Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 181 posts

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

#41

Post by the-dude »

I was already doing some side-project while employed and my contract was not renewed.

I took a 30% cut on my unemployment benefits so I had no obligation to find work for 6 months. After unemployment benefits ended, I tried to find a bit of investment and also did a KS. Both failed, so I started to eat a retirement plan I still had.

Then I applied for another 3.5 months employment benefits ( was my right ), and I simulated trying to find work.

Then it got really ugly and did some parttime barista work. Sold some belongings.

Then the product got traction: https://mecoffee.nl

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

#42

Post by cylinder »

vi1rus wrote: post #16
wildmusings wrote: post #4

Not quite answering your question, but I quit my great tech job and decided to burn my savings and go into debt by going to law school. At least consider that maybe it's not the 9-5 that's the problem, but the line of work itself. Being good at something doesn't mean you're passionate or motivated for it. Depending on the kind of person you are, lack of passion/motivation can be an insurmountable obstacle to being th…

I actually agree. I have come to realize that 9 to 5 is not horrible, the key is self-fulfillment and happiness. For most people they will be unhappy regardless of the state of finances or work they do. I realize that even if I have my own business it does not mean I won't have to deal with things I don't like. What attracts me though is the financial independence, having control of my future instead of someone else…

For me, it's control. I cannot stand idiot managers making decisions that have such a significant impact on my life. Everything from major, broad issues down to where my desk is located and the temperature of the office and when I have to be in. You will still have to work everyday full-time, probably more, and have different stresses, but I cannot fork over my autonomy to others in exchange for a paycheck.

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

#43

Post by dstpierre »

odonnellryan wrote: post #37

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 i…

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

Hah, so true. Although I find working for my startup more rewarding than trading hours for money.

My path is similar to yours, I quit my 9 to 5 job in 2007, started a software consultancy than moved to building my own SaaS in 2009. Since than, that's the only revenue for my family (2 daughters, wife, doing home school).

The stress and lower money at time for sure, but like others said, would not trade this to return in enterprise job.

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

#44

Post by rloc »

I was employed by a big US tech company in France (8+ years). I left a few months ago to grow my own startup.

I've been working on the side project for 3 years before that. It's a SaaS web + mobile app. I worked on this project in my spare time (nights and sometimes during weekends). It was solving a problem that I was dealing with personally and I bet I was not the only one. The great thing with a side project is that you have no pressure and you can code features fast at the beginning. It was still a lot of work though but you don't feel it when it's your baby.

When it started to get traction (feedback from users is critical at this point) and some healthy revenue, I decided to take the plunge. France give you the opportunity to continue to earn something like 70% of your previous revenue (estimation, there are calculations rules) for 2 years in the case you create a new business.

I believe I found the motivation because my daily job was project manager but my side project was more of a developer job. Coding your own product without all the pain that a PM needs to resolve was a breath of fresh air. Combining the two competencies was also an advantage for learning to be an entrepreneur (even though I was more of a newbie as a developer compared to the devs I was working with in my previous company).

Now I'm enjoying it, I hired a few interns and joined an incubator in Paris.

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

#45

Post by malux85 »

vi1rus wrote: post #39
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?

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 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 ;)

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

#46

Post by tobz »

rloc wrote: post #44

I was employed by a big US tech company in France (8+ years). I left a few months ago to grow my own startup. I've been working on the side project for 3 years before that. It's a SaaS web + mobile app. I worked on this project in my spare time (nights and sometimes during weekends). It was solving a problem that I was dealing with personally and I bet I was not the only one. The great thing with a side project is th…

Whoa whoa whoa, tell me more about the thing with France and collecting a percentage of your previous salary. How does all of that work? Who pays for it?

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

#47

Post by estefan »

jaredandrews wrote: post #13
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…

Very cool! I quit my cushy 9-5 about a year ago and have been contracting off and on since then. It has been amazing and I realized I can never do the 9-5 thing again. I hope to start my own business at some point. The problem is... I haven't had a good idea yet... I have been thinking about buying an existing online business if I can't think of anything. When I look into it though I am completely in over my head. Do…

Same boat as you. I think this could be the key:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/startup-entrepreneurship-disc...

I can't recommend it highly enough.

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

#48

Post by csallen »

I did remote contract front-end development for about 3 years. Working contracts gave me a TON of flexibility to work on my own projects on the side. I also tried to take high-paying contracts and save as much money as I could. When my last contract ended, I had enough money in the bank to survive for ~18 months without another paycheck, even while paying rent in SF. Currently, I'm about 9 months into that.

I've worked on several projects since then, one of which (TaskforceApp.com) is making $500-$1500/mo. The other I just launched on HN about 3 weeks ago: http://www.IndieHackers.com. It's gotten almost 300k pageviews since launch, and I've lined up some awesome sponsors who combined are contributing about $1000/mo. My plan is to keep growing the site by adding interviews, writing more blog posts, and adding forums/AMAs.

If you're interested in hearing lots of other stories similar to this (most of which are more impressive), I recommend checking out Indie Hackers. I publish average monthly revenue stats in addition to interviews with the founders behind all these companies.

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

#49

Post by jaredandrews »

estefan wrote: post #47
jaredandrews wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool! I quit my cushy 9-5 about a year ago and have been contracting off and on since then. It has been amazing and I realized I can never do the 9-5 thing again. I hope to start my own business at some point. The problem is... I haven't had a good idea yet... I have been thinking about buying an existing online business if I can't think of anything. When I look into it though I am completely in over my head. Do…

Same boat as you. I think this could be the key: https://www.coursera.org/learn/startup-entrepreneurship-disc... I can't recommend it highly enough.

Thanks! Definitely gonna check this out! Out of curiosity did you do the 'paid' or 'audit' version of this? I can't really tell if the 'paid' version is worth it. I can't imagine the certification being useful.

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

#50

Post by jaredandrews »

codegeek wrote: post #15
jaredandrews wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool! I quit my cushy 9-5 about a year ago and have been contracting off and on since then. It has been amazing and I realized I can never do the 9-5 thing again. I hope to start my own business at some point. The problem is... I haven't had a good idea yet... I have been thinking about buying an existing online business if I can't think of anything. When I look into it though I am completely in over my head. Do…

feinternational.com has some really good articles on buying/selling online businesses. But most importantly, you need to also create your own criteria first. I also wrote a blog post on this topic with my thoughts. Feel free to take a look for some pointers. http://yashchandra.com/2016/04/17/how-to-buy-an-online-busin...

Great post. Thanks for sharing man!
Post reply on HN