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Comment by est31 | Hacker News Reader

Ideally if you are a senior big tech employee you are not living paycheck to paycheck any more, so you could endure a few months of not being employed. And even then, if you are good and have a network, you would find employment very quickly if a startup fails, unless there is some event that causes all startups to not look for new employees.

The problem with startups is I think more around the stock options trap (short excercise windows), stressful work environments, and the general lower compensation. And, if you are a parent, they will probably offer less programs for parents.

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> endure a few months of not being employed

What kind of insanely high growth business is going to either generate enough revenue for a Sr. Dev's full yearly salary (or close to it) or lead to investment in just a few months?

Even if you're an insanely well connected person it's going to take more than a few months to put together a pitch deck and a POC for a new business and then raise enough money to pay yourself and a few other people.

Realistically, if you're starting a startup and not currently working, plan on having at least 12 months of expenses saved (not a few months).

You don't need to be close to it if you are willing to give up saving like you used to. If you can prove any traction I be you can raise a little money from FFF for a few months more.

Okay let’s play this out.

A few months is 2. For the sake of this hypothetical let’s say it’s 3.

You’re saying that someone can build a product that’s capable of having investor level revenue within a few months? Or not even revenue, but more than 5 companies using it? This one person is not only building a fully functioning software product that’s capable of being useful to companies, but also doing high levels of networking to find those customers and users. They’re doing this all within 3 months? I just don’t see how that’s possible. The fastest moving early stage teams I’ve ever seen have gone to market in no less than 4 months, and that was with multiple people working on the problem.

I think at a minimum you can expect it to take 6 months if you’re going at it alone. Certainly less if you have other co-founders.

I've built stuff in 2 months that was production ready indeed (3D apparel designer webapp) or I've built a video recording service that synced a PDF to your webcam over a weekend.

Long story short, you can start sooner than quitting with research, prototyping. The key is to get the scope right.

But I agree that "few" has a different meaning for us. I did suffer with sales, but that's another story.

I think the context is about joining startups as employees, where the startup pays you a wage from the first day. Of course startups where you don't receive wages in cash are different.

Not all startups are terrible. In general yes the workload is higher but big tech is now a stressful place as well (layoffs, performance reviews etc). I'm positive many people in big tech started working harder, unless they wanna get fired.

A startup with a good runway (say 2-3 years) and faith from investors is an OK place to be in. And there are many parents in such companies.

> senior big tech

Senior dev != big tech

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