If you are going to try to do this, working remote is the ideal situation. When working remote I save about 2 or so hours. Traffic, packing a lunch, office politics, getting dressed, eating breakfast vs. eating breakfast in front of the computer... etc.
Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
21–30 of 193 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
No employer I have ever worked for would even consider modifying this language in their agreement. They are going to have a standard boilerplate and if you try to negotiate or modify it they will tell you “sign it unmodified or GTFO.” Ask me how I know :-)
My last two companies have modified their language.
Yeah, I request changes from both clients and W2 jobs and get most of what I want as well.
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#23My day job was steady consulting work, but I used that to provide stability while building a company my partners and I sold last year. It wasn't a huge exit (in truth my cut barely covered the extra hours I put into it over four years) and one of these days I'm going to have to write up the history of this project as a cautionary tale about all the mistakes you can make getting involved with a startup. But it was mildly profitable, and with better marketing we probably could have tripled our valuation on exit.
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put it in your contract before you get employed. If starting a company while employed, reach out to your employer saying you're building company X which does Y as a side project and you need a document stating no IP ownership.
No employer I have ever worked for would even consider modifying this language in their agreement. They are going to have a standard boilerplate and if you try to negotiate or modify it they will tell you “sign it unmodified or GTFO.” Ask me how I know :-)
I got my last employer to agree to change the IP terms. It was a typo in their document nobody caught, that asserted ownership on everything. They were only too happy to fix it so it only applied to work done for them. I did have an industry specific non-compete as well, but it's a fairly narrow segment, so I had no problem signing.
My current employment agreement specifically states I can run whatever enterprise I want outside of work so long as it doesn't interfere with my duties (and presumably their business).
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#25Tread carefully. If you’re going to do this, read your current employment agreement carefully especially the parts about Intellectual Property. Every medium-to-large company I have worked at has asserted ownership of everything I build, at work or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time—it doesn't matter. If your employer can imagne a conflict of interest (for example could what you are working on pote…
Does anyone know how this works if you build a consulting business, or build software, but then don't claim any of the IP?
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#26I have a finance career, plus I built CanadaPups.com. Very little maintenance and costs, but lots of fun to tinker and improve it as a hobby. Just letting it grow on its own as I'm kinda out of ideas of how to kick it up a notch - suggestions welcome!. https://canadapups.com
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure you will be get hired while building a company.
Pretty common question to ask from hiring managers. It shows passion. Passion is a way better predictor of your work quality and commitment than asking ICPC whiteboard questions.
Side projects prove the passion, I certainly agree. Only, I can't get my head around if employee decides to start dreaming his/her side project taking over the current job. If odds are close and side project has good traction, maybe it's not ethical to work in fulltime before understanding it either.
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#28I started a coding youtube channel that used to make around $1000/mo before the algorithm changes started favoring channels that uploaded more often and my ad rates dropped from about $20CPM to around $4CPM: http://www.youtube.com/devfactor
Now it makes around $100/mo
When I was working on it it was around 4h of work to create a 10min video tutorial. I think I have around 100 tutorials.
When I was making low income working for a startup I also did consulting on the side, charged 3-5k for small business websites. Now I work at a big company which pays me enough to survive high CoL so I don't do that anymore.
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#29Tread carefully. If you’re going to do this, read your current employment agreement carefully especially the parts about Intellectual Property. Every medium-to-large company I have worked at has asserted ownership of everything I build, at work or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time—it doesn't matter. If your employer can imagne a conflict of interest (for example could what you are working on pote…
> [...] or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time [...]
That sounds illegal.
Re: Ask HN: Who here has built a profitable startup while keeping their day job?
#30Tread carefully. If you’re going to do this, read your current employment agreement carefully especially the parts about Intellectual Property. Every medium-to-large company I have worked at has asserted ownership of everything I build, at work or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time—it doesn't matter. If your employer can imagne a conflict of interest (for example could what you are working on pote…
Does anyone know how this works if you build a consulting business, or build software, but then don't claim any of the IP?
Not a lawyer, but you wouldn't be able to legally assign the IP from you to your client, as the IP would be owned by your employer.