When should you leave your day job to open a start-up?

I have had a day job for the last 2.5 years, while also having a little side business selling software. Its great fun.

I find it helps me focus on time management, in the same way that driving to be ramen profitable keeps you appropriately focused on charging customers money. You start to get pretty good at cutting out stupid wastes of time which some businesses get caught up in. (My favorite example for software businesses: fulfillment. Seriously, Mr. Highly Paid Professional, what the heck are you doing licking that envelope. You should outsource to a cheaper tongue and use the time savings to do something which adds value.)

After you're ramen profitable, or "day job profitable", you can pretty much quit whenever you darn well please. I'm not totally positive about my plans yet, but I'm thinking that I'll finish my current contract, politely bow my way out of recontracting, and then find something to occupy the 12+ hours a day that will free up. Probably a second business endeavor and a decent amount of what the economists like to call "leisure".

usually, we preface these questions with "Ask HN: ". For this particular question, the answer is either a) Now, b) Soon, c) In a long time or d) Never. If you have to ask, the answer is probably c or d for you. You should quit when you can afford to and have some idea that you want to pursue. Having a cofounder is nice, as well.