I quit my day job this September, with €14,000 ($19,000) in savings. But I already have cybranding.com making some money - and very good reasons to think things will move fast now. Otherwise, having a family to support, I would never have done so before raising some money!
Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
31–40 of 76 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#32About $100k. It lasted me 4 years. Frankly, I sort of wish I'd had a lot less. I never felt any sort of urgency like "This must succeed."
No regrets though. The last 4 years have been a lot of fun. :)
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#33I had either 3 or 6 months of salary saved up - whatever it is that experts always say. And I'll tell you this, I was super freaked out about money the entire time. I felt like I was just about to go broke almost every step of the way until I landed my first good client. (That took 4-5 months, if I recall correctly.) And I'm a pretty mellow person able to deal with some amount of risk.
If I had to do it again, I'd make sure I had at least one year's salary. Several people have asked, "How is that possible to do?" I wouldn't have been able to do it at the time. Well, all I can say is that it gets much easier as you get older and get better jobs with stock options that are worth something, and if you've been saving for a decade or more. If you're just starting out, it's a lot harder if you aren't incredibly lucky. (Although you also have fewer repercussions if you mess it up.)
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#34Why do you want to quit your industry job?
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#35I never had an industry job. Except when my startups got bought. Straight to a startup out of college, never looked back.
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#36About $26k, though a good chunk of it was commissions that were still incoming (with no guarantee of receipt).
That said, I think there is a similar concept to the Minimum Viable Product that I'll call "Minimum Acceptable Savings". If you're going out on your own, your job is to Figure it Out. You need enough to be able to start figuring it out, but any more than that and you're stalling the move and ultimately falling behind.
Don't be scared to sell your couch, y'know?
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#37I had about $9k and the expectation that I would do some consulting on the side to help out with expenses. I don't think I'd do the same thing again, because consulting ate up a lot of time that I could've been iterating on my project and that became a large source of frustration for me over time.
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#38Wrong question.
How much passive income from a side business do you need before quitting your industry job?
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#39$10k liquid + $15k in withheld taxes the government owes me. At least 5-8x that in an HSA, 401k, SEP, IRAs, Roth IRAs and tax-advantaged government bonds paying 7.5% that I bought a few months after I cashed out of the Janus fund in Dec 1999. (My broker fired me for that) I'm going to hold on to those bonds as long as I can, and I'd much rather borrow against the equity of the "home" I own at a lower rate. (I bought…
this is the only realistic post i saw on here. the people who say they saved 2k before starting their venture are probably 18-22 years old and crashing at their parents' pad.
if you're a grown up, i don't see anyway you can start a venture without a year of savings built up or some sort of income (investments, part-time work, etc). let's say you give your venture 6 months and you fail. you'll need a few months to get yourself a paying job again before you're evicted/foreclosed.
Re: Ask HN: How much savings did you have before quitting your industry job?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, how do you do this? My family makes a good income, own a modest home, drive 10 year old cars, have $0 debt ex-mortgage and don't do exotic trips. We put 20% away for retirement. Our baseline cost to live including mortgage, property tax, food & minimal extras is probably around $45k. Our area has a tight rental market, so owning the house is a net money saver. Other than cannibalizing retirement, building…
Most financial planners usually say to build the 6 months before anything else - since if shit hits the fan you're likely to dip into your retirement which has penalties if you're pulling some out early.
I wonder how the penalty + income tax from lower tax bracket for the emergency withdrawal compares to the tax that you would pay at the higher bracket if you chose to take it as post-tax income during your employment...?