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Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#41

Post by swombat »

I started my first company while employed as a Consultant at Accenture/UBS. I did not tell anyone at work that I was doing so, nor did I work on the business while at the office.

Vocalix was a tech startup, aiming to "put voice on the web". I'll spare you the details, but I worked on it from 4am to 7am every day, mostly thanks to the wond'rous benefits of Modafinil, after which I would take a one hour nap and then go to work. I did that for 9 months straight. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone starting a startup. I made numerous mistakes, slips, mismanagements, bad technical choices, etc, because I was constantly exhausted, and because Modafinil affected my lateral thinking (though it's great for getting through a task list).

Vocalix was effectively dead on arrival, and within 3 months of me quitting my job we decided it wasn't going to work. Ouch.

My advice: if you're going to start a startup, do it properly. Reduce your costs, learn about startups and obvious mistakes, save up some money - all while still employed. Then when you're ready make the jump cleanly.

Some further thoughts about it here: http://swombat.com/2011/12/15/startup-escape-path

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#42

Post by TylerJewell »

Codenvy was started while I was employed at another company, Exo Platform. In this case, I was an advisor to the board, generating recommendations on strategic directions for the company. They had a product at the time called exo ide that had decent traffic, but was a distraction to their core business related to social enterprise portals. The original plan had been to shut down the garage product itself, but we got permission from the board to explore alternatives.

This gave us the freedom to look at alternative financing options, and to pursue any avenue that could lead to continued operation of the site. We eventually found investors, a new board, and a management team - that allowed us to incorporate Codenvy, bring the IP over, the engineering team, and get started. We did all of this while employed and receiving salaries from the original parent venture.

Now the company has raised $9M and we just crossed our 50th employee last week.

In our case, the helpful advice was that we were pursuing something that was in the interests of the parent company. They wanted this side project to succeed, but couldn't see a runway that made sense for them. By doing what was right for the company, we stayed committed to this project, and it just turned out that the best outcome was the formation of a new venture. That venture had allegiances and alignment to the parent that made sense for all, and it turned out to be an easy incorporation, and strongly backed by the parent. There wasn't any need for subterfuge, but these circumstances were unique. Net - you never know what the needs are of your employer, so if there is a business that helps the employer out, they may be willing to extend special arrangements to you during the incubation period.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#43

Post by IgorPartola »

demystified wrote: post #23

I did start a company while still employed.. Here is what I did: - Was upfront with my employer. (having established such a trust-based relationship for a long-time did really help) - Told him that while I was using my spare time for my 'business'. If it would start getting more of my time, I was willing to negotiate a part-time position (hey, be honest, and if you are really valuable to your employer, there is nothi…

It is your prerogative to not link to your company, but in this thread it is perfectly acceptable in welcome. It is relevant context to the story each person is trying to tell.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#44

Post by demystified »

IgorPartola wrote: post #43
demystified wrote: post #23

I did start a company while still employed.. Here is what I did: - Was upfront with my employer. (having established such a trust-based relationship for a long-time did really help) - Told him that while I was using my spare time for my 'business'. If it would start getting more of my time, I was willing to negotiate a part-time position (hey, be honest, and if you are really valuable to your employer, there is nothi…

It is your prerogative to not link to your company, but in this thread it is perfectly acceptable in welcome. It is relevant context to the story each person is trying to tell.

You are right -- changed it.. Thanks..

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#45

Post by Dewie »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #27
alanbyrne wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with paraschopra. Many places I have worked have included a clause in the employment contract that says something along the lines of "Anything you create whilst working for us, including in your own time, will become property of our company"

I can't believe some companies include such clause, I would never sign such bullshit agreement. I can understand a clause against creating something that can be a competition to your employer products, but other than that - stay away from my free time.

It seems that many professional programmers like to program on their spare time, maybe in order to use other technologies or something else. And yet companies like these want to be able to enforce that they can take over all that code produced in your free time... what the hell? Apparently they want to stifle people's creativity and discourage people who want to hone their craft outside of their job. Looks like a lose-lose, to me.

Maybe the company and the programmer doesn't care when the code produced is toy-programs/educational code, but it seems like a deal-breaker if the programmer wants to make some open-source code, or maybe even some code to produce some extra income. (I don't see a problem with the latter if it's in another domain than what the programmer is employed as.)

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#46

Post by iambateman »

toddynho wrote: post #21

I started BuySellAds ( http://buysellads.com ) while employed full-time at HubSpot ( http://hubspot.com ). A few years after leaving, my company ended up on the Inc 500 ( http://www.inc.com/profile/buysellads ) and we're still doing quite well. - I had the project specifically spelled out in my employment agreement with them since I had already been working on it for a while. I started working for them because I genu…

Oddly enough, in 2011 I was employed by BeaconAds, which licensed BuySellAds' technology, while I built a student news aggregator startup (I know, I know).

It didn't pan out very well.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#47

Post by philbarr »

demystified wrote: post #23

I did start a company while still employed.. Here is what I did: - Was upfront with my employer. (having established such a trust-based relationship for a long-time did really help) - Told him that while I was using my spare time for my 'business'. If it would start getting more of my time, I was willing to negotiate a part-time position (hey, be honest, and if you are really valuable to your employer, there is nothi…

> and no -- I will not mentioned the name/link nor the industry, please stop self promotion for once

I don't think there's anything wrong with the self promotion! We do have Show HN, and a question like this is just begging for it.

Not only that but I personally like to see what kind of things people can produce in their spare time. It gives me a good impression of what's possible, and perhaps a few tips as well.

EDIT: Well I'll leave the comment here, but this is what I get for leaving the comments page open whilst I do something else and then coming back to comment.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#49

Post by AndrewKemendo »

I started Visidraft (www.visidraft.com) while still full time active duty military. Surprisingly enough I built it to solve a pain point I had while doing construction project management which is outside the scope of my formal job title. I am hoping the success of Visidraft will allow me to transition out of the military with minimal impact on my family.

We launch in August and given our Beta test results expect great growth.

Re: Ask HN: Did you start a company whilst employed?

#50

Post by flibble »

I started up HandHQ.com (sells electronic goods) while employed. I was in my first job as a software developer and just learning about web dev on the job so started working on Hand HQ in the evenings to help speed up my learning.

I remember clearly the day the first automated sale came through, back in 2007. I had just finished integrating PayPal and fully automating the whole order process the evening before and I got an email saying that a $400 sale had been made. I thought it was my system not working until the PayPal payment email came through moments later. I watched in amazement as my little program noticed the order, pulled the relevant poker hands (this is what the site sold) out of the database, zipped and uploaded them and then emailed the customer that they were ready. I didn't have to do _anything_ and I'd just made more than I was to make all day in my job. This was awesome.

I continued to run the site while employed for a while and then quit to do it full time once it was making more per month than I was making in a year at work. I didn't tell my employer why I was leaving.

I found that I was as productive while working on my business while employed as when I quit to work on it full time. You can get _alot_ done in a couple of hours in the evenings once you've spend a bit of your day during the day-job thinking about what needs to be done that evening. I also found having a day-job very motivational to work hard in the evenings so that I could quit. Once I did quit that motivation wasn't there.

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