Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by tokenadult | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

tokenadult

I see a common theme here in the first few submitted replies. What does an ambitious young person do if the parents are

a) dead and gone,

b) sick and dying,

c) impoverished,

d) stingy?

(I ask as a parent of would-be start-up founders, trying my best not to fit into those categories, but never knowing for sure when I might fit into category a).

View on HN

I think it's ideal to have some sort of part time job. In my case, I have a full time job and can't leave it for two reasons:

1) I am on H1b-Visa [More Important than #2, so didn't even think about applying for YC this summer, though I would love to]

2) I need $$$ :-)

I typically try to wake up early(6am), hit the gym, put in my 8/9 hrs at work so I am free by 5-6 pm. Now I have potentially 6 more hours till 12:00 am during which I try to get some work done on my personal projects OR go to silicon valley meetups etc Or just laze/party out completely some days. [Potentially 30 hrs in 5 days]

So, time is not really a problem, it's more of a Time management and Motivation that will carry you forward. I am still tweaking both :-)

PS: On another note, I will be up in the SF city for StartupWeekend. Still looking for people to partner up ? Anyone Interested ??

you know that you can always switch to a part-time H1b to make more time, right? Also, apply to YC if you are interested and ready to commit, the visa thing is hard but not insurmountable (especially if you raise money). IIRC, The buxfers did it!

It's very easy to go down the road of, oh no there are so many obstacles, but if you're relentlessly resourceful, you can make it work :)

I am a believer in "if you're relentlessly resourceful, you can make it work :)". I honestly never considered/thought moving to a part time H1 especially in this economy. It was always evenings/weekends in my mind. But now that you mention about Part time, it seems a pretty descent option :)

BTW what/who are the "IIRC , The buxfers" ?

IIRC = If I Recall/Remember Correctly

Buxfers = http://www.buxfer.com/about.php (I think)

code_devil,

I'm going to Startup Weekend but I'm also a backend developer. There should only be 1 backend developer per team right?

Get a part time job, find friends with an extra room and live on the bare essentials. If you don't have the comfort of parents who can help you out then it is all the more pressing for you to MAKE your startup succeed (if that's the route you want to take).

Agreed with mdolon's thoughts, but another thought occurred to me while reading through this:

* As a parent, it is likely you have more and varied business connections than your son/daughter. Do you know anyone you could introduce them to who might be able to help them along both monetarily, as a seed or angel investor, and/or as an advisor if (a-d) were to happen to you? This doesn't even have to be a direct contact, perhaps a contact of a contact, or however many levels of indirection you are comfortable with. Just a thought; the help you can provide is not entirely in what you know.

As a parent, it is likely you have more and varied business connections than your son/daughter. Do you know anyone you could introduce them to who might be able to help them along both monetarily, as a seed or angel investor, and/or as an advisor if (a-d) were to happen to you?

That's the primary reason I am here on HN. (Well, actually the primary reason I signed up for a user account is that I lurked into some very interesting discussions here over several months, repeatedly following the link here from Paul Graham's essays, but what I claim I'm learning is entrepreneurial skills I can use for myself and impart to the next generation of my family.)

Agreed that sometimes parental connections are WAY more valuable than parental money. I know some spectacular examples from my own generation, as I know (as a professional school classmate) the child of a Vice President of the United States. Most of my personal connections are not closely related to the career interests of my oldest son, but it only takes one person who knows one other person and so on if all the relationships are friendly and pro-active.

I started working on my startup immediately after graduation 1500 miles from my parents' basement. I found a cheap room in a boarding house from which I work and tutoring rich private school kids just four hours a week keeps me going. For a little padding, I took a tiny loan from various parts of the family - it really annoys me when people assume anyone can find a $20,000+ loan from "friends and family," (I can't) but my family is almost exclusively low-income and was able to put together a little something that helped cover incorporation, business cards, etc.

I would suggest a part-time job as well. That's my situation right now. I'm a soon-to-be-grad, and I'm doing part-time school, part-time work at a software company. One or two days a week there (depending on my work load at school) pays my living expenses, tuition and loan repayments.

If I weren't in school, and didn't have student debt, I could live quite well on the same amount of income, yet bootstrap a startup at the same time.

Mind you, this requires a well-paying and flexible part-time job, but it's definitely possible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com