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

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

#131

Post by paraschopra »

I built Visual Website Optimizer during weekends and during evenings after work (while I was working full time at another day job). Initial prototypes and first beta version took about 6-8 months. Beta remained for about 4 months, had thousands of beta users by then, quit my day job, polished beta for 2 more months and then launched paid plans. Today we are a team of 8 people (and hiring more) and many happy customers.

To be honest, I think the time constraints posed by day job (you got only 2-3 hours of working on your startup) really made you focus on important stuff (such as working on user feedback and iterating). Plus, the comfort of having a salary provided let you invest in site design, marketing, AdWords, etc. without having you unnecessarily worry about "funding" or borrowing from parents/friends.

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

#132

Post by cpeneguy »

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…

The Budgeting app is nice. How are you making income off it? It's free and has no adds.

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

#133

Post by chewbranca »

krschultz wrote: post #97
Sukotto wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear ya... This is something I struggle with too. Long workday at Mega Corp., 45min+ drive-commute each way, 3 kids (7, 5, 2), a spouse with a highly variable work schedule, and ongoing charity work. It's really, really hard to make time for a side business in there too. Are you working on something? How are you making the time for it? How's your progress?

You have to cut that commute. It's not possible losing 1.5 hours a day. My commute is 100 foot walk, I still strugle with not having enough time. Sell the house and rent closer to the office. If its the midpoint between two jobs, either you or your wife needs find a new job to shorten the distance between them. If it is because of the school districts for your kids, you are going to have to decide your priorities. Bu…

Alternatively, take advantage of your commute. I switched from driving to public transit and I've found the time can be incredibly productive, as its in between work time and at home family time, which makes it much easier to concentrate on what I need to do.

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

#134

Post by Duff »

Maro wrote: post #43
Duff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you're talking about a very specific type of startup business. People start and build businesses while employed all of the time. Some of those businesses require that the owners devote their full energies to them at a certain milestone. Others do not -- plenty of software and consulting roles do not require 100% commitment, particularly if you have a flexible employer and can bootstrap. Many college prof…

You said it: "consulting roles", "side gigs". Why overload "startup" with something that can be better described by calling it what it is.

You kinda missed the point. Consulting can be a side gig that stays a side gig.

Other businesses can start slow/small, but you reach a point where you need to choose between the full time gig and your startup. There are a few clear examples of this phenomenon in this thread.

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

#135

Post by zyang »

landonhowell wrote: post #52

I built an online news service in 2002/2003 with zero coding knowledge, $100, and a bootleg version of Adobe Illustrator. I put every spare moment I had into it, skipping lunches and dinners and sleep (though I never skipped church) all for the sake of keeping it lean before keeping it lean was cool. 5 years later I sold it for a paltry sum, mainly because I didn't add enough people fast enough.

so you never skipped church yet you had no problem stealing software. interesting.

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

#137

Post by jadoint »

a5seo wrote: post #59

I built review site ten years ago and sold it. It was profitable within 6 months off organic traffic and lead gen. Approximate revenue by year: $10k, 40k, 70k, 100k, 150k, 250k, 500k, 750k, 1.5M, 2.5M. Built entirely while working for another startup (unrelated), first 3 years I was in graduate school, year 4 I was a product manager for another startup. Year 5 I finally took the leap to run it full-time. I was the so…

I'm almost in the same boat right now. I built a niche Adsense-supported social networking site around mid-2009 and my approximate revenue by year is something like: $100 (Y1), $13.5k (Y2), $90k (this year). Assuming no growth next year, it should be around $130k.

I hope you don't mind me asking these questions since I'm in the thick of it myself at the moment. I'm new here so I hope I'm not breaking etiquette.

At what point did you realize you needed help and then decide that you can actually afford it?

What made you decide to hire your 1st employee rather than a co-founder?

What role did your 1st employee have?

What kinds of employees did you end up hiring?

How did you find your employees?

Any insight would be appreciated!

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

#138

Post by whirlycott1 »

marcc wrote: post #112
AznHisoka wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25K a month? Really? That's like 50 medium Amazon instances.. all for at most a couple million uniques a month? What were you doing that required so much servers?

Hosting options and costs were radically different a few years ago.

If you're all presuming that EC2 is some magical pixie dust for reducing the costs of running a large site, that's not the case. We had ~10 EC2 boxes and 15 managed servers at Contegix, CDN, Dynect, email service provider and a few more services thrown in.

It's not any less expensive today because those numbers I gave are current numbers.

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

#139

Post by donnfelker »

jasonkester wrote: post #26

I have two profitable SaaS products that were built while I was theoretically working full time on something else. I was a bit fortunate that my "something else" was Consulting, which you can ramp down by exactly as many hours per week as you'd like to devote to your side project. The thing is, if you use the term "Startup" here to describe anything other than a zero-profit 80hr/week scramble for VC funding and event…

Well said.

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

#140

Post by martinkallstrom »

vaksel wrote: post #119
martinkallstrom wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be joking right? Except you're not, which makes it sad instead of funny. It must be very comfortable to not see the endless opportunities in increasing traction for your service after launch. Not even bothering to commit code any longer, since it was perfect at launch. Or doing marketing, sales, community and customer support, PR, ops, paying bills, sending invoices, handling complaints, bookkeeping, etc etc…

I did say marketing/sales is the exception. Not bothering to commit code? If it works, and you don't have actual customers yet? Then yes...it's just busy work at that point. Community/Customer Support? I dunno about you, but customer support is only required for less than 1% of users. And even then it's usually a case of 1-2 sentences. Paying bills? How many bills do you have as a startup?

Hundreds. Please stop diluting the startup term with your hobby projects.
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