Ask HN: Do you regret leaving corporate for entrepreneurship?

I have said this before in other topics when someone is getting fed up with their job and want to try their hand at making a company. Get the business started, running, profitable and automated (with humans, bots, or scripts) and then quit. Do not remove your major source of income which also happens to be your major source of investment and start the clock that runs until your bank account empties and you need to look for work again. It is not a good idea to kill your company's lifeblood.

The added pressure and energy drain from working on your own machinations while working a full time job pales in comparison to the added pressure and energy drain from working against the clock. In my case it became a source of depression and a constant demotivator when I realized I was running into roadblocks. You cannot foresee all of the difficulties you will run into, you cannot rely on stories of other entrepreneurs doing so. They are half truths and tell only the triumphant side of it, ignoring the failures of the hundreds or thousands of others who's companies made it only to the paper stage then died with a whimper, much less being in the spotlight of the medium and techcrunch and online news articles and forums. You're hearing about certain entrepreneurs solely because they're outliers, not the norm - they're a good narrative.

Keep your job. Make the product. Make connections. Get Customers. Then make the company. Not the other way around. If you're the one in a million already has the connections and skills to make it happen then more power to you but statistically speaking, you probably don't. You should acquire those qualities with gusto but also with prudence.

Good luck.

I'm a dev.

I did this a few years ago, started my own company.

I failed for two reasons:

1. I wasn't experienced enough as a developer IN THIS TECHNOLOGY to hit the ground running.

When you are self-employed, time = money. You don't have time to learn the technology, figure out your business, and write the code. You have to hit the ground running and burning time on ramping up is extremely expensive.

2. I lacked the discipline required to maintain myself while working extremely hard at my start-up.

Additionally, I didn't take good enough care of myself. I was ignorant about how to be productive. I was working all of my waking hours, martyring myself for my start-up and then getting up the next day and doing it over again.

Here's a tip: This is bad and leads to failure if you aren't careful with your time, food, and sanity management. A lot of people like to glorify this behavior but really, excellence is a 24-hour job.

Working out, eating well, getting a good night's sleep, and then coming into work the next day with clear-eyes beats running yourself ragged with panicked late-night programming sessions every time. ( Although, some people like to work at night and that is totally fine, we all have our own form of productivity. )

My point is really more about taking care of yourself and BEING DISCIPLINED. Unless you are wealthy, you do not have time ( remember, time=money ) to make mistakes. Discipline is your buffer between your degrading sanity and your ability to make good decisions.

That works if you have a corporate job that has work life balance. That way you can do both. I see lots of corp jobs that tend to dominate people's lives.

Good for you! A load of people struggle with this, and I think you're downplaying how hard it is for them.

It takes a load of energy to work a full-time job, then come home and work on your side gig. I used to come home from work and not have anything left in the tank. I couldn't imagine working on a project alongside my current startup without sacrificing growth.

It's also a big social sacrifice. People have families, friends, roommates, etc to come home to. That can cause loneliness, and sometimes you'd just rather hang out with people than work.

There's also a lot to learn as a software engineer launching a SaaS company. Sales and marketing is pretty foreign to most engineers. It's hard to learn that on your own, in your spare time, without spending years doing it.

Having a paycheck and being an entrepreneur is not an either/or proposition. There are things in the middle.

You can find a well-financed co-founder and get a commitment for a paycheck for a fixed length of time (1-2 years). You will probably receive less equity in this situation, but you can still get enough equity to feel like a true co-founder along with enough of a paycheck to not be stressed about making ends meet.