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Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

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Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#161
post #2

My story. I worked my ass off for 10+ years, saved a little bit of extra cash after paying off most loans and then bought an online business that I was interested in. 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 k…

"... and then bought an online business ..." Where do you find businesses to buy? Is there a site for this or is it just a word of mouth thing? I'm curious.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#162
post #2

My story. I worked my ass off for 10+ years, saved a little bit of extra cash after paying off most loans and then bought an online business that I was interested in. 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 k…

"... and then bought an online business ..." Where do you find businesses to buy? Is there a site for this or is it just a word of mouth thing? I'm curious.

Check out this thread, has a bunch of online business brokers mentioned in the comments and the OP article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12254484

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#163
post #45
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the article you are referencing? http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/10/be-on-fire.html Cause that picture is now my new wallpaper... Also it sounds like you have a similar path to mine. Launch stuff, fail, launch again stop mid way when no traction, launch, fail. Mind if I ask what you are doing that having 5 clients is all you need to be self-sufficient?

Yes that's the article! I love that picture too. I am doing media monitoring, I collect vast amounts of data on social networks, p2p, rss, webscraping ... then built reporting tools on top of it - high level trend reporting, customer segmentation for acquisition and brand targeting, planogram computing based on collaborative filtering, an entire media and brand intelligence platform. I also do Forex trading with Tens…

> I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k a year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and have an insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;)

Please teach me how to do this. I will pay you for your time.

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#164

Diligent savings over many years combined with low-risk investments. The stable income it generates now covers all living expenses for my family. I'm still part of the 9-5 crowd by choice while I search for my next calling in life. However, the main job is now more of a training ground and networking center than a primary source of income.

Can you share what sort of investments drive the majority of your income?

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#165
I think the key is to have a Safety Net. If you're lucky, you get one for free at birth. If not, you need to build it yourself during the first several years of 9-5ing.

Once you know for a fact that you can coast along for an entire year if things go south, life gets a lot better. You can start consulting and not have to sweat the occasional dry spell. You can build income generating products after work or during those blessed dry spells. You can do all that stuff remotely while dialing up your leisure time activity of choice to whatever level feels the most comfortable.

Better still, with a bit o' Safety Net, you'll be able to demonstrate to yourself that you can quickly pick up contract and full-time gigs when you need them. And you can emit artifacts that demonstrate to prospective employers that they should grab on with both hands if you happen to signal availability at any point. That helps a lot towards being able to bootstrap a product business on the side.

Eventually, after much trial and error you'll find something that sticks. I think for me it was something like Job Quittin' Side Project #6 that finally started bringing in enough profit to replace the day job.

Finally, make sure you're having fun along the way. It's not supposed to be a grueling heads down slog for however long it takes before you finally "win". It's life. And it's most enjoyable if you actually take the time to enjoy it while it's happening.

All the best! Let us know how it turns out.

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#166
post #163
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's the article! I love that picture too. I am doing media monitoring, I collect vast amounts of data on social networks, p2p, rss, webscraping ... then built reporting tools on top of it - high level trend reporting, customer segmentation for acquisition and brand targeting, planogram computing based on collaborative filtering, an entire media and brand intelligence platform. I also do Forex trading with Tens…

> I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k a year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and have an insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;) Please teach me how to do this. I will pay you for your time.

I'm developing a Deep Learning platform that helps with rapid data ingestion and model creation and training, all with a web GUI. It's intended to be an "accelerator" to take all of the boring engineering out and allows you to focus on the data science.

I'm about 1-2 weeks away from launching into beta, if you're interested I can provide you with a machine, a license for the platform, and consulting on how to search for profitable strategies.

My contact details are in my profile :)

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#168

Put simply: Being in control of my own time, day rate, and outgoings. I grew up in a very entrepreneurial environment, so after university I took a full-time job for 12 months (as a junior dev) then went freelance. I started cheap and upped my rate by £50 for every new project I took. During the 10 years I've been freelancing I also came up with my quality of life ratio, which is: How long does it take me to earn a m…

How did you get started with this? Especially being so junior?

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#169

Curious why people here hate 9 - 5 so much. I can understand starting a business if you have an idea you're passionate about and you're confident you can make you more money than you can make working for someone else. But most software development jobs actually allow you to have a lot of autonomy (flexible hours, work remotely, etc), a place to socialize with people who are likely going to have a lot in common with y…

I don't have an issue with 9 to 5 if the time is used wisely. You're paying me a salary per year. Is that salary to get a product out of me, or to fill a seat? My issue is the time waste. It's been exacerbated recently because of having too move and my daily commute going up from 20 minutes to 5 -> 5.5 hours. I work on the transit as much as I can. My current contract I was hired to create a new software team, but re…

Work on your own business during those hours. They are paying you to sit there, so sit there and create.

Re: Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

#170

Diligent savings over many years combined with low-risk investments. The stable income it generates now covers all living expenses for my family. I'm still part of the 9-5 crowd by choice while I search for my next calling in life. However, the main job is now more of a training ground and networking center than a primary source of income.

Can you share what sort of investments drive the majority of your income?

Mostly fixed income securities and fixed income-like assets (like real estate, asset-backed loans, etc.). $10,000 invested at 4% brings in a little more than $1/day.

Yes, the market value of the securities and assets may fluctuate day-to-day, but the income doesn't. As long as the borrower is of sufficiently high quality, then there really isn't any concern about the principal getting paid back.

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