my advice: MVP multiple, built in parallel or serial redouble your effort investment on whichever seems to be getting most traction
Where is this advice coming from? I.e. have you done this or do you think it's the best idea?
Tell HN: I quit my job to bootstrap my startup by myself.
111–114 of 114 posts
Re: Tell HN: I quit my job to bootstrap my startup by myself.
#112Awesome to hear you're taking the dive, especially when coming from a consultancy. My co-founder is from Accenture and he's looking to take a LOA in few months as well. I did a similar thing 3 months back when leaving my job as a head hunter. It just dawned on me one day when I had to grab lunch with a candidate I was placing vs a meeting with prospective alpha user who was calling about the idea I was conceiving over a paper mock-up. Being the business guy it was the best move for me. Before that move I had trouble recruiting co-founders outside of my friends. My co-founders are now all people I've met through networking in trying to achieve a similar vision rather than simply being a friend and convincing people to join up with you. More importantly, my co-founders are now 3 other engineers to complement my business skills. Going full-time put me fighting right in the arena rather than commentating from the stands.
I think I've come a long way even in the last 3 months going full-time when thinking about the stupid things I did 5 months ago. Basically I was about to pay with my initial co-founder/roommate $20k to prototype the mock-up. Instead I've picked up coding (even at what I consider the old age of turning 27 but what the heck i'm in this for the long-haul) and found 3 other engineering co-founders who are all contributing to bootstrap and have instead $20k surplus to start with now.
Strangely enough, I offered equal equity as well but they said I should keep more of it since I'm full-time and invested more time into it up to that point. Furthermore, even though I never pushed it on them, two have approached me already to go full time starting the summer to pick up the pace as they've begun to get more excited about the idea. Now we're on our way to launching an alpha in 2 weeks!
Oh, and to note the paper mock-ups did wonders. If I had paid to outsource the project with all the iterations I had done up to that point based on the usability testing I would have easily paid triple. Thankfully, we haven't had a need to pivot yet from the responses, but we definitely have iterated a whole bunch since even three months ago which I could never have imagined I would have found out if I never left the job. If you ever wish to chat and exchange ideas/stories email me anytime. Best of luck!
Re: Tell HN: I quit my job to bootstrap my startup by myself.
#113Re: Tell HN: I quit my job to bootstrap my startup by myself.
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
San Diego is also on the list. I should've put "The Valley" in general. Thanks for the comment.
I'm a contractor who just quit my fulltime client (the 9-5 "job") to bootstrap my startup as well; I live in North County San Diego. I only have ~3 months in the bank, but with two part-time clients, I pay all my monthly bills, with the rest of my time going into my startup and I live a block from the beach in the middle of a coastal downtown area. Life is good :) Take the plunge. PM me if you wind up moving down her…
Where's the PM button? I'd love to touch base we might have a bit in common.