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How to start a company with no free time

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Re: How to start a company with no free time

#161

Post by a_imho »

logicallee wrote: post #70
a_imho wrote: post #10

3. Don’t go it alone Using the money time duality is a bit cheating to be honest. At least in my experience people with 9-17 jobs don't have that kind of money to hire people.

I think we should be respectful of the audience that this blog post is and isn't for -- where it says that VC's can be "quite persistent" asking for coffees, this kind of shows you the kind of audience this is written for. And yes, if you're the kind of person that in the words of the article: >I would say “Hey, during these next couple months it will be very tough for me to meet in person, but I’d love to still help…

I don't quite agree, your answer is changing the boundary conditions implied by the title. Saying you are the person VCs are bothering is just avoiding the hard problem, you are already successful at that point. It reminds me of how to become a millionaire broker, earn 2 millions and lose half of it on the exchange.

Declining VCs but meeting people for recruitment is seriously bad advice imo, which leads to my agreement with the other commenter, I felt this article was motivated by humble brag more than wanting to be helpful. Of course, it is entirely my interpretation.

Most people I know don't have the luxury to even quit her daily job just to have a shot at becoming an entrepreneur. Paying additional staff is completely out of the question.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#162

Post by erikb »

ggregoire wrote: post #24

I'm surprised by the points 1 and 3. I started a company 2 months ago as solo founder and I work everyday on the product (a SaaS for small/mid companies). I really have no free time to do marketing yet or promote my idea. I just focus on having a MVP. 1. "Decline invitations from VCs to drink a coffee" I've never received any attention from a VC, like probably most founders when they started their first company. It s…

Think about it for a moment. You don't have VCs chasing you to do what they expect from you (drink coffee with them) but probably other people, e.g. parents who want you to get the best grades possible, a group of friends who expect you to go with them to cinema like you do every Tuesday night, etc.

And as an entrepreneur building the MVP is ONE OF YOUR LOWEST PRIORITIES! Product market fit is, and for that you need to have a MVP, but you don't need to build it. Fake it or try to get the money to have someone else build it while you find more money and other awesome people to work with. If you want to figure out everything after you create your MVP and your MVP is taking more than a few hours/days to set up, then you are just a programmer who dreams about getting rich, not an entrepreneur. Nothing wrong about it, but it's a different thing.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#163

Post by erikb »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

I find my productivity gets hung up sometimes between the 'doing' and the 'learning', this is particularly painful when I consider the 'learning' to be non-useful later. A common case for me is 'use this library/package to complete the task to do this thing', I want to write the code that uses the package, the package API is opaque, it speaks in a language that makes sense if you have been playing with a dozen differ…

Learning is also one of my main procrastinations, since it feels so useful when you do it.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#164

Post by erikb »

gyardley wrote: post #126

When I read articles like this, I realize just how differently I'm wired than, well, the sort of person who writes articles like this. And I kind of dislike articles like this, because there always seems to be an implicit prescriptiveness underneath them - you can start a company even when you've got no free time, and therefore you should start a company even when you've got no free time. HN, if you happen to be wire…

I think that mostly depends on the community you are in. If you want to focus full time on family and baby you can probably find like minded communites as well. But being a YCombinator website HN is inherently about building businesses how to do that from different starting points.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#165

Post by erikb »

old-gregg wrote: post #108

Great post and I agree with everything, but: As always, carefully vet someone else's experience against your own reality: >If you’re not raising money you will accomplish very >little for your business by meeting with VCs and >networking. Unless you are an enterprise software start-up, in which case your first customers may come via introductions by coffee-drinking VCs who may realize that you're solving a real probl…

I think the point in the article can be understood in a more general sense: Only do "polite things" with other people if they fulfill a specific task. In "hiring" she also talks about that she in fact spends a lot of her time with other people, just not to find good VCs but good employees. So I think the article agrees with you quite well.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#166

Post by erikb »

disordinary wrote: post #146

A surprising amount of developers have their own side projects. These should be encouraged by employers because a) most of these projects don't go anywhere and so the likelihood of you loosing a staff member to their hobbies is low, and b) because employees often explore new technologies and educate themselves when doing these things. It means your employee loves what they do enough to keep doing it in their spare ti…

I wouldn't count (a) as an argument. Let's say 90% of the side projects become something. I would argue in that case you as employer could still profit from allowing it. You could be a first investor as long as it is cheap, or an early bird customer with huge influence on features and look&feel. The employee still learns a lot of things that he can flow into the rest of the team through presentations and lunch break discussions. And last but not least, if a smart new employee sees that input is encouraged he also brigns in more courage to his day job and feels less need to do his own thing.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#167

Post by erikb »

eloff wrote: post #152
disordinary wrote: post #146

A surprising amount of developers have their own side projects. These should be encouraged by employers because a) most of these projects don't go anywhere and so the likelihood of you loosing a staff member to their hobbies is low, and b) because employees often explore new technologies and educate themselves when doing these things. It means your employee loves what they do enough to keep doing it in their spare ti…

Just a heads up, after passing 50 hours of assignments and interviews, I turned down an offer from IBM because they wanted to own my side project. Stay clear of big blue if you like doing side projects, their legal dept is overzealous.

That probably applies to all companies that are so big that middle-management people aren't a rare sight. It's not just because they are bad people, but they need simple, reliable systems to keep so many people work in the same directions. Even awesome exceptions are a huge pain to them since each one creates organizational debt.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#168

Post by erikb »

a_imho wrote: post #10

3. Don’t go it alone Using the money time duality is a bit cheating to be honest. At least in my experience people with 9-17 jobs don't have that kind of money to hire people.

Many 9-5 people have a house and two cars. For that kind of money you can pay a whole team for a year. The question is how you spend your money. And like with time it may need some out of the box thinking to free up some of that money. E.g. instead of buying new furniture use second-hand one that can be even found free online. Not as much "face" at the next party, but enough money to write 2-3 MVPs and get some product market fit.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#169

Post by erikb »

civilian wrote: post #5

I have a related question for the author or anyone: How do you keep your energy up to code in the evenings on your own project, after a full day of coding at the office?

I think the authors specifically solved that problem by raising money and paying others to code.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#170

Post by erikb »

ih wrote: post #159
civilian wrote: post #5

I have a related question for the author or anyone: How do you keep your energy up to code in the evenings on your own project, after a full day of coding at the office?

I've had a lot more success programming in the morning before going into the office. There might not be as much potential time to work, but I've found myself making more progress getting 30 minutes done a day every day than the intermittent multi-hour blocks I'd program when I had enough energy/motivation after coming home from work.

A nifty trick. It is also not just about the hours you can get out, but also about getting some premium hours with focus and flow. If you do it in the morning you have more of these for your own product instead of for your day job.
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