I know of people who've launched a startup after their PhD, but anyone have advice on how to launch one during?
Reasons: - money - want my ideas to come to market quickly, not stagnate in conferences forever
In short, my grades suffered. But school as a whole is less important to me- I am doing what I wanted to after school, just a bit sooner.
If you want to start a company during your PhD, be prepared to give in one way or the other. Wrap up your PhD with as little work as possible and as quickly as possible. Bonus points for aligning your PhD work with your startup work, but be careful about allowing the school to make claims on the startup. If you choose the PhD over the startup, maybe don't go full startup yet but begin quietly building the product and talking to people in your free time. Then launch and grow as soon as your PhD is done.
Also your profs might know of people that have done the same. Ask those people for advice as they probably know about things beneficial to you in particular that random people on the internet don't.
I tried doing a side-project during PhD, but quickly stopped because it was eating up my progress in PhD.
I guess, for me, my desire to finish PhD was greater than trying to do a startup.
What about you? How much more do you want to do PhD than startup (and vice versa)?
I have to say, completing PhD is.. an extremely rewarding and worthwhile experience, albeit... a tremendously stressful thing to do. :)
So, if your startup and your dissertation are focused on the same basic problem, then it's not really splitting your focus, but it is adding more "to-do's" to your list. The hard part with a startup is finding a way to get all those to-do's done in limited time and money. This is always a challenge, just realize that school is going to take time away and budget time and money accordingly. For example, if you could do something for your customers in a month without school, maybe you should not promise anything in less than 3 months. If you don't budget time appropriately, you will need to ship something the week before finals, and something's got to give.
Of course, if you do this, watch out for intellectual property issues with your school. Depending on your school and what you are doing, this may or may not be an issue. Usually, you can talk to the school's commercialization office, and they have a process for evaluating whether the school has an interest. You might think it's better to fly under their radar, but using the process grants you either a) institutional support, which is great, or b) a declaration that the school doesn't have an interest, which is also great.
If you don't already kind of know what you want to do for your dissertation and/or startup, then you aren't ready. For either, really. Do not attempt either a startup or PhD, and especially not both, without some passion. If they're not both the same passion, and you feel more for one than the other, then you already know what your decision should be. This isn't meant to be harsh, just as advice.
A startup can be a way to get around the issue of having your ideas get stuck in academic neglect. However, be aware that there are downsides to trying and failing. The academic route is long and not glamorous, but you are also unlikely to end up living in a car with your significant other leaving you. That is a possibility with failed startups, if you let it be (trust me on this). Have an exit strategy for if it doesn't work out. If academics is your plan B, make sure you keep publishing and retain your contacts in the academic world.
I see value in doing the PhD though, so it might very well come down to one off the other.
The timing of the startup is going too be really important, so that will likely drive things. Thanks!