Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

I tried doing both for 2 months in parallel. One day I woke up and said "F*k this. I am done. Gotta quit". I then went to my boss and gave him the notice. I did calculate my risks as the business was just bringing in enough to keep me floating (with 2 kids and a wife). However on Day 1, my income was down by almost 75% (ouch, wifey was not quite happy but she supported)

Been 2 years since then and never been happier. It is tough, income is still less than I what I made in my cushy job but I will not give it up for that 9-5 bullshit. No more traffic to deal with (I hardly drive during rush hours now), no more commute (I work from where ever i want, mostly home office), I can take time off if I want or I could work on weekends if I want. The business runs 24-7 but I Don't have to.

Of course, not everyone is in a similar situation but we all have a path if you really want to do it. Bottomline is that you have to really really want this. It is almost like an addiction to do your own thing and not work in a shitty (Even if highly paid) 9-5 job. My job was so easy barring the shit commute. I could go in, talk to users all day, run projects, write some code and at the end of the day, I will get a big fat paycheck. People loved me at my job. I loved them back. Easy as hell. But I didn't want that anymore. I was not up to it anymore. I wanted to quit my "cushy" job.

I pretty much set my own hours, start work between 8am and 9am and end between 5pm and 6pm.

Some days I really get nothing done -- right now we're in the midst of buying a house, and I must confess I'm spending lots of time communicating with the lender and broker, packing, etc.

Other days, I work until midnight to get stuff done. It feels a bit like being self-employed, but of course you still take orders. But you also have the backing and resources of a larger organization. Kind of a transition to self-employment, you might say.

I do have a side business of playing music for weddings and other occasions, but that's pocket change and will never turn into full time.

I'll do two things:

- Build and MVP and try to find paying customers. Once the money is flowing in, I might take a venture again into the startup world.

- Use a few hours / day to build the thing and start to look for a business co-founder.

This generates one year of runway for every year worked. But my savings also grew thanks to some solid investments, so after six years I had ten years of runway.

Over the subsequent four years I spent down about 30% of my savings while working on startups of my own (I made some revenue, I took some small angel investment). Relationships and expertise that I built in the process allowed me to pivot into running a lucrative consultancy.

Before somebody says "you can only do that if you're young and unattached", I will add that I got married before I finished school, and our first child was born the same year I quit my tech industry job.