills and support my growing family?"

I think you should focus on picking one of the hundreds of ideas you might have and set a reasonable time-frame and strip your apps functionality to the core.

Once you arrive at that point, just set aside one hour, even half an hour a day to work on your new start-up. Before you know it you have a product and are up and running and at least have the opportunity to see what happens. This gives you the experience and the opportunity to fail many times (if you decide to do it more than once) so you get the hang of it and still be able to support your family.

Don't regret not trying.

Please accept this in a sincere and non-adversarial tone.

You don't need 2.5 years of a salary and full-time. Thinking that you need that is just an excuse. What you need is to set your priorities and be able to find a way to work an hour or two a day. Surely you can do that? If not, surely you can find a few hours on the weekend? Yes, you'll probably have to sacrifice some things. What you'll have to sacrifice depends on your own situation.

I'm not sure where I read this quote but it sticks with me... "those who want to accomplish something will find a way, those who don't really want to will find an excuse"

You take a look at your life, identify that hour here and half-hour there that aren't getting you closer to where you want to be, and use them for nights-and-weekends hacking. Then you start a long slog of little-by-little improvement. Eventually, the business eclipses the day job, and you quit. If you feel like it, you can then start another slog.

I have a very modestly successful small business, built over the last five years and change. At all points over that interval, I had sufficient income to maintain a wife and children to a standard of living commonly accepted among middle class folks where I live.

There are other options, such as "Transition from full-time salaried employment to contracting/consulting/etc, make a lot more money than you do right now, buy time with money."

> At all points over that interval, I had sufficient income to maintain a wife and children to a standard of living commonly accepted among middle class folks where I live.

Except for one little detail: you didn't have a wife and children, and that more than anything made it possible for you to identify that half-hour here and hour there that allowed you to make your move.

Having a wife and children has a huge impact on the amount of time available just to get through the things that have to be done and it is very well possible that at the end of all that you're left with too little time rather than too much.

Do contracting and consulting really pay reliably more than salaried work?

In either case it seems like programmers make enough money to save up living expenses if they only lived like people in blue-collar professions. I saved enough money from my summer coding internship for many months runway easily. ($3000 a month from my internship plus a $3000 stipend; both after taxes; $1000 a month estimated burn rate based on $750 a month for rent and utilities and ~$5 daily food budget by buying all of my food from the dollar store.)

When consulting doesn't pay it gives you time to work on your project.

All that really matters is how much you get paid per hour right? If high paying hours were easier to come by through salaried work, you could just work at a job with a salary for a year and then quit.

I have some good news and I have some bad news for you. The good news is it is possible to be some type of success while raising your family. Lots of people do it all the time. The bad news? The success will be limited compared to that person who just focuses on their work. True, that person has other problems to face which may destroy it and they are a rare breed of people but they must make a sacrifice in order to obtain it.

Why is this? Simple math. 24 Hours In A Day x 365.25 Days in a Year x 75 or so years in life = 657,450 hours in life. That's it. You maybe lucky and get more but chances are you'll get less than 657,450 hours.

Every time you use an hour for one task, you give up an hour for another task. One hour spent on your family means one hour lost working on your project. Then again, if your lucky, you may find inspiration in that one hour with your family that may help your idea but that diminishes if your work dwindles into areas which have very little to do with human interaction (e.g. Highly Abstract Math or Physics or Chemistry).

Just my two cents.

"success will be limited compared to that person who just focuses on their work"

Exactly. A person pursuing a career that is well laid out (such as medical school and then practicing as a physician) knows what they have to do to succeed. As an entrepreneur there is no road map. You have to have plenty of irons in the fire and will end up wasting time on things that won't pan out. You have to be selfish and put the success of the venture above everything else.

This is the correct answer. Sure you can work smarter; sure, you can come up with superior ideas; but time is almost always the limiting factor in execution.

It's unpopular to rally against the cheerleading "you can do it!" crowd here, but the reality is that you've made a choice to have a family, and that choice carries some consequences with it. Some people who have families choose to pursue their work above all else anyway, but this approach often carries the cost of divorce, resentful children, and some degree of social ostracism.

I'm in this position but I'm not going to let it stop me. The best lesson I've learned from HN is that I don't have to do it all myself (even as a solo founder). I need to learn how to outsource intelligently. Not there yet, but the wheels are slowly turning....

"degree of social ostracism"

because people understand when someone works for someone and has to work but they don't understand when someone works for themselves and chooses to work.

or because if you've already started a family you are generally expected to spend a certain amount of time looking after them/enjoying their company. People get socially ostracised/divorces/estranged children for working too hard at the office too.

Kids grow up really fast, and there are no do-overs.

So true. And I can say without a shred of doubt that I wouldn't trade what I have with my kids for ten facebooks.

I'm in a similar position to you, although I'm almost nine years down the line. I've spent most of my thirties raising a family and climbing the corporate tech ladder, doing jobs which didn't really interest me but paid reasonably well. I too have seen opportunities and ideas go to waste because I didn't think there was time to concentrate on them as well as home life etc. What didn't click was that I was spending so many hours at work that home life was suffering anyway. I'm now doing what I can on my own ventures and cutting back on extra obligations for my (full time) job. Previously I'd be the first guy to roll up my sleeves and pull a 24 hour session at work to fix an issue. Not now (although needs must on occasion).

Having an understanding partner can help. My wife is supportive of my efforts as we both realise that despite being financially comfortable at the moment, we will never be rich and I will never be completely satisfied carrying on in my current or similar roles. And who knows what will happen in the next 30 years? I may spend most of those out of work, unable to get a job due to my age. A fear of regretting never even having tried is a big motivator for me.

As others have said here, there is time to be found. Cut down on the TV. Don't work such long hours for other people. Get up an hour earlier than everyone else, especially at weekends. What I've found is that simply by doing 'stuff', I've become more efficient and more productive with the time I have. Ideas seem to be flowing more easily now as well. You can do it. Good luck.

Sometimes you have to burn all the ships (it is said that Cortés burned all his fleet before launching an attack on the Aztec to keep his men from retreating).

I burned all my ships 5 years ago when I decided to quit a fairly successful career as a network engineer for "bigco". I also moved to another city, (literally) burned my rolodex and told everyone I was starting a venture.

I'm still not an "overnight success" but I can tell you one thing: when you can't go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward. In 6 months I was already ramen profitable.

Nothing against your method (it's what I did) but with a family things might look different.

I'm perfectly fine living from pizza and internet for 2 years. But if I had a wife (+ kid) I guess I wouldn't be too comfortable with that lifestyle.

I hear ya! I have lots of ideas that are collecting dust. I found that having a partner helps. Not only to bounce around ideas and build the product with but also for mutual dependence. Just like the author stated he didn't want to give up because of his loyalty to his co-founder, I find the same loyalty to my co-founder is what keeps me working nights and weekends... even when I'm exhausted from working all day and putting my 4 kids to sleep in the evenings. It's definitely difficult but rewarding.

Mine is to do freelance job in between to support myself in building my own ideas. If you are good and find the appropriate clients, freelancing can give you a good amount of money to have some runway before getting anther contract.

Any suggestions on how to find the "appropriate clients"?

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