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Comment by lpolovets | Hacker News Reader

VC here. If you're building a bootstrapped business, then starting as a side project and building up revenue until you can go full time is probably the way to go.

If you're going the venture-backed route, I think there's a misconception that there's no salary or minimal salary at early stages when you're funded, but this is not true. Most founders take a reasonable salary, where reasonably is defined more by your personal needs than anything else. $100k-$150k salaries are pretty common at seed. That's not Google level, but it's not bad. Here's a thread on that: https://twitter.com/lpolovets/status/1365123608905879555

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If you're not a FAANG engineer, and like 95% of people work somewhere that doesn't give you a ton of stock or RSUs, and you don't live in a super expensive metro, $100-150k is basically strong mid/weak senior money. I know plenty of places hiring with no stock, no bonuses, and seniors top out at $160k or so. They hire capable engineers no problem.

With that in mind, taking a pay cut into the middle of that range to do your own thing and potentially make a lot more isn't as drastic as going from a $400k FAANG job to a $35k ramen-every-meal situation.

I think the problem is not the paycut, so much as you suddenly work 80 hour weeks and never see your kids.

> work 80 hour weeks

Hasn't really been my experience. There can be the odd extra evenings or even weekends, but nothing drastic.

The big difference in hours is probably how effective those 40 hours a week need to be compared to a big company.

If it's your startup, choose a location to work that's close to home, and have the kids come over.

I fondly remember running around the overly large halls of various companies my dad worked for which were startup or startup adjacent.

This brings back fond memories of playing tag with my brothers through the cubicles where my dad worked when he had weekend work to do, complete with a vending machine room and some desks that had bowls of M&Ms. It was great fun!

Would love to hear more haha, sounds like your dad did a good job juggling it all if you look fondly back on it

Well, my three brothers and I ranged from ages 5 to 10, so that's a good starting point. Then figure it's a bunch of long narrow hallways, which were wide enough for kids to run in, but narrow enough that you feel fast running along the walls. Low-pile office park carpet turns out to be perfect for traction when running in your socks at that age. And then M&Ms and vending machine stuff is the perfect treat for kids who mostly ate homemade meals.

I'm sure the two most uncommon enablers of the good experience were 1, there being four kids in the family to play together and, 2, my dad not worrying that we were going to cause a bunch of problems when left to run around the office.

I'm doing this by starting an all remote start up. I can hear my son playing downstairs or outside, while I get to dedicate myself for a while. I'm actually able to make it to more of the important times, now that I'm not commuting, even though I work long hours.

Yeah, the when of long hours can be much more important than the long hours themselves, especially depending on kid ages.

This. My son is only 4 months old and between all the naps and feeding, it's maybe only a few hours of actual time actively spent doing things with him. But I do have the luxury of being home all day so I work during his downtime.

Or better yet recognize that it's 2022 and just work from home.

Work-from-home can work great until you have a group that is working together; but even then you may be able to arrange something (house with outbuilding, etc).

Are we even allowed to do side projects? What if our employer claims ownership or even conflicts of interest with what we are building? How will i even present it into hn or producthunt with my name and all my credentials while i am still working somewhere else? Any employer would fire us on the spot if they found out, wouldn’t they?

The answer is, it depends. Different states have different laws etc...

Also check what your contract says. About non-compete clauses and exclusivity clauses.

If it’s green lights everywhere I will advise you to have another GitHub account than your professional one. And makes everything as separate as possible.

Depends on the employer and where you live... you may have to get permission or specific exclusion when you start a job. As long as there isn't overlap with the business in question, I haven't experienced an issue working on the side.

Note: working on the side is not drawing multiple FTE salaries... but actual work outside business hours.

I don’t know, the conflict of interest especially in saas is tricky. Let’s assume that I build some niche etl tool, my employer deals with data etl for a certain market, how can i safely determine that my side project doesn’t interfere with their business? Not even lawyers can determine this. And what about the working hours overlap? Who knows except my commits to my repo and myself? I don’t know, side projects seem like a bad advice as they probably increase current job insecurity imo..

You claim it as IP that is previously developed when you start the new job or you submit it to your current employer and get an IP exclusion.

I’ve done both with no issues.

I specifically called out "outside business hours"... there should be no overlap. I also don't tend to work on anything near what I work on at my day job. Same for side work to main job.

Again, it depends on the work environment. I haven't had trouble getting permission when I've wanted/needed it. It's generally if your job performance is suffering, or if you are working in an adjacent or competing market.

You've specifically mentioned two things I believe I excluded in my statement.

unless you have registered your invention with the employer during the hiring process, it belongs to them

Not true. If your project does not compete with your employer, you do not use their resources, and you do not build it on their time, it is yours. This it the case in California. That doesn't work well at a FAANG because they have their hand in so many pots it is easy to compete with them. Anywhere else, just work on something not related to your work. I'm in security and build in AI.

Incorrect. Without going into all the nitty gritty, even a lot of FAANG companies have explicit moonlighting policies that are fairly permissible.

At the one I am at now, you can get a written sign off from legal before you even start your side project, where they agree that all rights to the side project belong to you. You have to apply for each project individually, but the form is online, just a few fields, and is commonly approved (as long as it isnt a legitimate conflict of interest). I don't mind the process, because each time it nets me an official signed paper that explicitly states that my employer has no rights to my side project.

This is only situationally true, both in terms of employment contract and jurisdiction.

Rule #1: don't listen to sweeping statements about law on HN.

Here [1] is a story that shows a possible scenario of what might happen if your boss fears your side/open source project and believes it directly competes with his company's main mission. Fortunately, the story ends in favor of the engineer.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195

I think I understand what you mean. Bootstrap = use your current salary. VC = use startup funds to pay yourself but it gets touchy real quick.

I currently make 140k in MCOL, so to hear that taking a 140k salary isnt out of the question, eventually, is reassuring.

I think the toughest part ends up being the time between when you leave your job and when you raise your first funding round. That could be a 1-2 month gap, or it could be a year. Best advice there is that you can probably do some of the initial startup work while working somewhere (e.g. customer interviews, spec'ing out a product, recruiting a cofounder, maybe even launching something), so that when you leave your job you can do a fundraise soon and have decent confidence in the company you want to build.

My startup CEO takes home like $500k. lol!

lol founders taking a salary... I got 5 startups for you to fund!

Founders need to show a lot of work done / churn to get VC backed.

right. as if seed rounds grow on trees

yeah dude just "take" a salary from your seed round. lmao

Very rare for an investor to want a founder they invest in to be constantly worrying about money. Very good signal you shouldn’t be working with them if they don’t get that.

the point is getting a seed is hard

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