21–28 of 28 posts
This is the wrong question. A better question is "would 'tough times' affect you at all?" Never couple spending to income. That's a recipe for always feeling poor. Instead, find a baseline where you can live and make sure that it lies at such a tiny fraction of your normal income that you never need to think about thinks like "budgeting" or "saving". So if you're fresh out of school with your first $50k/year job, mak…
This is the wrong question. A better question is "would 'tough times' affect you at all?" Never couple spending to income. That's a recipe for always feeling poor. Instead, find a baseline where you can live and make sure that it lies at such a tiny fraction of your normal income that you never need to think about thinks like "budgeting" or "saving". So if you're fresh out of school with your first $50k/year job, mak…
The problem with that argument is that not everyone is OK with living a bare minimum cost of living life style. Also rewarding yourself for earning more can give you motivation to progress further. I recommend fixing your spending at a %-age of your post tax income at a maximum. For me it is 50%, but that is on the conservative side for most people. I don't always spend 50%, but that is the max. I feel it is a good c…
Keep them decoupled. That's the important thing.
I fish for contract work when it's available and try to generate passive income where possible. If you're living on $20k, the 3-4K you get from your asset portfolio goes a long way.
If I had no assets at all, I wouldn't be willing to enter the start up game . I'd look to ratchet up the ladder to a bigger buffer first then role the dice.
If I had to ... I'd consider taking s part-time job doing whatever and finding a living situation that the part time job could afford (e.g. Sharing an apartment uncomfortably). I'd spend the rest of the time on my start up or trying to ratchet up a better living situation.
What's that saying about logistics winning wars?
If you're building a company in SF without OPM (Other People's Money), you are making a big mistake.
Why use an acronym if you need to explain it anyway? You've essentially just added an extra word.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious what you meant by: >I built some software to take advantage of referral programs from startups and used that to get free food for a few months.
A bunch of food delivery startups have referral programs for first time users. There are some ways to get lots of referrals using software :-).
Proxy... I know if you're smart you can take advantage of things, like for instance me not being smart, my credit cards fucked me, but smart people on the other hand, they sign up for credit cards and can make money off of it. Like $600/mo through all those signup bonuses or whatever.
That aggressiveness comes from reaching out to my existing network more, stretching that network to more people and also removing things that compromise in the contract work search (bonus if they’re also sapping money). So things like Netflix, eating out regularly, or anything else that’s definitely a Want but not a Need, are put on pause as well.
But this would be a lot easier if a buffer was created first so you wouldn’t reach this situation in the first place. Or if you did then you’re prepared better for weathering it out. You build a buffer to help you financially and also mentally: build up a war chest with either savings or investment money and do things that make you uncomfortable while you have the room to do so, so they don’t make a mess of you later.
Get a job at a lame startup with lots of processes and code reviews - things that leave you with a lot of free time waiting for others to approve the minutiae. The more designers they have the better - especially if they work remote. That company will fail horribly but, you will have the time and funds to work on your project.