The natural evolution from side project to full-time business | Hacker News Reader

The natural evolution from side project to full-time business

37signals.com

74 pointstortilla25 comments

The best statement on this topic that I've seen was a comment on HN, which unfortunately I don't have a link to. It said: if you spend half your time on a startup (e.g. because you have a job), realize that you won't be half as productive, you'll be an order of magnitude less productive. As soon as I read that, it made sense of my experience.

Keeping it in mind helps to manage the process if you're on that path: it prevents your expectations from being continually thwarted. But it also provides a powerful reason to get off that path.

totally. at least for designing and implementing the core technology, i've found that i need large chunks of focus time. i also need time to mentally shift from one set of problems to another...kind of like writing things to disk and then loading up the next set.

it doesn't have to be an order of magnitude less productive, though. i find that if my brain is too cluttered to change problem solving paths for the night, then i'll go to bed early and wake up between 3 and 7am for a productive morning.

i also find myself taking off work days around weekends. i split my weeks between solid days of work and solid days of side-project. these large chunks are so awesome for getting "real" work done, which is more than useful, it's also motivating and satisfying.

My favorite analogy: Raising kids. Quit your day job and raise your kid, putting all your energy into them. When you're out of money 6 months later, you still have a 6 month old kid. Maybe they can walk a little sooner than their peers, but you can't artificially grow them into a teenager. The same is true with growing a user/customer base. Some things just take time.

I wish I could quit my job for 1 month while I build the core technology, then get my job back while I build the userbase. Since that's usually not an option, I'll spend 3-4 months of spare time building the technology while I keep my job, then grow it organically over time.

You'd be amazed at the number of places that are willing to grant people a month long unpaid leave of absence for a wide variety of reasons.

True. I'm just worried that requesting leave to start my own business would raise too many eyebrows. It's not exactly something a love-my-job employee asks for. And I do really like my job.

If you were going to try to do this, I'd recommend not mentioning that part of it. Say you've got a big project you're working on, or whatever. Of course, it all kind of depends on what your relationship is with the people you work for. Maybe they already know you have the entrepreneur bug.

Yeah, my manager reads my dev blog and knows about all my side projects.

In my (limited) experience with this sort of thing, that's the type of manager who is far more likely to be understanding of what you're trying to do.

I was able to get my consulting company off the ground by going from full-time employment down to 3 days a week, and I used the other 2 days a week to pick up clients and freelance. I did that for about 9 months before I went to consult full-time. After that, I kept my old company as a client, and when they needed help, they had the benefit of dealing with someone who already knew all their systems.

This is exactly the opposite of what pg has said in some of his essays, but like a lot of things, it's possible for both of them to be right.

For some people, quitting their job is not an option because of things over which they have little control (family, health issues, etc.) Even though it's not ideal, for them, OP provides great encouragement.

Knowing that you're doing something that's not optimal is important, so that you can compensate. Pretending it's better to have a day job is harmful.

I find that doing a side project along with your day job is more of a psychological problem. You lose motivation knowing you can just stop your project with no real consequences. I think you need to make some sacrifices (maybe not quit your day job) in order force yourself to put in a lot of effort.

Joel Spolsky's closing thoughts in his interview in Founders At Work are that you do have to quit the day job so that your choices are to either succeed or get a job. He mentions that he stole at least some of the sentiment from pg.

Yeah, that is pretty hard, the fact that there's nothing to lose. I think it all comes down to motivation.

This quote from pj is possibly the best advice I've seen, although he was probably talking about full-time startups: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625644

Ah, I read that before and it also stuck in my mind.

You lose motivation knowing you can just stop your project with no real consequences.

Yet another reason why you should start charging money early and often, because nothing says "real consequences" like a few dozen, hundred, or thousand paying customers wondering where you went.

The thing I've been thinking about recently is that when you're working on a very large project like the game I'm developing, I'm not sure I have the patience to work on a single project as a sideline for several years. I wonder if it's a case of blitzing it full time and finishing in a few months or not finishing it at all because you're so fed up you've moved on to something else.

I think it depends on your project. Some projects require huge bursts of energy in a short span and others can be developed incrementally over a longer period of time.

I agree with that. I have a few small side projects in mind as well as a bigger one, and the only thing that keeps me focused on them is when I'm done working for the day, I put together a list of all of the stuff I want to add the next time. That way, I have a clearly defined list of milestones waiting for me the next time I get to the app, rather than having to rejuice my brain when I have some more time to work.

Also, I've been spending time thinking about how to create small, focused, monetized, short-term development apps that can bring in some revenue so I can start cutting back on my daytime work hours. That way I can get some more dev time each day.

For me the best combo is consulting and side project as opposed to day job. With contracts I can keep them to 20-30 hrs per week and then have substantial time and focus to work on my baby. And if I need 2 weeks or pure focus, I usually can get that too. All the while, keeping some decent income coming in. It works ideally for me - but f course it depends on many factors.

> You box yourself into a position where you have to profit immediately or the whole thing goes under. You’ve got to make it work now or give up forever.

That's a feature, not a bug! Procrastination kills more businesses than anything else. With a day job it's too easy to put off building a new business. Without one it's easier to succeed, than to fail.

Got any stats on that procrastination claim? I thought the conventional wisdom was that projecting profits too early and running out of startup capital kills most new businesses.

I think procrastination (caused by day jobs) usually kill startups in their infancy, before anyone except the founder(s) would even notice. Maybe the founder(s) launch a version 1.0, over the course of months. They work on it for a while, but it's not profitable and sucks up all their free time. When something important (like a high priority project at their day job) comes along they neglect it, and it eventually dies.

I personally have met dozens of people who have this kind of story. Probably quite a few people on HN do.

Ah, the classic debate of part time vs full time again. Sigh..

I think it's depend on people to people. I personally know that i'm not the "part-time-and-do-it-safely" kind of person. I get too comfortable.

I function much better as soon as i burn off my ship and jump off the cliff. Somehow, that's how my survival instinct works. That's how i signed up for 1/2 marathon and full marathon while i haven't been able to run one (and, of course, after that i became much more discipline in training and eventually finished).

Again, it depends on your personality.

A large part of this decision depends on the type of product and market segment that it is targeting. Time to get to market can be very important. If you spend a year working part time you may be trumped by someone else. I have been involved in more than one project where we missed the market time window.

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