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I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

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Re: I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

#2

Post by eloff »

I would actually recommend not quitting your job to be an entrepreneur. I did it, and as the money ran out I couldn't even focus anymore and made poor decisions. It seriously affected my self esteem as a man. It might be different if you're single and young and can get your expenses really low. But I am married and was supporting my wife in her education.

I strongly advise getting a part time job and bootstrapping in peace knowing you have the bills covered. The change of pace switching between tasks is not unwelcome, and I feel like I can make better decisions without a gun to my head. I don't feel like I'm losing any productivity.

I also have the resources to hire someone to do e.g. Some of the front-end development that I'm not that good at anyway, if I chose to.

Re: I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

#3

Post by hehsjsbb »

If I understand the timeline:

- July 2019 - start first full time job

- early 2020 - 6 months unpaid leave

- June 2020 - quit job to start company

- August 2020 - blog post about how to quit your job

So someone with less than a year of full time experience who seemingly hasn't actually built a business is giving me advice on how to successfully quit my job? I guess that's the part they've succeeded at so far.

Re: I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

#5

Post by skmurphy »

I really like Derek Sivers "Change Careers Like Tarzan" model https://sive.rs/tarzan

"I get emails from many people who want to make a big change in their career.

Each one wants to quit their current career, and boldly leap into their new venture or preferred lifestyle.

When they ask my advice, they think I’m going to say, “Yes! Quit! Go for it!”

But instead, they’re surprised at my suggestion:

Remember how Tarzan swings through the jungle? He doesn’t let go of the previous vine until the next vine is supporting his weight.

So my advice is: Change careers like Tarzan.

Don’t let go of the old one until the new one is supporting you.

And make sure you don’t lose momentum."

Re: I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

#6

Post by dangus »

hehsjsbb wrote: post #3

If I understand the timeline: - July 2019 - start first full time job - early 2020 - 6 months unpaid leave - June 2020 - quit job to start company - August 2020 - blog post about how to quit your job So someone with less than a year of full time experience who seemingly hasn't actually built a business is giving me advice on how to successfully quit my job? I guess that's the part they've succeeded at so far.

That’s hilarious, I was about to respond in some grumpy fashion about how it’s basically impossible for anyone to get any useful information or advice out of this article. I didn’t even notice this timeline.

Not even year into a career and the author already doesn’t like it.

I mean, it’s entirely possible that your first job just sucks. It’s entirely possible that your first company just sucks. I’d just look for a different job if it was me.

Dropping everything and becoming a particularly vague brand of entrepreneur isn’t going to work. A huge percentage of companies who have really serious complex business plans and even seed capital still fail. And here’s a junior-level person thinking they’re just going to start a successful business in a selection of vague categories (e.g. email marketing - I don’t know if the author has any clue how mature and complex this product segment really is. You can buy some fantastically complex email marketing software for like $20/month).

But I’m trying not to be grumpy. Good luck author. I’m guessing we’ll be seeing you in the cubicle in 6 months.

Re: I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

#7

Post by simonbarker87 »

This isn’t advice, this is marketing. Dudes been in the workforce for a year and intended to spend half of this time travelling and has now quit.

I wish him all the best but this isn’t the way to do it if you really want to make it on your own.

I ran a company for nearly a decade straight out of uni and can tell you it’s horrendous to have no income and no fall back, I got through it with a lot of luck and making some some funding decisions that ultimately killed the business.

Start small, grow on the side, build something stable and then go full time - or raise a boat load of VC and hope for the best.

Re: I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur

#9

Post by stingraycharles »

eloff wrote: post #2

I would actually recommend not quitting your job to be an entrepreneur. I did it, and as the money ran out I couldn't even focus anymore and made poor decisions. It seriously affected my self esteem as a man. It might be different if you're single and young and can get your expenses really low. But I am married and was supporting my wife in her education. I strongly advise getting a part time job and bootstrapping in…

I concur. It’s so stressful when the clock starts ticking: suddenly you are racing against time, which may cause a certain kind of desperation, which makes you make poor choices.

Most of the things the poster is doing, like figuring out “what type of business do I want to start?”, are absolutely things you must find out before you quit your job.

I would even go further and say that one should already validate the business idea before quitting. Once you figure out what you want, you can perhaps start slowly scaling down work (I know working 4 days a week is very common in .nl) and use the extra day to validate the business.

All in all, I’d say that following the advice mentioned in the article is not good for starting entrepreneurs.

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