Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 197 posts

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#61

Post by mzarate06 »

ry0ohki wrote: post #31
timimit wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi ry AUsedCar.com How does that site compare in a very busy market with established big name players? Thanks

It's very difficult to compete with the big names, but even .01% of a huge market adds up to something significant. edit I should also say I started this a LONG time ago, so I have a long tail SEO advantage. I wouldn't envy anyone trying to start a used car site today.

How much did that discourage you in the beginning (the thought of it being extremely hard to compete w/the big names)?

I ask b/c I've been developing an app of my own and this is one of the doubts I have. I love building stuff too much to let that stop me, but it's still something I think about from time to time.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#63

Post by acangiano »

ry0ohki wrote: post #20

I'm not sure if they are considered startups per say, but I've started two profitable companies while working a day job (to the point where I could quit my day job!) http://www.AUsedCar.com and http://www.BudgetSimple.com . I should say I also created a failed startup during that time. The biggest difference between the successes and the failure were that the successes did not require me to answer phone calls, make s…

What are you main sources of revenue for AUsedCar?

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#64

Post by dazzla »

In the last couple of years I have built up Deal Drop (http://www.getdealdrop.com) to be $3,000/month in revenue as an antidote to the abusive relationship with my day job while helping raise my daughter of the same age. I hoped by now that I could quit and work full time on the side project but I settled for a less abusive day job instead.

This week I took a trip to the ER in an ambulance because I had a seizure at my new day job after one too many late nights working on the side project.

Be careful and know your limits better than I do.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#65

Post by nischalshetty »

I started http://www.justunfollow.com as a way to learn Google Appengine. Sent a tip to TechCrunch, @arrington seemed to like it and profiled it. It started making profits but I did not quit. I finally had to quit after about 1 year of this product going live because it started making me more money in 2 months than my day job was paying me for an entire year!

I quit my job around 9 months ago. Finding too much of time on hand I subsequently started work on a new app, got my friend to join me and we got into Start-up Chile. It's been a great journey but I'm so glad that I did not quit the moment we were profitable. It has taught me the most important thing you need to learn while starting up, being efficient.

I always suggest everyone who has a product to not quit until it is virtually impossible to keep up with a day job. You then become a time management champ and know how to do more with less :)

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#66

Post by rokhayakebe »

whirlycott1 wrote: post #8

I started StyleFeeder in January, 2005, built it into a profitable company of 8 people and sold it to Time Inc in January 2010. From January, 2005 through May, 2006, I worked on StyleFeeder on the side - while I had a pretty demanding day job, mind you - as I built up the basic business... until I had invested so much time and effort into it that I was maxed out and needed to find a way to work on it full time with t…

Do you mind sharing how raising money helped you guys? You were only 8 people and raised $4M.

Edit: Had you reach 7 figure revenue yet?

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#67

Post by Liu »

whirlycott1 wrote: post #33
Liu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting post, is there a one detailing how you started?

Sorta... http://www.whirlycott.com/phil/2005/10/17/stylefeeder-step-1... LMK if that's not what you are looking for.

Well, I would be happy to hear about things such as: * Which features did your first version have? * How did you get your first users? * Did StyleFeeder rely on B2B connections, if so how did you find/create them? * What was StyleFeeder's business model? * When did you start looking for funding/why/how? Thanks for the time and experience sharing!

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#68

Post by Jun8 »

I wanted to do this so jumped in and read the comments to this post to try to get some ideas on how to do this. They made me a bit depressed: Most people achieved this while working as a consultant (i.e. flexible hours, etc.), not as a big company employee, like me. Also from what I gather, many data points come from young people, unencumbered with a family life and kid(s).

So, my more specific question is: Has anybody done this while picking up your kid from daycare at 5pm, having family business until 8:30pm and working at a day job. Id this impossible?

I think the viable alternatives in this case are trying to earn money from blogs and mobile apps.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#69

Post by nischalshetty »

nathanbarry wrote: post #12

I did. My iPad app was at $19,000 in profit before I quit my job to focus on it. The details are here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3238834

I had read your post when it was published. Very cool, has a social touch and inspiring!

Re: Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job?

#70

Post by flacon »

hndl wrote: post #62

I'm curious to know what the typical day of a person in this setting is like? As in, what were ones' day-job hours and hours for project work?

I have built two startups while working fulltime and raising 2 kids. The first startup failed once my co-founder left town, after the business model and app were about 90% completed. My 2nd/current startup is http://targetmobi.com.

My schedule M-F for the last 3 years has been: 7am wakeup, feed kids etc. 9am - 5:30 work fulltime. 5:30 - 10pm family time. 10pm - 1am Startup time!. Yes thats 5-6 hours of sleep! Trying to do a startup on the side with children has been very challenging for me. Maybe its the biz models I am trying to tackle. Maybe building simple iphone/ipads apps would have had a better ROI.

Post reply on HN