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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?

#61

Post by a13n »

justboxing wrote: post #53
a13n wrote: post #24

Heck no I don't regret it. Just over three years ago I left my cushy job at Facebook to start a company. It took a year and a half of grinding to make our first dollar. Now we're ramen profitable and still growing strong. [1] The reason it took so long is because I was an inexperienced founder. I could build the product, but stuff like getting customers, pricing our product, writing a landing page... These are not th…

How are you just 'ramen profitable' when your lowest / basic plan to track just 100 users costs a whopping 50$ / month [1] ? Don't mean to come off as snarky, but, unless you are targeting corporations and enterprises for your service, your pricing model [2] would be too much for most bootstrapped companies and early stage startups... [1], [2] https://canny.io/pricing

We don't target bootstrapped and early stage startups. Our target audience is B2B software companies with 10-1000 employees.

We don't sell to enterprises.

We've thought about introducing a free tier for smaller companies!

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

#62

Post by a13n »

riku_iki wrote: post #51
a13n wrote: post #24

Heck no I don't regret it. Just over three years ago I left my cushy job at Facebook to start a company. It took a year and a half of grinding to make our first dollar. Now we're ramen profitable and still growing strong. [1] The reason it took so long is because I was an inexperienced founder. I could build the product, but stuff like getting customers, pricing our product, writing a landing page... These are not th…

> I could build the product, but stuff like getting customers, pricing our product, writing a landing page... It would be extremely interesting to read what lessons you learned on this road :-)

Ask and you shall receive!

https://canny.io/blog/saas-startup-ramen-profitability/

https://canny.io/blog/lessons-learned-bootstrapping-saas/

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

#63

Post by riku_iki »

geofft wrote: post #60
riku_iki wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From another hand there are thousands of ex-googlers left company to engage in startups, and Google likely doesn't have enough lawyers to go after each of them..

Left to join/found a startup is different from working simultaneously at both.

Yes, but Google need some resources to monitor and research who exactly left to found, and who was working simultaneously at both with conflict of company interests.

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

#64

Post by riku_iki »

a13n wrote: post #62
riku_iki wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could build the product, but stuff like getting customers, pricing our product, writing a landing page... It would be extremely interesting to read what lessons you learned on this road :-)

Ask and you shall receive! https://canny.io/blog/saas-startup-ramen-profitability/ https://canny.io/blog/lessons-learned-bootstrapping-saas/

Oh, thanks!

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

#65

Post by JauntTrooper »

drenvuk wrote: post #21

I have said this before in other topics when someone is getting fed up with their job and want to try their hand at making a company. Get the business started, running, profitable and automated (with humans, bots, or scripts) and then quit. Do not remove your major source of income which also happens to be your major source of investment and start the clock that runs until your bank account empties and you need to lo…

Phil Knight's autobiography Shoe Dog was really interesting. This is what he did when he started Nike. He kept his day job as an accountant for a while.

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

#66

Post by cgopalan »

optymizer wrote: post #30
cgopalan wrote: post #18

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.…

(skipping over legal and tech arguments for a moment) Sadly, if your business is in software, then your corporate employer will own your IP, and the answer becomes "No".

Sorry didn’t clarify - I meant outside of business hours.

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

#67

Post by optymizer »

cgb223 wrote: post #45
optymizer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(skipping over legal and tech arguments for a moment) Sadly, if your business is in software, then your corporate employer will own your IP, and the answer becomes "No".

Not if you're doing it on your own hardware, on your own time, outside of work hours

I have discussed this issue with an attorney in my state. Your argument is easier to make in court if you've started _before_ you joined, but if you start your business _while_ being employed, which is what this post suggests, your chances don't look good. Some states are more lenient or are known to side with the employee instead of the employer.

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

#68

Post by optymizer »

cgopalan wrote: post #66
optymizer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(skipping over legal and tech arguments for a moment) Sadly, if your business is in software, then your corporate employer will own your IP, and the answer becomes "No".

Sorry didn’t clarify - I meant outside of business hours.

Even outside of business hours, depending on your state (according to an attorney I contacted).

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

#69

Post by optymizer »

shawn wrote: post #44
optymizer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(skipping over legal and tech arguments for a moment) Sadly, if your business is in software, then your corporate employer will own your IP, and the answer becomes "No".

Not a chance. If someone wants to hire me, they do not own my work outside of business hours. It's the new serfdom.

The fact is, lots of software devs, aside from you, are employed by the large tech companies, and depending on the state, the courts side with the company.

I wish we could all collectively refuse employment, but once you get the offer, not everyone has the luxury of saying "no, I'll go with a much lower salary at a smaller company".

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

#70

Post by majkinetor »

wenbin wrote: post #48

I don't regret. I left my day job in late 2016 and started to do this startup thing. I'm still very happy. I've seen people who left day job to start companies and became very unhappy very quickly (within 6 months). The key thing is to have the right motivation and to manage expectation. If the primary reason to start your own company is to look good in front of your other fancy friends, then you'd better not do that…

Nice points m8.
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