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Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#11

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

I greatly regretted leaving a finance job early in my career to work in an early stage start-up.

The start-up workplace culture was worse, work life balance was worse, the loud open-plan office was unhealthy, distracting and frustrating to work in.

Even on a generous expected value basis, favoring only high valuation exits or IPOs, and even as a super early stage employee, the compensation was way worse at the start-up compared with a stable high salary, bonus, retirement plan, and benefits.

To be clear, that is even if you assume away a lot of the risk for bad outcomes at the start-up and favor high valuation possibilities. Even still, the equity is manipulated by founders and investors and is so drastically unlikely to work out in a favorable way for employees.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#12

Post by squirrelicus »

In August I quit my cushy (cushy!) day job to go full time on my startup, fully bootstrapped, living on my savings account.

I discovered what panic attacks were, and made it to February a few months ago before getting a less cushy day job. Although I had the financial runway to go longer, I didn't have the mental fortitude to keep it up with a wife and three kids I have to provide for.

We're still continuing nights and weekends at a much slower pace, but at a much more sustainable pace. The biggest challenge is keeping a moonlighting team motivated. My decision to fully vest my cofounders up front is paying off with this approach. I suspect it will be another 6-12 months before we go live at this point.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#13

Post by flanban »

murph37 wrote: post #7

Contemplating this decision myself. Would love to hear others thoughts!

Money turns into time tokens. Therefore reducing your cost of living = more time.

It's a different way of thinking and I like it. The comfort & security that comes from a steady paycheck can go in an instant. Don't let that false security keep you stuck in the rat race. Nobody wants to pay for you if they don't have to.

I went to someone else's startup to escape corporate then success turned it quite corporate as well. The process left me burnt. Now I contract and it's not all roses, but I would never go back to the office life.

Corporate was unhealthy for me in mind body and spirit. You get lumpy, you drink more, you eat garbage, you sleep worse, potential back & cardiac problems down the road and most importantly sex dies.

fwiw, my father was an alimony ridden fine artist and my step father was a senior partner at a big 4 accounting firm. My dad was a really happy, well read and interesting guy. My stepdad's life is textbook american dream perfection and it's a very sad and bland one.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#14

Post by nikanj »

deepaksurti wrote: post #5

You won't regret it if you go to entrepreneurship and ship. The problem is not about entrepreneurship but in not planning for failure and having backup plans. John Carmack: "There is wisdom that only comes from complete product cycles -- no amount of job hopping can provide it." [1] From personal experience, I can say go for it not because you hate corporate, but because you want an end to end experience, then come b…

Nothing worse than shipping and having absolutely no sales.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#15

Post by aardvark291 »

overcast wrote: post #8

What's wrong with working the corporate world, and moonlighting your SaaS business? If it ends up taking off, then quit. I don't understand why it has to be either or. I run multiple side gigs, while keeping the safe corporate job, for now.

If your side-project is at all related to your day job, this most likely runs afoul of your employment agreement and IP considerations. Typically, your employer claims ownership of all IP you generate that pertains to your work or its business. For example, if you work at Google, I think it's essentially impossible to simultaneously work on any other side project that you wish to commercialize that will not be owned by Google.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#16

Post by nikanj »

slipwalker wrote: post #2

How about the other way around ? Leaving entrepreneurship in order to take a corporate job and not looking back ?!... a bit of history: just around college ( 1996-1997 ) with the internet boom in brazil, i took my first consultant clients, since then worked with several "fintech" ( wasn't called that by then, but that is what those companies were/are... ) and tried to grow my company ( software consultancy and tailor…

I've seen people pre-exit startups. Be one of the founders, take a corporate job as soon as the initial vesting is complete and the business has solid traction

You're basically gambling that the other founders won't scuttle the startup just to spite you. This way, you get to enjoy the possible lottery winnings from the startup eventually making it big, while simultaneously having the safety and comfort of a corporate job.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#17

Post by bad_good_guy »

aardvark291 wrote: post #15
overcast wrote: post #8

What's wrong with working the corporate world, and moonlighting your SaaS business? If it ends up taking off, then quit. I don't understand why it has to be either or. I run multiple side gigs, while keeping the safe corporate job, for now.

If your side-project is at all related to your day job, this most likely runs afoul of your employment agreement and IP considerations. Typically, your employer claims ownership of all IP you generate that pertains to your work or its business. For example, if you work at Google, I think it's essentially impossible to simultaneously work on any other side project that you wish to commercialize that will not be owned…

I can't imagine a case like that would ever hold up, unless you were working on company time or machines.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#18

Post by cgopalan »

If you want to hear a "yes, go for it" then yes, go for it.

If you are still open to suggestions, lets play out that scenario where you quit your job and start a business. Then you would: 1) Make an overall vision for your business. 2) Translate it to several phases. 3) Translate each phase into tasks. 4) Start working on tasks. If a task is too big, break it down to subtasks. 5) Incrementally start finishing tasks.

Now, can you do the above devoting an hour or so each day to it while being in your corporate job?

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#19

Post by overcast »

aardvark291 wrote: post #15
overcast wrote: post #8

What's wrong with working the corporate world, and moonlighting your SaaS business? If it ends up taking off, then quit. I don't understand why it has to be either or. I run multiple side gigs, while keeping the safe corporate job, for now.

If your side-project is at all related to your day job, this most likely runs afoul of your employment agreement and IP considerations. Typically, your employer claims ownership of all IP you generate that pertains to your work or its business. For example, if you work at Google, I think it's essentially impossible to simultaneously work on any other side project that you wish to commercialize that will not be owned…

Baloney, unless you're using corporate resources to get it done, they don't own work you do outside of working hours. No judge would ever uphold that. There are tons of Google / Facebook / whatever employees that build software outside of work.

Re: Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

#20

Post by geofft »

bad_good_guy wrote: post #17
aardvark291 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your side-project is at all related to your day job, this most likely runs afoul of your employment agreement and IP considerations. Typically, your employer claims ownership of all IP you generate that pertains to your work or its business. For example, if you work at Google, I think it's essentially impossible to simultaneously work on any other side project that you wish to commercialize that will not be owned…

I can't imagine a case like that would ever hold up, unless you were working on company time or machines.

I can't afford as many lawyers as Google can. Do you have examples of cases where a Google-style IP agreement was ruled unenforceable when someone was moonlighting on something that was in the same field of business as some other part of the company (but unrelated to their own day job)?
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