Ask HN: I feel my dream slipping away

They say advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

Well, I'm not looking for hang-in-there-buddy-advice but rather employment ideas or immigration hacks from someone in my situation or who understands it. I'm an Engineer working at a big corp in California - a job I so hate but have been needing to hold on to for green card purposes (I'm a foreign citizen). I'm still at least 2 years away from getting it. Meanwhile, in my spare time, I've been hacking away on my boostrapped startup idea. I released a MVP two months ago and it has been gaining steady traction. I intend to hit ramen profitability by early next year. This is where it gets hard on me. In spite of spending many waking hours working on it, moonlighting often translates to slow progress. At the end of a full 10 hour day working for the man, creativity and productivity are not at their peak when I get to work in the evenings. I fear that when competition gets wind of the opportunity that exists in their blind spot, they will get to work and could outdo me quickly.

One option is quitting my job cold turkey but that may mean going back to my home country. I've lived in the US for 8+ yrs now and want to stay here. I want to build my business here. I like it here. Is that so bad? Isn't America the land where you can realize your dream and help others realize theirs too?

It gets very frustrating at times and I fear my dream is slipping away. I will turn 30 soon (no, that is not precipitating this :). I'd like to spend the next decade of my life building my own company, not waiting for a green card. I am making progress but at a snail's pace (at least I feel so). Plus from my last venture, I learned the lesson that working with a useless co-founder is worse than going it alone. This time, I am solo-ing until I can find a partner who is as passionate & hard working.

I've been bearing this situation for two years now and feel like I'm stuck in this rut for the foreseeable future.

Are any of you in similar shoes? How do you deal with it? Are there any immigration hacks that you are aware of? Have you figured out some way to spend a major chunk of your time working on your startup but staying in legal status and maintaing your perm residency petition?

tl;dr: Working on startup venture. No green card. Stuck in this situation for 2+ yrs. Slow progress and sometimes feel dream slipping away. Suggestions?

Gosh. I hope I don't come across as whiny. I'm not.

[EDIT] I've been trying to reply to some of your comments but the post isn't going through. Would you know why? I'm a long time HN user but this is a throwaway account and I'm not sure if it's because this is a new user.

Don't worry too much about a large company seeing what you are doing and moving into your space faster than you. Large companies go through several stages of copying ideas

1) What a dumb idea, that will never work

2) That company seems profitable, but we will beat them

3) We better copy that idea, but it is not our core business / it will cannabilise our profits

4) Okay, lets get some of our non-motivated, non skilled, unimportant engineers to look at this niche in our typical boring locked down plodding way

5) Budget cuts!

So yeah, don't be too worried about large companies.

First, as edw519 mentioned, 30 is still quite young. A friend of mine moved from Japan to the US at 38, taking less than half his former salary, and is still waiting for his green card at 43. He doesn't like his job that much but it keeps him here and the lifestyle is much better for him.

I myself am 35 with a wife and two kids. I've been bootstrapping solo for the last two and a half years. Traction takes time (like 2-5 years). You can't just put something online and expect it to grow. You have to physically talk to your potential customers, even if it means doing so repeatedly for very small deals.

You're actually quite lucky to be employed while working on your side project. Keep your job (or find another one if it won't screw up your green card process) and figure out a way to keep building on the side (make sure you're covered from an IP perspective). If you really want to make it happen, you're going to need a lot of energy and patience.

Also, don't worry about competition. It's the least of your concerns.

I'm not trying to be negative, but when your company is one person, a five man startup with a similar idea -is- a huge company, especially if they don't have to work ten hour days. Things are relative, and the megacorp isn't the only competition. Or even most of it.

Advice is what I look for when I feel like I should know the answer to something, and I don't.

You have a perfectly viable third option, and it's one that I nearly took while trying to juggle a business and a regular job at the same time. I certainly would have taken it if I felt that it was necessary to keep the regular job.

That option is, get help. You have a steady, reliable job now, and you might not enjoy it, but you might also be surprised at how much more enjoyable it can be if you have a successful business on the side that's taking care of itself. Also, I'm beginning to think that "getting help" is one of the most challenging steps an entrepreneur eventually has to take; why not handle it right away?

Take a day or two off from your regular job, if you can. A long weekend would be good. Decompress a little -- but don't procrastinate! -- and then sit down and draft an idea of what you want your business to do, and when you want it to do it. It doesn't need to be fancy; it doesn't need to be a business plan. Just: "in X months my business should be doing Y" kind of stuff.

Then, once you've got a clear idea of what you want to accomplish, start looking for people that can help you do it. The economy is your friend right now -- you should be able to find some part-time or contract help for pretty cheap. You'll get to learn how to manage them really effectively, since you won't be able to look over their shoulders 40 hours a week.

Two years from now, you can have your green card, and you can be way ahead of schedule in your business, just because you got help sooner rather than later.