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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?

#31

Post by megalomanu »

I work full-time on my website since 6 months, after two years of development and growth when I was an employee. At first, it was only a little side-project so I haven't done anything to prepare my exit to entrepreneurship. I've quit my job when my partner and I we have felt a real potential for our website. I guess it's less stressful in France than in other countries, because we have in France the possibility to terminate the employment like a resignation, and then receive comfortable unemployment benefits during two years. There is no need to save money, and no pressure at the beginning of the startup.

Everyone has its own way to work on a side project. Personaly, I worked every mornings, before work. Why ? Because my brain was fresher, my spirit less crowded by external thoughts. I could go to work without frustration, with the satisfaction of having worked on my own website. And at evening, I could hang out with my girlfriend or friends without feeling guilty.

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

#32

Post by paddi91 »

My 9-5 job got a bit boring after 5 years so I decided to work on an idea I already had in mind for a few years. With the help of my co-founder (which I met in the meantime) the business got serious and I noticed that I'm way to busy with the 9-5 job. So I got the opportunity to work 24h/week at a local startup which also shares our technology stack. I usually split the week in 3 days on the paid job and 3 days (w/ one day of every weekend) for our own startup. Now we're one year later, still having 2 jobs as the income is not sufficient enough to pay for life.

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

#34

Post by marktangotango »

Personlly, I have a family, mortgage, and full time job as a developer. I did an hour a day of 'car coding' with my laptop tethered to my cell phone, an hour here or there in the evenings and weekends. Took about 6 months to build an MVP and launch. Still working 9-5 though, and tweaking the product and message. I wrote up some details below.

https://medium.com/@m.taylor/zero-to-mvp-thirty-minutes-at-a...

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

#35

Post by NikolaNovak »

kazinator wrote: post #29
codegeek wrote: 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…

> It is tough, income is still less than I what I made in my cushy job But you have more ways to avoid taxes (both legal and not so much). If you get paid cash for anything, you may be able to conceal the income. You can creatively shuffle losses into the limited liability corporation, to avoid being personally affected, and basically just sock it to whomever the corporation owes. Self-employed people typically have…

While you cannot simply "write off" your drive and mortgage [as an employee in Canada]; depending on details, you CAN mitigate some of the taxes through your home office etc if your employer fills out t2200 in a way that benefits you.

(I am completely NOT a lawyer or accountant; but an IT worker and this is what my accountant does for me; your milleage and circumstances may vary :)

See sections 7, 9 and 10: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t2200/README.html

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

#36

Post by malux85 »

It was just brute force.

I worked every evening, every weekend, on the tube on the way to and from the office. During my lunch hours. My coworkers knew not to interrupt me during lunch, because I always took a sandwich to the same desk, put my headphones on, and worked.

Have you seen that comic "You must burn", that's exactly it. It's painful, there's moments of crippling self doubt, there's moments when you'd rather be doing literally anything else, but you must burn through them. https://startupiceland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/you-must-...

I had several failures. I launched an iPad app that failed. I launched several webapps that failed. In total, 4 "product launches" that failed and crashed and burnt, and countless more mini-projects that never finished or caught traction.

It took me years to get my first B2B client, but once I got it, I didn't have to work ever again, now I have 5 clients, and am concentrating on launching new products and growing and partnering.

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

#37

Post by odonnellryan »

I started my own software consultancy: we mostly focus on web applications, and we've had awesome experiences helping many startups in the NYC area!

Lots of times startups have a good codebase, but they are having hard problems with just a few parts of the product: they don't always have a lot of funding, but it's fun to make connections and help them succeed.

Though, it isn't so much "escape from the 9 to 5" as it is "now you work all the time."

Not that I always work more (some weeks are slow, others very busy) but I do find myself having to be available more.

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

#39

Post by vi1rus »

malux85 wrote: post #36

It was just brute force. I worked every evening, every weekend, on the tube on the way to and from the office. During my lunch hours. My coworkers knew not to interrupt me during lunch, because I always took a sandwich to the same desk, put my headphones on, and worked. Have you seen that comic "You must burn", that's exactly it. It's painful, there's moments of crippling self doubt, there's moments when you'd rather…

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?

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

#40

Post by camhenlin »

I woke up one day and realized that if I had to spend another day commuting for nearly 2 hours a day to sit in an office that I hated, I would lose my mind. So I quit and found a remote job. There are lots of remote companies out there, find one
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