191–200 of 345 posts
My very concrete feelings on this is that you probably don't. Asking folks how to do this is a bit like asking billionaires how to get rich. It's a fun story but it's overfitting. The individual narrative that made a billionaire is unlikely to be available for you. If you ask some millionaires they may be more likely to give you some useful advice around sound investment strategies, living within your means, and iden…
I’m curious, do you have kids? My perspective changed when I had kids. And I had kids close together, Matter than friends to boot. Mostly I realized how’s much time I was wasting to that point in life and I stopped. It’s perfectly possible to do a startup at any age. Know many people who do and have. Kids were a perfect prioritization and decision aid in my case. It makes you perfectly serious about doing what needs…
I definitely agree that having a child can be a spectacular forcing function for focus for some. I unfortunately also know folks for whom having a child was the proverbial straw, and whose life fell apart afterwards.
I was running my own company (RFID and industrial automation startup) before him. When I became a dad I found a corporate job. The worry around healthcare costs for a family as an independent were simply too much for me, even back then. All in all, I feel very fortunate in how it all worked out for my family.
Since we bootstrapped, I basically built the app on the subway ride there and back, and a few late nights. There were very few weekends because I didn't want to miss out on time with my young kids.
I will say though, that the company was basically dead before we were able to pivot our product and use it in pandemic response that provided a lifeline.
All in all, financially, I'm probably now breaking even on what I would've earned just doing hourly consulting for clients the last 5 years, vs starting the company.
But now we have a company with 12 people, a ton of great knowledge, and are on the path of growth. Hopefully this wasn't for naught!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You signed up for a bunch of responsibilities. You are always going to be your kids parent. You are only going to have this one opportunity to get this marriage and this family right. I think this is a bit of a depressing take. Even committed parents and spouses take alone time for themselves and have hobbies. Just treat your side project as your hobby and you can still have a healthy family. Also, think about how…
> Even committed parents and spouses take alone time for themselves and have hobbies. The parents I know with kids younger than 7 have no time for themselves or their hobbies. They're lucky if they can scrape together a few hours a week for basic self-care. In the mornings the kids demand full attention and after the kids go to bed there's maybe time for a single TV show which one person falls asleep during. > how ca…
If anything, being a parent taught me how to be very efficient with my time and how to cut things out that were meaningless. The arrangement I have with my spouse is that on weekdays I take care of the morning, and she takes care of the night. That means I'm responsible for getting breakfast ready, getting my daughter ready and sent to school, and my wife is responsible for dinner and putting my daughter to bed. On weekends our arrangement is usually that Saturday morning I get to sleep in and my wife mostly handles the day, and on Sunday it's the opposite.
I can't speak for everyone, but as I said before when I became a dad I realized there are just soooo many little things that consume 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, some procrastination here and there and I could cut them all out and add on the order of an additional 120 minutes per day, which is not at all trivial. It used to take me 40 minutes to an hour in the morning to shower, use the bathroom, brush my teeth, get dressed... now all of that is done in about 20 minutes. I used to do various daily errands during busier times of the day and get stuck in lines, now I do them during less busy times of the day.
Finally, changing my life in this way not only has given me more time, it also makes me a much more organized person and a more effective business leader.
First, make sure your partner is onboard and is supportive first. Have the discussion about the sacrifices needed to make it happen (time, money, lifestyle shift, etc.) Something that helped us was to set a goal of what we wanted when things eventually worked out. This kept us sane and helped me continue to be motivated during hard times. We lived in a pretty low cost area (NC) and managed to get our expenses down a lot.
I also made sure to spend my weekends with my family and my wife. I took over a lot of the chores on the weekends. Communication was key for us and when issues came up, I tried to resolve them ASAP.
Start working on your startup between 5 PM to midnight. Bootstrap it as much as you can until you can make ends meet, then quit your full-time job. Apply for YC and others while still growing your business if you think it has the scale. Eventually, it either works out well or poorly.
My experience:
- It's hard, if your playing a video game it would be in `very hard` mode
- Talk to your wife beforehand, she was okay with the opportunity
- Had a LOT of savings
- Have a co-founder (highly recommend it)
- We've raised preseed money (co-founder handled all of that)
- I hired an ex-coworker that I worked with previously (that's why you raise money)
- I'm remote so I get to spend more time with my baby (if I'm not productive during that day I try to code long nights and usually feed the baby during the night so my wife rests)
Overall it's been super hard but gratifying :)
PS: I also try to exercise for an hour a day to keep me sane
VC here. If you're building a bootstrapped business, then starting as a side project and building up revenue until you can go full time is probably the way to go. If you're going the venture-backed route, I think there's a misconception that there's no salary or minimal salary at early stages when you're funded, but this is not true. Most founders take a reasonable salary, where reasonably is defined more by your per…
Are we even allowed to do side projects? What if our employer claims ownership or even conflicts of interest with what we are building? How will i even present it into hn or producthunt with my name and all my credentials while i am still working somewhere else? Any employer would fire us on the spot if they found out, wouldn’t they?
1. Bootstrap a side hustle
IMO starting a side hustle that becomes profitable enough to quit your day job is the best strategy here.
There are very few SaaS ideas that will produce $B returns in However, there are easily thousands of SaaS ideas that will produce $10k/mo (with 90% margins) in the next 1-2 years. Take pretty much any existing SaaS product (eg. Segment, Zapier, Intercom, Jira, etc) and build a simpler version with nicer design for lower pricing, and you can get paying customers.
Once you're making $10k/mo (or even less) and growing you can probably quit your job and then that frees up a ton of time to invest in the existing business or a new business.
2. Buy someone's side hustle
Check our Microacquire. Tons of people are buying and selling SaaS companies on there.
If you have some money saved up, and some risk tolerance, you could consider buying a very small SaaS business (eg. $1k-2k/mo revenue) and growing it from there.
Even if this isn't an option for you, it's probably a good idea to check out Microacquire anyway to get inspiration for ideas for SaaS companies for #1.
3. Raise a pre-seed round
Try to find a VC firm who is willing to give you some money to spend time starting a company. This will be easier if you have a) a good background, b) a good co-founder, c) a good idea/big market and ideally an MVP.
That's kind of what the pre-seed round is all about. It gives VCs exposure to get into your company early at a great price, and it gives you a way to work on your idea while still making a salary.
4. Apply to be an entrepreneur in residence
A lot of VC firms have EIR positions where you basically get paid a salary while you're trying to decide what startup you want to start. The idea is that when you start a company you'll raise your first round from that VC firm.
It's not sustainable indefinitely, and with the current funding environment you may not be able to raise money. Even after raising money the startup life will be all-consuming so spending extended time with wife and children is going to be next to impossible.