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Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

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Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#61

Post by pg »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #41
pg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can measure that. Founders book office hours online. We know the founders are getting enough attention (by their standards) if not all office hour slots get taken.

Just out of curiosity, how many hours do you guys keep open each week for office hours? Or is that something you'd rather not say?

Depends on the time of year. People want to talk a lot more the week before Demo Day than in April. On average I'd guess 10-15 hours a week. But I also talk to startups outside office hours; e.g. at the dinners, which span about 6 hours each.

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#62

Post by pg »

padmanabhan01 wrote: post #50
pg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only my eyebrows; we once sold our stock in one; we talk quite frequently to the Reddit and Loopt founders; I'm not sure, maybe 1/3; we only make money if there's an exit; it depends whether the new idea is the same company-- bluefrog is; some crappy old Motorola flip phone; you would have to reach deep into the Arc libraries to do that.

What's the reason behind using the motorola phone? to avoid distractions?

You mean not getting an iPhone? Yes, because I already spend too much time online. The last thing I need is for it to follow me out into the world.

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#67

Post by btilly »

antidaily wrote: post #55
jasonkester wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people consider consulting to be a "treadmill". For me, a consulting gig is an instantaneous injection of capital and another 6-9 months runway for the entrepreneurial stuff. I mean, a 1-month gig will pay your rent for the year. Another one will pay for your servers, hosting, dev machine and food. The rest of the time is yours to spend as you like. Is it possible that people are doing "consult…

Consulting is a pie-eating contest where the reward is more pie. If you're good, you get just enough work to keep you from doing something else. I know I'm not alone here.

Reduce your personal expenses and you can acquire a surplus. If you let your personal expenses expand to meet your cash flow, you'll never have excess cash flow to do with as you please.

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#68

Post by jasonkester »

antidaily wrote: post #55
jasonkester wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people consider consulting to be a "treadmill". For me, a consulting gig is an instantaneous injection of capital and another 6-9 months runway for the entrepreneurial stuff. I mean, a 1-month gig will pay your rent for the year. Another one will pay for your servers, hosting, dev machine and food. The rest of the time is yours to spend as you like. Is it possible that people are doing "consult…

Consulting is a pie-eating contest where the reward is more pie. If you're good, you get just enough work to keep you from doing something else. I know I'm not alone here.

Indeed, that's essentially another way to rewrite what I said above, though perhaps a bit of a pessimistic one.

If you're just squeaking by, getting enough consulting work to pay the bills, then your schedule is likely pretty open most of the time. Unless you're spending 28 hours a week chasing work, you should have plenty of time for entrepreneurial stuff.

And of course, if you're working 20+ hours a week on billable consulting work and just squeaking by, you're simply not charging enough.

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#69

Post by robryan »

covercash wrote: post #38

From the interview: Jessica Livingston is working on a second edition of Founders At Work.

What would be very interesting would be a book based on one YC group, from profiling all the companies and people, to following the experience and how ideas and people change over the time.

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#70

Post by commonsense »

jasonkester wrote: post #49
antidaily wrote: post #22

My question: Consulting treadmill - how do I get off it without a killer app idea?

I never understood why people consider consulting to be a "treadmill". For me, a consulting gig is an instantaneous injection of capital and another 6-9 months runway for the entrepreneurial stuff. I mean, a 1-month gig will pay your rent for the year. Another one will pay for your servers, hosting, dev machine and food. The rest of the time is yours to spend as you like. Is it possible that people are doing "consult…

> Is it possible that people are doing "consulting" work for Ding Ding Ding. Real consulting starts at $100/hr and has no cap on effective rate. One month of this should pay one person's bare-bones living expenses for at least one year.

"Freelancing" is the term most people think of when talking about bullshit web programming jobs that pay very little. They only take these jobs because they've failed to save up enough money to say "no" and they lack the experience to know that real money can be made consulting.

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