61–70 of 193 posts
Might be easier to combine a day job with freelancing rather than having a startup.
It depends, serious freelancing often requires some kind availability/responsiveness within business hours which may be tough with full-time day job. Of course the same applies to any high touch customer startup too.
Tread 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…
I don't understand this how the hell would they even know what you are doing at home? If your home project gains a little traction to financially support you then you quit the day job, and don't tell them anything. If not then it's some private home project you do. Can't believe you are making decisions on what you do at home based on some company that could easily disappear, lay you off, get sold, etc etc, before yo…
Might not be your typical answer, but I launched an ecommerce store that’s been profitable since the first month. At first I targeted solo devs without much digital design skills, but it turns out that blank sketchpads are very useful to designers and design agencies as well. It’s done well enough where I continue to run out of each batch of inventory and it’s turned a small profit as I continue to order large and la…
Tread 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…
"asserted ownership of everything I build, at work or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time—it doesn't matter" That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Assuming you're not stealing technology, or doing it on their time or machines, there is no way a court would uphold that. If I build a house, or rebuild a car in my off time, they own that too? Corporations don't own your entire life.
After I moved and started working.
I made a small stink about it but they were adamant and eventually I caved. These laws are important.
I 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
Not sure you could classify it as a startup, but it makes me a few hundred dollars per month. I'd actually love to grow it more but I'm not sure what the best direction to take it in is. If anybody has any feedback or feels like getting involved, feel free to drop me a mail at "tom @ artpip.com"!
I can do that because I have no social life and everything is optimized so that I can work all the time. But I don't think I would recommend that to everyone.
Benefits are :
* You are never bored
* If one of your job annoys you, you can always balance with the other one
* You have a lot of money, because you have two salaries, but you also don't have the time to buy anything
* And you dont waste time on useless things
Disadvantages:
* No social life
* No time with familly
* No leisures
* Very tired all the time
Honestly having a startup is usually not only something you can focus on only the night, you need to answer clients during the day, you need to monitor everything all the time. But if you love working, this is definitely something that you can enjoy
In retrospect, it was a much safer way to start a business because it took much of the uncertainty out of the equation and eliminated the financial stress. It was possible for us because our startup is a SaaS business, not all businesses can be bootstrapped or built with only nights and weekend efforts. I often wished it would go faster and still think we could have been profitable a year earlier than we were but with time being our biggest constraint it didn't happen. That was the tradeoff we made for financial stability. You have to be OK with small successes and slow progress that evolves into a business/product over time rather than one massive sprint to get an MVP ready to ship in a couple weeks/months.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time [...] That sounds illegal.
Even if it is totally illegal, you're still going to go to court to fight it, and lawyers are expensive. Nobody sane is going to spend 30k+ going to trial on a side project.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"asserted ownership of everything I build, at work or away from work, using my own equipment, on my own time—it doesn't matter" That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Assuming you're not stealing technology, or doing it on their time or machines, there is no way a court would uphold that. If I build a house, or rebuild a car in my off time, they own that too? Corporations don't own your entire life.
Even the grand old red state I'm working in doesn't allow these claims but it sure didn't stop the company I work for from asking me to agree to them. After I moved and started working. I made a small stink about it but they were adamant and eventually I caved. These laws are important .