Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It | Hacker News Reader

Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It

13 pointshenryw19 comments

I've been working 2 weeks now full time, and been trying to work on my own startup on nights and weekends. I didn't know how hard it was when people talked about it until now. And I thought school and startup was hard. To illustrate, I come home at 6pm, fall asleep until 8pm, code until 1am, sleep from 2am to 8am, and start all over again. I guess this is called moonlighting.

I am going to stop this moonlighting stuff and work full time on my startup with a new appreciation in about a week. I'm saving about 1k per week, which is about my monthly expense. I'm almost done with the beta (after 6 months), and I think the reason I'm not at full time is because I'm afraid of failing. But it doesn't matter now because I just paid $500 to get inc'ed and I got enough to last until the end of summer.

A side note, from my full time job, I've learned that lunch breaks are a boost to productivity.

If you moonlight too, or did before, please share your insight.

Yes, that's pretty much how it goes. Keep three things in mind: 1. Software projects take longer than you estimate, even if you consider that when you make your estimates. 2. Expenses tend to exceed budgets. Think of one-off expenses that can raise your expenses beyond your estimated budget. 3. The beta version will, pretty much, tell you if the idea is successful or not.

So, considering the above, and since it doesn't seem that you have a lot of savings, and you're close to releasing the beta, then you might as well do that quickly while keeping your day job. If it picks up, then quit and focus on it. This will actually push you to release faster. If you have the whole summer, your work will expand to fill that time. Just a thought.

wow, I admire your being able to work so hard.

try to find a cofounder to share the load (I dont have one myself, gave up looking).

some jobs allow you to work from home; makes it easier on you, but one must be honest to give them value for money.

Two weeks? Wow. And those eight hours of sleep you get seem brutal...

I'm not sure which is worse.. How mean you are or that people are upvoting you. At least he's trying, and he just wanted a little support. From the sound of it, he's a single founder, so it can get pretty harsh.

I agree. This sounds like a tough schedule. I once tried to write a book at the same time as having a 9-5 job, and I was dismayed at how little time was left over from the job. When you add in travel to and from work, the day's practically shot.

You might want to consider changing your sleep schedule to something close to a uberman polyphasic schedule. Can you nap during your lunch break? Restricting your naps to 20mins or less prevents you from entering the deep sleep stages which make you groggy and tired. Just take them more frequently, like 4-5 hrs apart.

It may sound ridiculous but i've found it pretty effective. Even though I'm moonlighting I still code for almost as long as someone doing it full time (assuming ~8hrs sleep). Work can still get in the way though so I understand your decision.

The big plus (at least early on in your project) is that it takes the pressure of worrying about your burn rate off...

I've done the polyphasic sleep thing for ~3 months last year. You can forget about coding for the first 10-12 days or so while you acclimatize (or at least I found it very very hard). And if you don't initiate yourself exactly right you'll find you've wasted a whole month just getting dog tired.

While you do suddenly seem to get a lot of time it makes any kind of socializing hard since you have to sleep every 3-4 hours. Even after a couple of months if I missed one sleep session I would hit a massive wall and all coding would come to a stop.

Lack of time can sometimes be a good thing. It forces you into creative solutions. The funny thing is, although I produced more lines of code during the polyphasic experiment I think the quality suffered (not much but when I look over those pieces it always seems I could have structured it better). I don't know what to attribute that to since I didn't feel any different while coding in or out of the polyphasic state after the ramp up period.

Agree with everything you said (especially the difficulty socializing part).

My solution to most of the problem is to "ease" into the schedule. Keep a core sleep period of like 4-5 hrs at night but continue to take your naps. As you acclimatize, try shrinking/eliminating the core sleep gradually. That way you dont feel like you're getting hit by a train like you do if you try and jump right into it.

As far as code quality, I find mine is actually much better.. The period just after each nap I feel really refreshed and can concentrate. Theres actually research out there that proves this is true. Again, I think its all about avoiding a rough acclimation period though..

jsjenkins168 wrote: Theres actually research out there that proves this is true

hmmm.. I found research in this area very lacking. The only scientific study seemed to be from sleep researcher Claudio Stampi and his essentially said "If you absolutely can't keep regular sleeping schedules (like in long sailing races) then polyphasic sleep is a better alternative".

If you have pointers to papers I'd appreciate links sent to the email-id in my profile. I might try this again someday.

The only good research I've been able to find is contained in the book "Why We Nap" by Stampi and Broughton. Sounds like we're talking about the same source. Unfortunately, its no longer in print so therefore very very hard to find..

I'll shoot you an email if I find more.. My co-founder knows more about this stuff than me I'll ask him.

You're not alone. I think serious moonlighting is one of the most painful ways to work, bar none. Far more painful than working full-time on any startup.

You're doing a great thing by taking the plunge and going full-time. You just increased your chances by an order of magnitude. Good luck.

I'm moonlighting, and I have to say - it's brutal. I get a couple of nights a week to work on my startup project, and it sucks: a) it's not nearly enough time, b) I totally lose flow, c) I'm tired before I start, and so have really motivation trouble.

Many a-list bloggers say it's really not an ideal approach - and they're right.

That said, I have no choice. I have a wife & 2 kids, and not that much money in the bank right now. So my choices are either moonlighting or give up the startup dream, which I absolutely refuse to do. (Which reminds me: all that stuff about the tech industry being a complete meritocracy, you can start a startup on no money, etc. - that's all just crap. There's no meritocracy. You can only launch a startup if you - or someone else (your daddy, etc.) has enough money to pay all your bills while you do it. That rules out: working class people, middle class people with kids, etc.)

Anyway, my goal is to work enough to just get something launched, and then hope it takes off from there enough to transition to it full time. It's a long tough road, but I'm tough enough to stay with it.

Still, I would not recommend this route.

I partially agree with your comment about it not being a meritocracy: yes, it is still very difficult for those with prior commitments. However, it is still much more realistic than starting a B&M store or something along those lines, where you need significantly more startup capital and working on it in your spare time just doesn't work.

I'm moonlighting, but I'm going after customers who move slowly. That is, if full-time founders decided to compete head-to-head, they might pump out features faster, but would still be stuck in the same long feedback cycle I'm in as far as knowing what features are and aren't worthwhile. For that kind of customer base you can afford to moonlight; in fact you should moonlight because you would burn through funding before getting traction.

If you're going after faster-moving customers, e.g. Techcrunch readers, you really need to go full-time. Otherwise once you get traction full-timers might imitate you, and then woo those fast customers with fast development.

I'd echo the "find a cofounder" sentiment. Sharing the load is good and a co-founder is a good energizer/motivator.

I'm not entirely clear why you incorporated.... Definitely something you want to do, but why not wait a bit and see if what you build sticks/takes off?

My last startup was an "off-hours" thing, and my current one was an off-hours thing for the last few months (and is a full-time effort as of monday). While I didn't work NEARLY as hard (generally one evening and one full weekend day), I sympathize.

G'luck!

My only advice is to brutally slash your idea down to the core-- find out the BASIC value proposition you can offer and get it out...

i've done this kind of thing for spans of a year or two. besides the advice you're probably already getting, i'd say going running regularly helps a lot. when i was running, i'd be have a lot more energy throughout the day and night; when i wasn't i'd want to nap when i got home.

finding a cofounder is also a big productivity boost. find one early -- the more progress you make by yourself the harder it is to get someone else excited about "your" idea. if you're moonlighting, it's easy to put this off, but you're only hurting yourself long term. (i used to believe the single founder thing was doable for a while, but all of pg's counterarguments are right.)

i've been doing this for a little over 3 years now. during grad school i wrote the beta version of my software when i wasn't working on my thesis. now i work during the bulk of my non-day-job time, but i make sure to have leisure time, too.

i think the danger of this lifestyle is the risk of not getting things accomplished in a timely manner. if we spread ourselves too thin we end up with our hands in a bunch of half-full pots.

nonetheless, kudos for the stamina. we have 24 hours every day to use how we see fit. 8 hours for sleep is a given, 8 hours for work is another (almost) given, and what we do with the other 8 hours is the difference between mediocrity and success.

~dean~

it sucks, it burns you out, but if you can do it, then startups is for you :)

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