I'm out, baby | Hacker News Reader

I'm out, baby

164 pointspalish99 comments

First, I want to say thank you to each of you. Everyone in the Hacker News community has contributed to the creation of this incredible venue for exchanging ideas, and you deserve a lot of credit for it.

Friday will be my last day at my corporate job. In the past, I've mentioned that as soon as I'd saved up $15k, I was going to focus full-time on getting my startup off the ground. I recently achieved that goal:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/bank.PNG

Wish me luck.

-- Shawn

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I saw the title and thought it was someone bitching about HN content going downhill and leaving the site and was ready to tell you good riddence, but the actual post was a welcome alternative. Good luck!

I still remember the drive home on a Friday when I left for the last time -- an inexplicable feeling. When I pulled the pin about eight years ago I had about $25K put aside and it went a lot faster than I thought it would!!!

Either way, you're in for a wild ride. Enjoy it!!!

I did two and a half months of that two years ago. Rented a private office and had all day every day to work on my idea.

Today I don't even know how those months just disappeared, except that I got nothing substantial done at all. I do remember a few 'small distractions' from an earlier client that needed 'a little' work done. Then there was the sleeping in and the internet procrastination. Oh, it was also really lonely and weird.

My advice is to be acutely aware of your opportunity and cease every second like your life depended on it. Plan which things you need to get done, with priorities and estimates. Also, try to have someone else involved in the effort, if only a couple of hired gun programmers. That's how I am going to play it when the next time rolls around (real soon now).

> Today I don't even know how those months just disappeared...

Could it be that you were a bit burned out? I know it used to take me about 2-3 months between contracts or jobs before I got relaxed and hungry enough to want to dive back into really hard work. A longer runway than 2.5 months is definitely a good idea if you're starting from ground zero.

I was really burned out in 2000, but I had enough savings from the bubble to take some time off. It took me about 6 months to get really interested in things again, and what I ended up doing professionally at that point was totally different from programming for a living.

Congratulations!

(one of my favorite things about this community is that the appropriate response to "I quit my job" is "Congratulations!")

Congratulations. Truly.

You've chosen to actually do instead of just pipe-dream, and you're taking a huge risk all for the reward of working on something you actually love doing. This is what life is all about.

Even if this attempt fails, you've already won.

more appropriate title: "i'm in, baby"

Fuck yes. Congrats man and keep us all posted. If you have a beta, please sign me up: dan[at]ticketstumbler[dot]com.

Friday is going to be one of the best days in your life.

yes man, its goin to be one of your best days

Shawn, welcome to a rewarding , frustrating, jaw-dropping, wonderful, scary, awesome part of your life. Taking risks may be risky but the alternative is to never know what might have happened... looking back I feel worse about the chances I didn't take, than the chances I did take.

When I left the military I had substantial savings to get a startup off the ground and finish a graduate degree.

I decided to write software to help people write better. I always had issues with my own writing as was excited about an extended GNU Style / Diction that could curb my own bad habits.

I created http://www.polishmywriting.com/ as a technical demonstration for my rule engine. I spent the month of June working very long days to write the engine, build the site, and research/import nearly 8,000 rules into the database.

Once I had completed this, I decided to reach out to my friends and old coworkers to get feedback. To my surprise there wasn't much interest. I took this as a red flag about the technology. Without any local validation/support I felt down.

Then I met with some management consultants. Wonderful people! They were willing to work with me through the process of turning the technology into a product. We discussed CMS/blog software integration, a facebook application, and even a tool to aid the workflow for technical writing departments in corporations. With this I felt up.

I took my list of ideas and their tips on how to develop a market study home with me. I looked at the site and how much effort I put into the development up to that point. I then looked at how much effort it would take to go from there to one of the product ideas (plus handling the business side) and nearly collapsed from the anticipated exhaustion. At this point I felt down.

Someone once said that an early startup is full of self-doubt and loneliness. Truer words were never spoken. About 6 weeks in I succumbed to this and it took probably another ~8 weeks before I admitted to myself I wasn't making progress and decided to interview for a position. Thankfully my last semester of school started back up which helped force my hand and restore a sense of purpose.

Anyways, here are some things I could have done to combat the self-doubt and loneliness of my venture:

1) before developing the product, a rudimentary marketing plan would have helped. Even something as simple as visit websites of corporate blogs, analyze their copy, and send them a report of their most common mistakes. I could have then used this as an excuse to get them to signup for a mailing list, take a survey, or even converse with them to gauge interest.

Earlier feedback would have helped me make an informed choice about whether to continue or to dump the path.

2) Make sure you either have a partner or you're well networked with like-minded technical entrepreneurs in real life. I moved to Syracuse, NY and in the summer time it isn't exactly a tech hotspot. We do have a good business incubator here. SCORE and the local business community are good about being their to provide business-sense. I think being around other people doing the same type of thing would have helped provide an example to emulate. This is probably why location is so important. Going through the roller coaster of pursuing an idea is just that, a roller coaster, and having people around who understand it will help.

3) I like to travel and buy nice clothes. My life style while in the military consisted of nearly one trip a month. Traveling was a big part of who I was. When I left I decided to cut out traveling and the occasional fun outfit as unnecessary luxuries. I should have found a way to include these things somehow (even to a reduced extent) so that I didn't feel like I was giving up a large part of myself. Rewards throughout the process may have helped to ease the process. My dad keeps warning me "make sure on your next venture that you're able to support your life style, you learned the hard way that you're not happy just hiding in your apartment playing on a computer all the time"

4) If you're on your own, don't be afraid to hire out certain aspects of the project. When I'm ready to try again, I kid you not, I'm going to outsource everything I can get away with. Doing it all on my own became too daunting. Once I figured out that I could alleviate the workload with outsourcing, I had become risk averse and didn't want to lose any more money. Once I build up my next cushion I plan to accelerate my next startup effort through outsourcing.

Overall, I'm happy I did what I did. I'm sure I had to learn these lessons one way or the other. When I pursue my next venture I'll make sure that:

* I am in the right location, * I have a network of tech entrepreneurs to reach out to * I'll market and get potential customer feedback ASAP! * I'll use outsourcing to my advantage

Good luck!

have you tried pasting pg's essays inside your system? :)

Pretty amusing experiment. The site doesn't seem to like pg's informal writing style.

Very cool website though. I need to use this on my blog posts.

would be nice to see a before and after of Paul Graham's essays - it would demonstrate how this site can "formalize" something informal :)

Just to let you know, I was one of those people who reviewed and commented on PolishMyWriting when you posted it here 16 days ago.

Your site has continued to stick in my head. There's been more than one occasion that I've thought this email or that blog post should have been run through your system.

HN has introduced me to a lot of new sites, and not one has struck me as immediately functional as yours.

I think it could be very popular. My only piece of advice (and honestly no offense to Ashley Johnson) would be to hire a new graphic designer to give it an overhaul.

I like your idea of analyzing corporate blog copy and sending them the results, but why not do that for any popular blogger? If they use your service, they might write about you. There are a lot of blogs out there about blogging.

Good luck, to both you and Shawn.

Thanks for the advice... this story takes place mostly in June. Everything I wrote about feels like ancient history to me now. Once I started moving to my personal plan B I've found a lot of the effects I wrote about reversed quickly. That said, I introduced my tech demo to news.yc about 2 weeks ago.

I fully agree with your assessment that I could use a better designer.

Really though, this is about Shawn here. I see a similar situation, cash in hand, running off to start a venture. I hear the sound of clanking brass spheres.

Oh and I second what Shawn said. This community is awesome. I think I started to read news.yc in July and found the existence of like minded folks a real boon.

The site is awesome and I would love to have something like it that works in Emacs so I can check out suggestions as I'm typing.

Here too, that site does sound very useful.

I missed your original posting, but other than the fact that your site is in dire need of a redesign; I can see it being very popular.

I sent it to all of the administrative assistants in my office, and they all said they were bookmarking it for when they have to send out letters to our clients.

Instead of corporate blog copy, how about blog comment copy?

You have a winner on your hands. License this technology because it has no place on a sub-par designed "web 2.0" business wanna-be site. Be outrageously aggressive in your attempts to contact would be licensees.

This is an interesting site, and I think may benefit my startup users. My site slapastory.com is a social site focusing on writers, I would love to cross link with you? Let me know.

You may want to include GoogieSpell into it -> http://orangoo.com/labs/GoogieSpell/

It's open-source and you can either use Google or Aspell. I am the author of it.

Congratulations, Shawn! Taking the first step is huge, and you're on your way.

Release early and iterate, stay hanging around here, don't be afraid of negative feedback. And don't give up!

> Release early

Though never release half-baked cr@p. You have exactly one chance to make the initial splash, don't waste it.

"Though never release half-baked cr@p. You have exactly one chance to make the initial splash, don't waste it."

This is absolutely not true! Release ANYTHING. A half baked product will provide you with required flexibility youll need when the market tells you what you really should be making.

Agree. Just don't go on a publicity blitz before your product is at least beta stage.

(Looking at you, Cuil)

> the market tells you what you really should be making.

That's what the market research phase of the project planning is for.

If you need to fine-tweak your feature set, do a closed alpha with a focus group, that's fine. But if your project plan relies on a public beta feedback for flushing out core feature set, that's just wrong. Or more specifically - it is very risky, because you are essentially implementing a wild guess product for a wild guess market and then hoping it would converge to something of a value.

Well we almost agree don't we? :)

I think you're taking what I'm saying out of context. I said half baked products give you the required flexibility to listen to the market.

I dont think you can over expose your self to the market. The problems come when you don't or cant move fast enough to meet its demands. It seems to me that "don't" happens a lot more than "cant" and that's usually because the founders are clinging to feature sets and ideals that aren't working. Its best to avoid that altogether and release a half baked product that you are willing to change as quickly as possible.

> Well we almost agree don't we? :)

I am sure we can agree on something :)

My point (which is based on a relevant experience) is - don't release anything to the public unless you are certain it will get traction. If you want to validate the feature set or your market positioning, do a closed release.

A lot of people tend to underestimate the importance of the initial public release. It is a single, most important natural milestone in the lifetime of a product, so it needs to be handled with an utmost care.

Staying in a stealth mode and keeping your product and its idea confidential has multiple benefits. Most importantly, it allows you to build a competitive entry barrier, which in turn gives you time after the launch to scoop up users and establish yourself as a leader on your target market segment. Disclose your idea too early and you will tip off your competitors, so by the time you have it polished and working, it already gets replicated.

The "release-early, release-often" is an open source mantra, it rarely applies to the competitive start-up environment.

Hey Ive been there too and from my experience big splash entries like Techcrunch articles and the likes don't do as much as people think.

"don't release anything to the public unless you are certain it will get traction." This is a distribution issue which is in my opinion is a entirely different feature set than the "product". While off topic I agree the only thing you should be focusing on is getting traction. In fact I would say throw the product out of the equation and only worry about traction. But this is a different argument and admittedly I'm an extremist in this area :)

Essentially we are saying the same thing except you think discoveries should be made in private to increase your popularity at launch while I think (ONLY if you can keep up) going public is more efficient for the successful evolution of your product.

I guess it comes down to how much data you need to interpret what the market wants. Personally I need tons.Maybe you are a better interpreter than I am :)

.. or maybe the target market is different :)

I bet you will come to cherish that extra 951.10.

Congrats, and let me chime in that it is the best move you can make too. You only live once, it will be great regardless of how it turns out, all those things are true.

So congratulations are in order! First off, kudos on the willpower to save $15k. That's no small feat. And secondly, remember this, for every low point there is an equal and opposite high point.

You are a complete idiot. You left a perfectly good job for the dream of a lifetime. Relish that every day from now on will be amazing. And possibly just a tad horrible.

You've already done the hardest part. Even if it doesn't work out, you've stepped up for what you believe in. Lots of people reading this wish they had the courage to do what you're doing.

Best of a luck, a stranger

Congrats. I envy you.

Someone may have asked this, and if so, could you point me to your response. Did you tell your corporate job that you were leaving to pursue your own startup when they asked why you were voluntarily leaving?

I wonder if it's better to be 100% honest about this when leaving your day job. Does anyone have any advice on handling this situation?

Good luck!

(also, thanks for using Dropbox...)

Awesome. I'm 2 months into the same process. It is full of ups and downs but infinitely more rewarding than where I was.

Except that I am still waiting to get my Dropbox account.

You now have one. Check your e-mail. :)

Also, welcome to Hacker News.

How about sending me one as well! Thanks!

Email address?

palish! you are the bomb. i made it one day ahead of the public launch! i feel special.

i love hacker news.

Congrats I am now going on about a year and a half since quiting my job on less than what you have. I am sure you will find ways to make it work.

It is a great and crazy ride.

Congrats Shawn! I think that Robert Frost said it best: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference

Sweet, congratulations!

Remember to have a backup plan. You will appear smarter to corporates, once you are outside, but don't burn bridges.

Good Luck with your plans! (I just did the same thing, but, at least my wife is still working)

Good luck man, and congrats on meeting your goal! Please come back and let us know how you're doing, we'd love to continue to inspire someone who's living a dream

1. get a partner if possible, esp if he/she will invest real $$ as well. if going solo, get a peer review group set up (beta users, your friend who is a web designer/technical type, your mom, target market, so on). The longer people hear about your product or service, the more likely they will jump on board as soon as it is ready. And people are really good at finding other useful people. Actively network (not necessarily like crazy, more just reality check * small multiple)

2. focus on the business, not the software (freshbooks!). This also means that if you need more than your 15K, start hunting for financing or cash _now_. Cash flow > everything else. When you're sweating laundry money and forgoing Starbucks or a pint at the local NOTHING gets done. You just have to punch past the line where you're "adding features" and instead "fulfilling business needs". A business that's bleeding red has more value than a finished product w/o customers and their attendant baggage - sales marketing support etc.

3. show off the product to many before you think it's "ready", because otherwise your baby will never be ready. Don't even think about competition until you have something competitive - and if you're in internet business, the market is big enough for everybody. Never lie, but do promote your shit to anyone who will listen.

4. Set up a proper dev and DVCS from day -1. Write functional tests so you can at least know if you break functionality while adding features. And docs rule. (Almost) always write code like you won't read it until 3 months later.

5. outsource and manage-host _everything_ reasonable

6. If it's consumer facing software and not middleware - UI IS EVERYTHING. And UI always takes way longer than the so called "hard stuff".

7. always push yourself: not to the limit, but just beyond where you think you can go. The "I can't believe I did that" feeling is my personal favorite.

And there will be a lot of feelings. This rollercoaster ride will be rough, but when you're on the way up or at the top ... BOOM ... spring in your step ... pebbles in your shoes ... Michael Phelps ain't got nothing on me (ok, that was extreme, but the "I AM KOBE" effect does rock).

In case you didn't read it, Young Money intervied Mark Cuban recently. He says it all better than me: http://www.youngmoney.com/entrepreneur/entrepreneur_profiles...

All the best!!!

Congratulations! You have no idea how much I envy you right now. Even with the hardships that will come, you will be free. Free! I'm currently in the middle of saving up my own money and though I still have a ways to go, it feels even further away by the minute.

Make an appropriate mixtape for the occasion. It's time to rock.

Shawn - congrats. You'll never regret this decision.

Just one word: plastics.

Nice reference, and a classic movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

I wish you the best. I took this step about 3 months ago (and also announced to the HN community). I've never looked back since. Working on my startup (NewsCred) fulltime has been some of the happiest days of my life. Best of luck!

That is an inspiring move. Best of luck to you.

Congratulations. Have fun with it. I am going to have to do the two jobs thing myself for a while, though. A wife and kid need income. You are in the perfect position to be doing what you are doing.

I thought this was going to be a post about an old Seinfeld episode.

As you wander into the great unknown to create the next big thing, remember two important things: 1) The little guys and 2) The great words of Dave Chappell, "Byahhhhh!"

Best of Luck.

Awesome. Now make it happen. ; )

Tear it up, brother. I think we're in the same town and I've lived a few years in a van with a crappy band... You ever need anything give me a shout.

Good luck dude! I'll raise a drink to you this Friday!

Congratulations and good luck Shawn! It's incredible!

I shall live vicariously through you. All the best!

Very awesome - best of luck to you on your journey!

Good luck Shawn :) EXCELLENT move!!

PS: Hit me up on gtalk sometime.

Congrats, and good luck! The road begins now...

Congratulations and good luck Shawn. I'm on the same journey but two months behind you. Yet the end of the tunnel is in sight :)

Be frugal, hope the best yet stay focused on the bottom-line. make money seek glory. Run fast and I wish you every success.

Congrats and good luck :)

I'll join you one of these days...

someone mention what his startup is for noobs? (good luck!)

Before opening this I thought this came from someone that sold their company...

Good luck! Always nice to see the real world result of sites like this!

Congratulations. I'm on week 2 of freedom and it's an excellent thing.

Good luck Shawn! Keep us posted on how things are turning out for you.

Good luck, Shawn! If you don't mind me asking How old are you?

Kick some ass! Congrats on your self-promotion Mr. Founder :)

Good luck! This is the best decision you'll ever make!

Good luck. I look forward to seeing what you build.

beginning of the rest of your life starts now

Good luck, baby.

good luck! persistence and hard work!

Be frugal and execute like a madman.

Godspeed.

Congrats!

coughkarmawhorecough

Congratulations Shawn!

Wish you the best!

Good luck.

See you in a few months.

Welcome Shawn.

congrats! make that money last.

Congrats man. Best of luck.

quitting your day is foolish. income is income. you can always start your project on the side. now if you run low on cash you're going to have to waste time interviewing for jobs or begging for money. since you don't have a proof of concept, you're going to have a much harder time begging for money. at the least you should see if they'll let you stay on part-time (20 hrs/week or so), if not take you back full-time. get something working using your nights and weekends.

I agree it's a good idea to get something going while still employed. I disagree it's "foolish" not to though. I think the #1 cause of failure for most startups is never taking a plunge at any point. I know too many people who have dreams that remain dreams for so long they're eventually forgotten. It can be really hard to do a good job on a side project if you're the kind of person who tends work really intensely on one thing at a time.

Better to take the risk (if you can) and have a real shot at success than always be waiting until "tomorrow". He's forcing himself to succeed or fail. People are capable of a lot when they don't have an easy out. How many successful companies were side projects? Maybe 5-10%? That's a damn low number if you realize how many people have side projects they wish they had the balls to turn into companies.

My big concern is that $15k just isn't that much cash. Unless you're living somewhere ridiculously cheap or rent free (parents) that's probably just a few months. Not enough to get the profitability for almost anyone. YC companies only work because they get 3-4 months free, can spend their own money after that, and have a really good shot at getting funding.

Hats off to you, Palish. Good luck.

Thanks. I burn only a few hundred bucks a month, currently. I've been living at a friend's trailer with his band. In exchange for contributing around the house, I get a roof over my head and all the Ramen I need, so not a bad trade. I'm aiming to stretch the money to last a year and a half, but realistically I'm planning for one year. It may also help that I'm 20... It would be hard to sustain this kind of lifestyle after I have assets, I think. I'm also grateful that I'm working with an extremely talented partner.

You're correct. To get tasks done, I have to intensely focus on them one at a time. It has been frustrating to build a product during nights and weekends. A lot of times you simply feel too burned out after work to continue on essentially a second workday. You do anyway, of course, since that's what's required -- but why go through that stress? It is such a relief to have ~50 hours of my life back per week. I'm also fairly sure that those hours won't be wasted, or that the waste will be small, because it's actually a lot of fun to resist temptations like tv, forums, games, etc. It's so much more satisfying to create than to consume.

> I'm also grateful that I'm working with an extremely talented partner.

Congratulations! If you don't mind me asking, what is the situation with your partner (did he or she take the plunge too?)

"Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers." - Salman Rushdie

>It's so much more satisfying to create than to consume.

Yes! Sounds like you've got the right mindset...good luck!

Congratulations, dude. Just don't forget us and keep us informed.

i disagree, and here's why: most of the applications that we see developed are based on ideas that flow from the common experience, then crystallize via a good idea. regardless of how good your idea is someone else is thinking of it too, and it becomes a question of who can get it to market fastest. if you're a part-timer competing with someone who isn't (as i was in a previous project) you're going to ultimately lose, as your potential users will latch on to the thing that fulfills their needs first, even if doesn't do so best. when that happens, your userbase's growth curve will be slowed.

a few months ago i quit my full-time job to pursue a startup with only $6k in the bank. yeah, food is slim pickins, but we launch stage 1 tomorrow and it feels darn good.

none of this is to say you can't take on a few hours/week of contract work of some kind, but your startup should be your primary focus.

congratulations! The journey of a thousand miles starts with is one BOLD step! :)

Maybe you should wait another day...its probably bad karma to do this on the anniversary of 9/11

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