For most people, dreaming about quitting a job to focus on a side project or a startup is a dream come true, especially if it ends up being successful. It can bring about so many emotions and fears all during that entire process... not knowing what is going to happen.. and what if it failed? Would it have been possible to return to your old job? So, for those who quit their jobs and were successful, how did it feel and what did you learn?
Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
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Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#3Just a reminder that life is pretty short, and worst case, you can probably just get another job and only be 6 months to 1 year behind your friends in terms of savings.
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#4I gave the following talk exactly one year ago right when I decided to quit my academic job to focus on my "startup dream" (now https://cocalc.com): http://wstein.org/talks/2016-06-sage-bp/. It's a year later, and the quick summary is that I feel basically really, really happy to be working on this company. It's exciting to be successfully hiring and building a team of people who work very well together and can focus 100% on a specific problem, unlike how things worked for me in my part of academia (pure math research). Though stressful at times, doing what I'm doing now is much less painful than trying to build a company while doing another fulltime job (namely teaching at the University fulltime) -- that really sucked. I'm extremely glad that customers are paying us and investors funded us enough that I can do this.
Having the luxury to focus on one thing, rather than juggling several, is much like having an office that is neat, tidy, and uncluttered. It feels good in the same way. At least by quitting a job and focusing on a startup, you have the option to focus 100% on it. Actually focusing 100% on one thing is a difficult skill in itself, even with the right circumstances; however, it's completely impossible (at least for me) with two fulltime jobs at once, especially jobs like teaching (which involve lots of public speaking at scheduled times) or running a website with paying customers (which demands, e.g., responding to DDOS attacks).
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#5Only asking for opinions from people who were successful is literally asking for survivor bias perspectives.
I dream of working for myself but I've never taken the plunge. My income from side projects is about 1/3 of the way to my minimum number to quit and go full time.
I do a lot of thinking about this, my number is the same as my financial independence / early retirement number.
One of the biggest things that holds me back is medical insurance for a family of 5. Having an employer offsets this cost a LOT.
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#6I did it twice. Both times I failed but I don't regret it. I felt very good when doing it. I lost savings but it was a good live experience.
On the second time I created this plugin: http://plugins.netbeans.org/plugin/61050/pleasure-play-frame... I tried to make a living of this, I only sold 5 licenses of 25 dollars per year and to develop this plugin took me 2 and a half months of hard work.
Didn't have a problem getting a new job both times.
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#7Well I ran a solo startup so my experience might be different from others but for me, it was like living a dream. While working full-time somewhere, I started this SaaS business and soon after, the monthly income kept doubling to the point I was able to quit my job knowing my living expenses are cared for. When I quit, it was like wow, the feeling of liberation just hits you so hard. I worked for 7 years prior to doing that and now I was free. The feeling of being able to go outside anywhere at any time of the day, go shopping, or go eat at a nice restaurant, just relax at the beach, stuffs you just couldn't do when you are working full-time somewhere. It's like getting out of jail for the first time. That's what it was like for me to quit my job and focus on my startup.
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#8Quitting my job was great!
Let's just say that my mistake was that I was too afraid to hurt my co-founder's feelings. If we parted ways when we should have, I might have actually gotten somewhere. (Then again, I might have gotten nowhere either!)
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#9I had my financial ducks in a row before I did my first startup -- I knew how much "fun money" I could expend getting the startup to work. Most of the horror stories I hear revolve around people who didn't do this.
Re: Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
#10Well I ran a solo startup so my experience might be different from others but for me, it was like living a dream. While working full-time somewhere, I started this SaaS business and soon after, the monthly income kept doubling to the point I was able to quit my job knowing my living expenses are cared for. When I quit, it was like wow, the feeling of liberation just hits you so hard. I worked for 7 years prior to doi…
do you mind sharing a link of your SaaS product?