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Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

sdk.org.nz

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Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#31

Post by maurycy »

tom_ilsinszki wrote: post #21
gridspy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check Hacker News, email, etc. Remind myself that I'm going to be a huge startup soon. Choose what excites me the most and bite of a tiny chunk. If I'm having real trouble, I'll promise myself to do 30 minutes and stop if I'm not making headway. Most nights I continue after that for some time.

I found that envisioning myself as a 'huge startup soon', or very successful in the near future is damaging. It's far more productive to focus on solving the most important problems, and not on the prize.

It depends on the perspective.

I tend to think a lot about a "huge startup soon" but not as a prize, but as a completely different set of challenges that needs to be kept in mind right now.

For instance, what I need to improve in order to become a CEO of a mid-sized company? What are my personality traits that limit company's growth?

Another example: the first employees you hire set the DNA of the company. If you hire them as an independent self-motivated agents, it is completely different story than passive helpers.

Also, it is important to reframe your venture into something bigger to avoid the trap of an eternal "side project", which you do not treat too seriously.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#32

Post by Mc_Big_G »

I'm in the same boat. Knowing and repeatedly experiencing the fact that most startups fail, I have accepted that the time spent is not wasted, even if I never make a dollar. I've already seen positive results in contacts made and experience gained. However, I still have those days when I think the guys "wasting" their time playing WoW or xbox are getting the last laugh.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#34

Post by thinkbohemian »

Sounds about right without the kids.

Btw, if you have a blog you should probably take the opportunity to pimp your own site with a little seo magic. looks like your first keyword is "power use" and the chances of putting someone else putting that in an "a" tag aren't that likely. Also a direct link to the site rather than just the blog entry would be helpful for real people.

Google will take the first link to [a href = "gridspy"][/a] and take a look inbetween the a tags, and consider that a relavent term for searches so [a href = "gridspy"]power use[/a] would help increase your search ranking for that term.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#35

Post by davidedicillo »

gridspy wrote: post #13
davidedicillo wrote: post #6

I'm sure dedicating yourself to one single project may be better, but doing both is absolutely doable at the beginning. You can even go a little further. At one (recent) point of my career I had more full time employees than the company of which I was an employee at the very same time. Sometimes you don't have the option of risk it all, so you need to adapt, even if that means skipping your beauty sleep. It's all abo…

Thanks. Honestly, what Gridspy needs is more of Me. I don't see myself paying other people to do work until I am running full-time because I am more dedicated (it _is_ my startup) and also I know the code better. Interesting situation to be in, working elsewhere while your start-up employs others. I'd be jealous of my employees in that situation.

Oh, I was just working 16 hours instead of 8 (mmm... that actually didn't change after I quit). My case is different cause mostly I'm a designer/front-end developer so I couldn't have done it all by myself anyway.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#36

Post by gruntruk »

gridspy wrote: post #11

Proud to see my blog post on HN. It has been a tough slog working full-time while spending every other waking moment on Gridspy. It doesn't help that I spend every waking moment thinking about it, even when I should be applying myself to my full-time job. Biggest challenges: 1) Starting work again at 7pm after dinner, and sticking with it as long as possible 2) Stopping at 10:30pm so I'm not dead after 2 days 3) Taki…

Congrats on both your hard work and what looks like a very cool product. It's encouraging to see others with families making their product aspirations work, even if at a slower pace than a FT startup. Best of luck!

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#37

Post by Sukotto »

gridspy wrote: post #11

Proud to see my blog post on HN. It has been a tough slog working full-time while spending every other waking moment on Gridspy. It doesn't help that I spend every waking moment thinking about it, even when I should be applying myself to my full-time job. Biggest challenges: 1) Starting work again at 7pm after dinner, and sticking with it as long as possible 2) Stopping at 10:30pm so I'm not dead after 2 days 3) Taki…

Well written and it comes at a great time for me. It's such a wonderful feeling to know there's someone else out there like me... I too am a family man (2 + 1 in the oven) with a fulltime job and a mortgage, and am trying to make time to build something by myself.

I love pg's essays though I often feel depressed after reading them. He frequently seems to be saying "don't even try unless you're young, free, have at least one partner, live in the valley, have no other obligations, and are willing to 'work until you endanger your health'"

Added your blog to my RSS reader.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#38

Post by sailormoon »

frosty wrote: post #33

the issue i face is, when i start working on my side project at 8pm i just want to keep working on it and before i realize its 3/4am and now i am late for office next day :(

haha. I hear you brother. And let me guess, after spending the whole week burning the midnight oil and getting 3-4 hours sleep per night, you catch up by sleeping all day saturday?

Try modafinil.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#39

Post by goodgoblin »

nkh wrote: post #7
patio11 wrote: post #4

This is totally doable, although I don't envy him for trying to do it while also having a wife and kids. If your life situation allows you to play WoW, your life situation allows you to run a business. Heck, my business is considerably less complicated than the guild I used to run. I managed to cut my headcount by 39 and my hours by 75%. (You may have to stop playing WoW. Apologies in advance, but trust me, the loot…

I would love to hear about any techniques you have for overcoming mental fatigue at the end of your work day when you still have business work to do. Did you work on your business before the work day started? Or something different?

Caffeine. I know one word responses are generally frowned upon here, but seriously that was how I do it.

I don't want to work on anything. I have just put the kids to bed. Its 9pm. Only a red-bull, or a pot of coffee, or maybe just a diet coke or tea can get me going again. That and music. I'll put on some music with headphones and its kind of like a signal to my brain that its time to start coding again.

Re: Part time Entrepreneur, fulltime Employee

#40

Post by randall »

nkh wrote: post #7
patio11 wrote: post #4

This is totally doable, although I don't envy him for trying to do it while also having a wife and kids. If your life situation allows you to play WoW, your life situation allows you to run a business. Heck, my business is considerably less complicated than the guild I used to run. I managed to cut my headcount by 39 and my hours by 75%. (You may have to stop playing WoW. Apologies in advance, but trust me, the loot…

I would love to hear about any techniques you have for overcoming mental fatigue at the end of your work day when you still have business work to do. Did you work on your business before the work day started? Or something different?

I started doing polyphasic sleep, so I work in the mornings from 3am to 9am, and then dayjob afterward. It's been working ok-ish so far.
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