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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

#71

Post by commonsense »

jasonkester wrote: post #68
antidaily wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 billabl…

> getting enough consulting work to pay the bills

"Consulting" does not just pay the bills. You're thinking of freelancing for dipshit entrepreneurs who think $10k will buy them the next facebook.

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

#72

Post by gridspy »

commonsense wrote: post #71
jasonkester wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 billabl…

> getting enough consulting work to pay the bills "Consulting" does not just pay the bills. You're thinking of freelancing for dipshit entrepreneurs who think $10k will buy them the next facebook.

$10k might very well buy the next facebook, in the startup stages. It wasn't always this big. All it takes is the right idea and some money to pay the bills.

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

#73

Post by commonsense »

gridspy wrote: post #72
commonsense wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> getting enough consulting work to pay the bills "Consulting" does not just pay the bills. You're thinking of freelancing for dipshit entrepreneurs who think $10k will buy them the next facebook.

$10k might very well buy the next facebook, in the startup stages. It wasn't always this big. All it takes is the right idea and some money to pay the bills.

> $10k might very well buy the next facebook

Get the fuck out of here. The amount of engineering the founders put into facebook far outpaces $10k. You're living in a fantasy land.

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

#74

Post by zaidf »

commonsense wrote: post #70
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…

> 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 enoug…

WherE do you get the consulting gigs typically? Almost all leads I get(good and bad, pay wise) come in form of a project with fixed cost attached.

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

#75

Post by pmjordan »

zaidf wrote: post #74
commonsense wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 enoug…

WherE do you get the consulting gigs typically? Almost all leads I get(good and bad, pay wise) come in form of a project with fixed cost attached.

If the budget is bad, push for reduction of scope. If they won't budge, run.

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

#78

Post by patio11 »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #77

The video is edited and posted along with an MP3 download & transcript. http://mixergy.com/y-combinator-paul-graham/

Thanks Andrew. I didn't get to see it live, but that is my favorite interview you've done (and that is in a group of quite interesting ones). Also thanks to pg.

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

#79

Post by weaksauce »

pg wrote: post #61
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it all at the table or do you have some kind of presentation too from past founders?

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

#80

Post by gridspy »

commonsense wrote: post #73
gridspy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10k might very well buy the next facebook, in the startup stages. It wasn't always this big. All it takes is the right idea and some money to pay the bills.

> $10k might very well buy the next facebook Get the fuck out of here. The amount of engineering the founders put into facebook far outpaces $10k. You're living in a fantasy land.

My point is that those founders didn't draw a salary until well after they had a value proposition for investors.

Or to put it another way, Stephen and I have put > $400,000 of hours into Gridspy, but our costs are limited to board prototyping, outsourced layout and web hosting. For most internet startups, costs are perhaps $10,000 per founder for 3 months + hosting (perhaps $100/mo until there is enough traffic to drive ads).

It only gets expensive when you need to bring in contracting help. That is why it pays to be a switched on hacker in this game.

Remember, the giants weren't always giants. As they transitioned to giants, there were doing it with VC money - not founder's cash.

Don't look at the destination and get put off. Take it one step at a time. You can probably get to traction with $10k.

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