Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It • Hacker News Board

Re: Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It

#21

Post by staunch » Mon, Jul 02, 2007, 1:07 AM UTC

henryw wrote: post #2

I've been working 2 weeks now full time, and been trying to work on my own startup on nights and weekends. I didn't know how hard it was when people talked about it until now. And I thought school and startup was hard. To illustrate, I come home at 6pm, fall asleep until 8pm, code until 1am, sleep from 2am to 8am, and start all over again. I guess this is called moonlighting. I am going to stop this moonlighting stuf…

You're not alone. I think serious moonlighting is one of the most painful ways to work, bar none. Far more painful than working full-time on any startup.

You're doing a great thing by taking the plunge and going full-time. You just increased your chances by an order of magnitude. Good luck.

Re: Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It

#22

Post by brlewis » Mon, Jul 02, 2007, 2:39 AM UTC

I'm moonlighting, but I'm going after customers who move slowly. That is, if full-time founders decided to compete head-to-head, they might pump out features faster, but would still be stuck in the same long feedback cycle I'm in as far as knowing what features are and aren't worthwhile. For that kind of customer base you can afford to moonlight; in fact you should moonlight because you would burn through funding before getting traction.

If you're going after faster-moving customers, e.g. Techcrunch readers, you really need to go full-time. Otherwise once you get traction full-timers might imitate you, and then woo those fast customers with fast development.

Re: Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It

#23

Post by darose » Mon, Jul 02, 2007, 3:30 PM UTC

I'm moonlighting, and I have to say - it's brutal. I get a couple of nights a week to work on my startup project, and it sucks: a) it's not nearly enough time, b) I totally lose flow, c) I'm tired before I start, and so have really motivation trouble.

Many a-list bloggers say it's really not an ideal approach - and they're right.

That said, I have no choice. I have a wife & 2 kids, and not that much money in the bank right now. So my choices are either moonlighting or give up the startup dream, which I absolutely refuse to do. (Which reminds me: all that stuff about the tech industry being a complete meritocracy, you can start a startup on no money, etc. - that's all just crap. There's no meritocracy. You can only launch a startup if you - or someone else (your daddy, etc.) has enough money to pay all your bills while you do it. That rules out: working class people, middle class people with kids, etc.)

Anyway, my goal is to work enough to just get something launched, and then hope it takes off from there enough to transition to it full time. It's a long tough road, but I'm tough enough to stay with it.

Still, I would not recommend this route.

Re: Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It

#24

Post by Psyonic » Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 6:46 PM UTC

darose wrote: post #23

I'm moonlighting, and I have to say - it's brutal. I get a couple of nights a week to work on my startup project, and it sucks: a) it's not nearly enough time, b) I totally lose flow, c) I'm tired before I start, and so have really motivation trouble. Many a-list bloggers say it's really not an ideal approach - and they're right. That said, I have no choice. I have a wife & 2 kids, and not that much money in the bank…

I partially agree with your comment about it not being a meritocracy: yes, it is still very difficult for those with prior commitments. However, it is still much more realistic than starting a B&M store or something along those lines, where you need significantly more startup capital and working on it in your spare time just doesn't work.