Why not apply for winter 2007?
Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
11–20 of 52 posts
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#12When I've spent time just learning I've always made it a point to consciously learn at least one new thing everyday. Maybe that rule would help you. Good luck..err..you said criticism not moral support..uh...then...you suck.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#13Good luck! If you have the luxury of not having to work, great otherwise you might want to add consulting in there in order to gain some real world experience while plugging those holes on your resume. If you can't find consulting work then transition some of that "brainstorming for project" into volunteer or internship work in a larger shop to gain experience. My philosophy is to use other company's time and money to gain experience and work on your own projects on the side.
If you do have an idea, don't wait for the straight face. Developing a prototype is fast and you can get something ready to show people your idea quickly. Get out there fast and often but the trick is to focus on obtaining funding if that is your ultimate goal, developing your idea can come after the initial money is in the bank but again that all depends on your financial needs.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#14Why not apply for winter 2007?
Maybe he means winter 2009. Winter 2007 is long gone. Winter 2008 is up next.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#15I honestly can't imagine quitting a job without an idea of what product I was building. Watch out for this warning sign: A thought enters your head, "Hey, I'll build an online app that let's people organize their data!!!" That'll sell like madhouse.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#16how will you pay your bills?
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#17Sounds like an excellent justification for flaky procrastination. You can follow this plan and hope the things you learn on the way can be applied to your startup. Or you can take your best idea, work hard to build it and learn as you go.
+1 for learn as you go! The best way to get all the requisite skills is to start building your best idea and letting the project itself tell you what you need to know.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#18Can you afford it? How will you pay for rent and food? Do you have a co-founder?
I left my job last April, and barely made it 2 months without income. If you're not ready to start your company right now, then I recommend figuring out what you can do otherwise to improve your situation. In my case, I got a job at a much better company that's close to Boston. I'm learning a lot, I'm meeting tons of smart people, and I'm close to dozens of good schools.
Anyway, good luck, and stay upwind.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#19I would delay quitting. You should be able to gain skills in four hours per day programming outside of work.
Back when I would quit jobs to take care of stuff, I would have two productive weeks, but this would dwindle to days of reading after that. Only do it if you have enough of a goal and drive, or if this can force you into programming.
Re: Just sent my resignation letter and this is my plan.
#20Thanks for your comments. I was aware that the initial delay in starting up can be seen as procrastination. I myself am not sure that's not the case, and that's the main reason why I bounce my ideas here. Maybe my comfy self is fooling me, but can it fool the YCnews swarm? ;) Let me add some more context, which I left out of the already long first post.
One crucial reason for quitting my job is indeed to focus on learning tasks I had set for myself. It's lack of focus, not time, what has been dragging me so far.
The first task is to finish absorbing SICP. I have read the book and watched the lectures before, but only as a quick first contact, skimming most of the latter parts and not doing the exercises. I've found that even this light exposure has made me a much better programmer. This time I'm going more exhaustively, writing down short summaries of the chapters and doing all the exercises as I find them.
As for math, I'm more interested in building some math muscle and intuition, rather than any specific knowledge. I have started reading Concrete Mathematics, by Knuth et al., and I find it very demanding but practicable. With my weak math background, this would take forever, and be too easy to put on hold, if I did it on the side of more urgent obligations. I tried.
I have other books and learning tasks in the backburner, but yes, those I can learn on the side. The above are the ones I want to finish before letting other focus consuming projects into my head.
I've found that the Archy-like editor project is a good playground for the ideas in SICP. The design is sound and well specified, so I can focus more on the programming part. I plan to use this as my hacking environment in the future.
I hope to be done earlier than four months with the tasks above. I'll try and hit two months, but I must admit my estimates are often short by a factor or pi, so a 2x padding seems right for a strict timebox.
There are other topics to reply; I'll do so in replies to the appropriate comments.