12 ms·

Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

339 points by thakobyan 7y ago

tannerc 7y ago
I like Austin Kleon's insights here [1]: "A day job gives you money, a connection to the world, and a routine. Freedom from financial stress also means freedom in your art. As photographer Bill Cunningham says, 'If you don’t take money, they cant tell you what to do.' Because the real truth is, once you start making money doing what you love, it BECOMES A JOB. And with it comes all the hassle of a job." It's why I've personally decided to work for someone else full time and then use any time I can get outside my day job to do the things I really enjoy (which are very profitable). The full time job enables me to be more "creatively reckless" in my side projects, which in turn allows me to learn a lot and stretch creative muscles I might not otherwise get "working for the man." 1. From: https://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/69005574484 https://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/69005574484
- winrid 7y ago
  Yes, however if you can figure out a project that pays your salary and is low maintenance (very hard) you can have even more time for your art :)
- chrisco255 7y ago
  "It becomes a job" doesn't really satisfy me as a description for what occurs when you strike out on your own. Running your own business is much more intense and engaging than having a job. Now, it's important that you see it as multiple jobs, and not just one job. Whatever your day job is you're going to have to wear multiple hats in a startup and it's going to challenge you in different ways than a corporate job will. In a corporate engineering job, it's likely that you're working on a small subset of features of a broader product and of a broader organization. As a founder of a company, you'll be coding, promoting, designing, innovating, QA, customer service, sales, and more.
  - aksss 7y ago
    ...bookkeeping, reviewing contracts, managing insurance and licensing requirements, networking, the list goes on. You can farm this stuff out when you get big enough, but in the beginning you need to rapidly learn a lot of business skills that you may have only passively come into contact with prior. You will be better for it, even if you decide to go back to corporate at some point - you'll be relieved you don't have to do all the bootstrapping, but you'll appreciate what really goes into a business operation in a way you never did before.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- kentrado 7y ago
  I would like to try that approach but I just don't have the energy after working all day to come home and start investing time chasing wildly creative projects.
  - tannerc 7y ago
    I’m writing a book on how I do this! I’ll be sharing here on HN once it’s complete. But the TL;DR for the chapter on motivation and energy comes down to: work on things that improve your own life, set clear objectives, and work in small chunks. The book itself is being written in 30 minute chunks throughout my week because that’s all the time I can spare.
    - bogdanoff_2 7y ago
      I found that back when I had lots of free time, my style when doing projects was: I start where I left off, I get engrossed and code late into the night, repeat that one or two more days, get bored and "burned out" from the project, don't touch it for a week or so (sometimes I work on some other projects), repeat. Of course, that's not really sustainable. But 30 minutes does not seem feasible for me. It's not like you're going for a 30 minute jog where you just run without thinking. Don't you need to take time to "warm up" until the project you're doing starts being fun? And how does stopping just when you start enjoying yourself not kill your motivation? And don't you think about the project throughout your day job (instead of whatever problem you're supposed to be working on)?
      - yellow_lead 7y ago
        Agreed, 30 mins is not enough time to get into "deep work" for programming. At best you could do some business-y tasks.
        ptah 7y ago
        on the contrary it can make you more productive. for one it forces you to take a step back regularly instead of blindly going down a potentially wrong path. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
- shoptechmedia 7y ago
  I actually did this 3 years ago.. just to be at peace with working with somebody else was nightmare for me having been an entrepreneur for 20 years.. but once I accepted the idea that I can still do the things i love most while working full time for somebody was liberating. Whereas, it used to be work all the time when I was managing my own business.
- zerr 7y ago
  The key is to have a high-paid part-time job.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    Or low outgoings.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    And in what universe would one find such a thing?
    - zerr 7y ago
      Working remotely from a cheap place for clients from expensive places, charging expensive place market rate.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        Contract work is not the same as part time work.
        zerr 7y ago
        It's up to you to skip over clients who demand full-time commitment.
dvt 7y ago
Not to be dismissive, but this post feels a bit like rambling without a clear thesis or main argument. It's also rife with dubious claims: > I’ve been working remotely for four years now, and I know that working alone can make you lonely.. I also work full-time remotely. I built a community around myself, made new friends and regularly hang out with people I met at coffee shops, at startup meetups, old classmates, ex-coworkers (that may also be fully remote), etc. I hear it a lot, but this argument honestly falls flat on its face as long as you're not a weird hermit that only works from your house. In fact, that main reason I wanted to work remotely is because I get to meet people (particularly women, as I'm getting to an age where marriage is starting to become a priority) that I'm more interested in than in the myopic circles that are commonplace at large tech companies. > I like the idea that you can earn money while you sleep, but are those businesses fun? Yes. Because it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. And freedom is fun. I mean, passive income is basically free money -- I'm not sure I'm getting what author is saying here. > I imagine working on your own thing full time and on the side are definitely not the same; it’s scary, to be frank. If my side-project became my full-time work, might my passion for my project dwindle and become yet another job? How would it differ from my current job? I don't see how working for your own business could ever become "just another job" -- you're acutely invested in the venture, your strategic decisions guide it's success (or failure). Working for a corporation is the definition of "autopilot" for most above-average employees (engineers or otherwise). This could not be more different when doing your own thing.
- daxfohl 7y ago
  I think the rambling was basically the point. He wasn't sure. I found it kind of refreshing.
- hunter-gatherer 7y ago
  Paraphrasing, but he said early on that he wasn't trying to convince the reader of anything and that it was just a brain dump of his thoughts.
  - just_myles 7y ago
    I thought that was a bit odd. If it was for the author's own rationalization and is not trying to convince the audience of a any kind of point, then why is the author publishing this publically? Why can't the author write this out in notepad or on pen and paper(Like I do.) and leave it at that? Vanity?
daxfohl 7y ago
There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by "sustainable" I mean they had contracts worth substantially more than their salaried job. Because to transition to that completely, you've got to set aside time and money for so many things: insurance, legal, hardware, whatever corp infra, recruiting, etc, as well as offset the risk. So I'd not jump ship too soon, until you have a real plan on how to get your company from A to B. Especially these days when tech salaries are so high, it'd be a mistake to opt out of it too soon.
- neonate 7y ago
  Given the research on adverse childhood experiences, there's likely a subtler advantage too, for founders who were raised in more stable and secure environments. Growing up under greater pressure (violence, abuse, trauma) leaves you less resilient, more risk averse, more at risk. I'm not saying wealthy families don't have this, or that poor families can't be stable and secure. But on average it probably makes a difference. Call it an emotional safety net.
  - daxfohl 7y ago
    Incidentally, I just got back from the annual checkup with my 7yo, and the doctor mentioned that the strongest indicator of kids staying on a good path through adolescence is whether they regularly have dinner together as a family or not. That surprisingly exceeds any other socio-economic demographic indicator.
    - christiansakai 7y ago
      Damn this hits too close to home.
    - davidgh 7y ago
      I’ve thought about this metric, a lot. There is no doubt that having family dinner has a lot of benefits. But I can help but ask myself - is family dinner a silver bullet, or is it that families who are holistically “doing it right” also make family dinner a priority?
overcast 7y ago
Probably the biggest hurdle is dealing with healthcare on your own, it's just prohibitively expensive to deal with alone in the US. Multiple incomes is where it's at, at least until one of the projects takes off to cover cost of living and healthcare nonsense.
- glfharris 7y ago
  Wouldn't that imply startup rates to be much higher in countries with national healthcare? But I don't think that's borne out in data.
  - poulsbohemian 7y ago
    It isn't, and it is a known enigma. That said, I'm inclined to think our entrepreneurship rates would be even higher in this country if we had a non-employer based health care scheme. I base this on the anecdata of having met easily dozens of people over the years who wished to be entrepreneurs but stayed in job because of the health care benefits. Would love to see further studies of this correlation between health care costs + entrepreneurship.
  - simple_phrases 7y ago
    Entrepreneurship in Scandinavia is higher than in the US.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    There are many confounding factors there. Countries with government-provided healthcare also have many other differences that contribute positively or negatively to entrepreneurship.
- tempsy 7y ago
  What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.
  - 7y ago
JoeMayoBot 7y ago
Wondering how many other people are beginning to consider their future in this way. It's interesting that he linked to the a16z post on Passion Economy. As opportunities for remote work where each individual charts their own course increases, the future of work could change significantly.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- arvinsim 7y ago
  I don't see this work for everyone. In the HN discussion[1] about Passion economy, someone mentioned that industries with the most creative and "passionate" people, the distribution of rewards follows the power law. Only a small percentage of the total industry will be able to capture the profits that is sustainable. So yeah, I am skeptical that this is the "future of work". [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21200795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21200795
thaumaturgy 7y ago
Funny to read someone else's musings on this as I've been working through many of the same questions for a while. I started full-time in the tech industry before I was out of high school, then went corporate, then got out for a while, then back in, then had my own business for a while, sold that, got a job for a few years, and recently left that job and went traveling for a bit to think about things and consider going back to full-time employment or work on a project and hope it makes enough to survive on. > Do I have to choose it now, or can I do what I’m doing now and decide later? If you're thinking about it now, then you should start figuring it out, or you're postponing the inevitable and these questions will be on your mind every day. > If so, why are these questions disturbing me now and not in the future? Possibly because you are dissatisfied in some way with what you're doing now. A good chance that you're finding it comfortable but not stimulating. > How do most people work out what’s the right path for them to take? Most people don't, and don't believe the ones that say they knew in advance what the right decisions were. None of us can see clearly into our possible futures; we can't see in advance the successes we'll have or the mistakes we'll make. The best we can do is to understand our motivations when we do make a decision, and then at least be at peace with that decision no matter how it turns out. > Does it have to be either or can you do both things together—have a full-time job and do your own thing? If you want to live a balanced life -- i.e., without all of your waking hours behind computer screens -- you should choose either/or. Working full-time and trying to put real energy into a side project doesn't leave much time for anything else, and it will cause both your full-time work and your side project to suffer. This isn't to say that people never manage to pull this off. Some people make it work out. They are the exceptions that prove the rule. > Looking back to the twenty-year-old me and the person I’ve now become, I see almost no similarities, interests, or passion. I was a completely different person back then and the only thing that has stuck with me after all these years is my love of soccer. How do people predict the future? Clearly, I’m no good at it. Congratulations, you're a normal, healthy person that's still growing and maturing. Keep doing that. > I wonder whether, as we grow older, the rate of change in our interests slows down too? It hasn't, for me, and I think I'm at least 10 years ahead of you. Nor has it for any of my more interesting older friends. What does change is the gradual realization that you won't have time for all of your interests. Being a dilletante is a lot of fun while in your 20s and 30s. Some manage to have fun continuing to dabble in a bit of everything for many more years, even into very old age. Other folks start to feel like they might be missing out on something by just grazing the surface of their interests, and start to consider whether their time might be better spent focusing more intently on just a few. > I imagine working on your own thing full time and on the side are definitely not the same; it’s scary, to be frank. If my side-project became my full-time work, might my passion for my project dwindle and become yet another job? How would it differ from my current job? Your project should become your full time job. You should maintain the discipline you have in your current job and resist the urge to fritter time away here and there. But it will be different, because you'll be investing in your interest, and despite it becoming your job, you'll still feel an ongoing sense of satisfaction at being solely responsible for your success or your failure. If you wake up one morning and have a great idea for your project, you won't have to convince middle or upper management, or enlist a sales team, or wait until the next company all-hands. You'll just do it. And that can be really rewarding, and it can also be a great big trap you fall into, without anybody else holding you accountable or challenging whether your next idea is a good one or not.
hownottowrite 7y ago
Cached Version: http://archive.is/vgHTv http://archive.is/vgHTv
mc3 7y ago
A day job doesn't have to be your side project's enemy. If you do web dev at work you get paid to do something that makes you efficient at web dev. Then you go home and work on your side project and you don't need to spend hours struggling with webpack or why str=((num || fallback) + '') works, so your side project is done more productively too.
- moretai 7y ago
  I personally just get so drained after a day of work, on top of exercising, and some sort of recreational activity would be nice. The work isn't hard. It's the thinking that goes around the work that is the draining part. Especially if you want to keep a job. Others can perhaps compartmentalize a bit better than I can.
  - opportune 7y ago
    It depends on what you do at work a lot I think. Working on greenfield projects is so much less mentally draining than working on some old thing with only 10% of its functionality encoded in tribal knowledge that interacts with like a 100 different services that you need to constantly be learning about.
    - mc3 7y ago
      Definitely. Greenfield is rare in my experience though. And there is greenfield solo (awesome) and greenfield team of 20 all chucking code in (instant legacy!)
    - non-entity 7y ago
      Most of the time I'm doing nothing at work all day, yet I manage to pass out for 3 hours of exhaustion after I get hone
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Come home at ~6pm, make/have dinner ~7pm, exercise ~8pm, get home and shower ~9pm. At this point there's not much time to do work, especially if you have to go grocery shopping, do laundry, clean, have a family, or any number of other misc things like get a haircut or have clothes dry cleaned.
opportune 7y ago
Funny they compare working at a big tech company vs starting a business as dichotomies. I actually think there is a lot to be said about saving up a lot of liquid investments at big tech cos, then using that as personal runway/seed capital for your startup. That is my plan, anyway. Having a project that already has ARR is a massive headstart over most people too. Especially if you are close to ramen-profitable, then quitting to run it full time only requires sacrificing relatively assured opportunity cost. I don’t know how it works when you’re on a visa but since I’m not, I know I would probably just quit as soon as I had enough liquidity. You don’t have to be married to your first business for life. It’s an amazing opportunity, not only necessarily financially, but also in terms of learning potential.
j45 7y ago
Doing your own thing often means working for clients which means working for someone .
dilippkumar 7y ago
> I know what most people’s heuristics is when they face this uncertainty: think about ten years from now and figure out where you want to be. And do the thing now that gives you more options to get there. I wish it was as simple as most people claim. Looking back to the twenty-year-old me and the person I’ve now become, I see almost no similarities, interests, or passion. I was a completely different person back then and the only thing that has stuck with me after all these years is my love of soccer. How do people predict the future? Clearly, I’m no good at it. This is actually the primary focus of a book I just read [1]. The author's primary thesis in this book is that that there are some very interesting reasons why we completely suck at imagining what a future life will be like. This isn't really a book recommendation - the author took a single idea and chewed it in 20 different ways to make a larger book. However, if this is something you are struggling with right now, you might benefit from it a little. [1] Stumbling on happiness - https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400077427 https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp...
gerdesj 7y ago
"and I know that working alone can make you lonely. ... If I work on my own business alone, I won’t have co-workers until I hire them." In 1999ish I was approached by two chaps that I worked with and one of whom I worked for (he was my boss.) Would I fancy being the Managing Director of a new company thing they'd dreamed up? Nothing too grand, first customer was where we worked already etc etc. Times have changed a bit now and we have some customers that most people in the UK have heard of. Our triumvirate has worked out really well over the years. We will never set the world on fire but our little business keeps us and our 20 odd staff pretty comfortable. Three directors has worked out very well for us. Two stops one being a twat for example! My advice is that you might consider finding and attracting a few allies but you must position them carefully. Fill in the bits that you are shit at. For example, if you can't be arsed with accounts then get someone in who will and pay them properly with shares if they are an early appointment and you can't give them readies now.
m0zg 7y ago
>> If I work on my own business alone, I won’t have co-workers until I hire them. There's another, more subtle issue. If you aren't sitting on a million-dollar seed round, there's a _huge_ energy gap between working alone and hiring someone, even for a consultancy, never mind some kind of product effort on which you work for a year before you get any revenue. This is in part because of the additional taxes you have to pay if you're no longer flying solo, and in part because of demands on your own time. Say you're doing something solo and you're super strong technically and can do what you do very efficiently. It's pretty easy to generate a ton of revenue working in this way. It's also much easier to tolerate gaps or reductions in revenue - you could just work on your own stuff and continue to pay yourself from past revenues. Say, now, you want to grow, and hire people. But you can't just hire people. Now you have to pay for their benefits, pay unemployment insurance, etc etc. Moreover you have to manage them, which will reduce your own "technical" throughput to basically zero. I've done a back of the envelope, and for me it doesn't make sense to have fewer than 10 people in my employ, since I can't skim enough off the top to justify my own loss of productivity. And 1 person solo LLC vs a 10 person company are vastly different companies in terms of business operations (especially bizdev and sales), taxation, and regulation. I'd theoretically like to grow at some point. But I don't know how to do it in a sustainable fashion as a consultancy. Being (overly) fiscally conservative, I would not feel comfortable hiring for a more product-oriented business either unless it demonstrates traction and upward trajectory. $1k/mo is not what I'd call "traction".
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  Partnering informally with a "collective" of like-minded independents is one way to thread that needle.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Those independents are few and far between in my field, unfortunately.
tinyhouse 7y ago
I need to meet this guy. It sounds like I wrote this piece. I have exactly the same thoughts and I also love soccer...
- Neil2893 7y ago
  Strange world, I had the same feeling, and I love soccer too.
h00dui 7y ago
I graduated the same time as you & had a side project that I handled for about 2 years at bigger co before making the transition to running with it full time (now ~3 years).. I can tell you the points that stick out the most for me: - i've learned a HELL of a lot. I've learned so much running through the hustle life that comes with making these projects work & handling life around it etc there couldn't really be a price tag on that. At first I was more or less a hacker w some sales skills. Now I feel like I could handle ceo-coo-cmo-cto type things all because I had too. These are lessons & knowledge for the rest of your life. Even a generalist will be thrown constant challenges, I guarantee it. - I had to make big adjustments to my social life. It's good you have some remote experience because this one was a challenge. Deciding what to go to and trying to spend time w/ community is difficult when you are trying to get it all done. Spend energy and time in places you enjoy & appreciate. When I worked at big co I would go to things all the time on weeknights and throw it on the weekend but you cant really afford all those peaks as much when youre on call as the boss. It's too taxing. - Self Care: Could really go a long way with this one but damn.. This is the most valuable lesson I have learned. You have to watch over yourself. Like Marshawn Lynch put it this past weekend.. "watch over your mentals, your emotions, your chicken (i think he was talking about the body." Take some time off to relax when needed, keep tabs on your body and mental well being & keep close community who can help and support you when needed. It will go a long way to have someone who can help you when you just need to vent or maybe have a glass of wine ~ ~ - I'm happier - I do a little bit of work just about every day but I'm also spending a bit more time in creative areas that really make me feel good that I coulnd't seem to get time for at a big co. I make less money but I can't really seem to put a price on that "hey i'm gonna go surf cos waves are crushing right now.. will do this when I get back" option. The ability to control my time in life is one of the most valuable assets I have. There is something about humans and how we think about what it is like on the other side. Is the grass greener? Only one way to know ~ ~ good luck xX
r34 7y ago
I never use term "working for someone". I can work "with someone" as a part of the team. In my native language (Polish) "employer" could be literally translated as "workgiver", which is a complete bullshit, because "work" is not a social construct, but kind of relation between living organism and nature (and only because of that it is derivately social).
trumbitta2 7y ago
Being alone is easily fixed by a coworking space
- posedge 7y ago
  Not speaking from experience here, but I don't think it's the same. I'm guessing there's a churn of people, so no long-term relationships, also since you're not working on the same thing you have less of a connection with them.
cryptica 7y ago
These days, you either work for a company as an employee, or you work for cartel as an entrepreneur.
cfontes 7y ago
Why not both?
luord 7y ago
I have nothing to add that hasn't been said in other comments, so I'll comment on something that surprised me a bit: > Looking back to the twenty-year-old me and the person I’ve now become, I see almost no similarities, interests, or passion. Comparing the me of now with the me who graduated college almost seven years ago and I... am essentially still the same guy, only with a lot more money to spend.

339 points by thakobyan 7y ago

I like Austin Kleon's insights here [1]: "A day job gives you money, a connection to the world, and a routine. Freedom from financial stress also means freedom in your art. As photographer Bill Cunningham says, 'If you don’t take money, they cant tell you what to do.' Because the real truth is, once you start making money doing what you love, it BECOMES A JOB. And with it comes all the hassle of a job." It's why I've personally decided to work for someone else full time and then use any time I can get outside my day job to do the things I really enjoy (which are very profitable). The full time job enables me to be more "creatively reckless" in my side projects, which in turn allows me to learn a lot and stretch creative muscles I might not otherwise get "working for the man." 1. From: https://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/69005574484 https://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/69005574484

winrid 7y ago
Yes, however if you can figure out a project that pays your salary and is low maintenance (very hard) you can have even more time for your art :)
chrisco255 7y ago
"It becomes a job" doesn't really satisfy me as a description for what occurs when you strike out on your own. Running your own business is much more intense and engaging than having a job. Now, it's important that you see it as multiple jobs, and not just one job. Whatever your day job is you're going to have to wear multiple hats in a startup and it's going to challenge you in different ways than a corporate job will. In a corporate engineering job, it's likely that you're working on a small subset of features of a broader product and of a broader organization. As a founder of a company, you'll be coding, promoting, designing, innovating, QA, customer service, sales, and more.
- aksss 7y ago
  ...bookkeeping, reviewing contracts, managing insurance and licensing requirements, networking, the list goes on. You can farm this stuff out when you get big enough, but in the beginning you need to rapidly learn a lot of business skills that you may have only passively come into contact with prior. You will be better for it, even if you decide to go back to corporate at some point - you'll be relieved you don't have to do all the bootstrapping, but you'll appreciate what really goes into a business operation in a way you never did before.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
kentrado 7y ago
I would like to try that approach but I just don't have the energy after working all day to come home and start investing time chasing wildly creative projects.
- tannerc 7y ago
  I’m writing a book on how I do this! I’ll be sharing here on HN once it’s complete. But the TL;DR for the chapter on motivation and energy comes down to: work on things that improve your own life, set clear objectives, and work in small chunks. The book itself is being written in 30 minute chunks throughout my week because that’s all the time I can spare.
  - bogdanoff_2 7y ago
    I found that back when I had lots of free time, my style when doing projects was: I start where I left off, I get engrossed and code late into the night, repeat that one or two more days, get bored and "burned out" from the project, don't touch it for a week or so (sometimes I work on some other projects), repeat. Of course, that's not really sustainable. But 30 minutes does not seem feasible for me. It's not like you're going for a 30 minute jog where you just run without thinking. Don't you need to take time to "warm up" until the project you're doing starts being fun? And how does stopping just when you start enjoying yourself not kill your motivation? And don't you think about the project throughout your day job (instead of whatever problem you're supposed to be working on)?
    - yellow_lead 7y ago
      Agreed, 30 mins is not enough time to get into "deep work" for programming. At best you could do some business-y tasks.
      - ptah 7y ago
        on the contrary it can make you more productive. for one it forces you to take a step back regularly instead of blindly going down a potentially wrong path. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
shoptechmedia 7y ago
I actually did this 3 years ago.. just to be at peace with working with somebody else was nightmare for me having been an entrepreneur for 20 years.. but once I accepted the idea that I can still do the things i love most while working full time for somebody was liberating. Whereas, it used to be work all the time when I was managing my own business.
zerr 7y ago
The key is to have a high-paid part-time job.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Or low outgoings.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  And in what universe would one find such a thing?
  - zerr 7y ago
    Working remotely from a cheap place for clients from expensive places, charging expensive place market rate.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      Contract work is not the same as part time work.
      - zerr 7y ago
        It's up to you to skip over clients who demand full-time commitment.

dvt 7y ago

Not to be dismissive, but this post feels a bit like rambling without a clear thesis or main argument. It's also rife with dubious claims: > I’ve been working remotely for four years now, and I know that working alone can make you lonely.. I also work full-time remotely. I built a community around myself, made new friends and regularly hang out with people I met at coffee shops, at startup meetups, old classmates, ex-coworkers (that may also be fully remote), etc. I hear it a lot, but this argument honestly falls flat on its face as long as you're not a weird hermit that only works from your house. In fact, that main reason I wanted to work remotely is because I get to meet people (particularly women, as I'm getting to an age where marriage is starting to become a priority) that I'm more interested in than in the myopic circles that are commonplace at large tech companies. > I like the idea that you can earn money while you sleep, but are those businesses fun? Yes. Because it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. And freedom is fun. I mean, passive income is basically free money -- I'm not sure I'm getting what author is saying here. > I imagine working on your own thing full time and on the side are definitely not the same; it’s scary, to be frank. If my side-project became my full-time work, might my passion for my project dwindle and become yet another job? How would it differ from my current job? I don't see how working for your own business could ever become "just another job" -- you're acutely invested in the venture, your strategic decisions guide it's success (or failure). Working for a corporation is the definition of "autopilot" for most above-average employees (engineers or otherwise). This could not be more different when doing your own thing.

daxfohl 7y ago
I think the rambling was basically the point. He wasn't sure. I found it kind of refreshing.
hunter-gatherer 7y ago
Paraphrasing, but he said early on that he wasn't trying to convince the reader of anything and that it was just a brain dump of his thoughts.
- just_myles 7y ago
  I thought that was a bit odd. If it was for the author's own rationalization and is not trying to convince the audience of a any kind of point, then why is the author publishing this publically? Why can't the author write this out in notepad or on pen and paper(Like I do.) and leave it at that? Vanity?

daxfohl 7y ago

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by "sustainable" I mean they had contracts worth substantially more than their salaried job. Because to transition to that completely, you've got to set aside time and money for so many things: insurance, legal, hardware, whatever corp infra, recruiting, etc, as well as offset the risk. So I'd not jump ship too soon, until you have a real plan on how to get your company from A to B. Especially these days when tech salaries are so high, it'd be a mistake to opt out of it too soon.

neonate 7y ago
Given the research on adverse childhood experiences, there's likely a subtler advantage too, for founders who were raised in more stable and secure environments. Growing up under greater pressure (violence, abuse, trauma) leaves you less resilient, more risk averse, more at risk. I'm not saying wealthy families don't have this, or that poor families can't be stable and secure. But on average it probably makes a difference. Call it an emotional safety net.
- daxfohl 7y ago
  Incidentally, I just got back from the annual checkup with my 7yo, and the doctor mentioned that the strongest indicator of kids staying on a good path through adolescence is whether they regularly have dinner together as a family or not. That surprisingly exceeds any other socio-economic demographic indicator.
  - christiansakai 7y ago
    Damn this hits too close to home.
  - davidgh 7y ago
    I’ve thought about this metric, a lot. There is no doubt that having family dinner has a lot of benefits. But I can help but ask myself - is family dinner a silver bullet, or is it that families who are holistically “doing it right” also make family dinner a priority?

overcast 7y ago

Probably the biggest hurdle is dealing with healthcare on your own, it's just prohibitively expensive to deal with alone in the US. Multiple incomes is where it's at, at least until one of the projects takes off to cover cost of living and healthcare nonsense.

glfharris 7y ago
Wouldn't that imply startup rates to be much higher in countries with national healthcare? But I don't think that's borne out in data.
- poulsbohemian 7y ago
  It isn't, and it is a known enigma. That said, I'm inclined to think our entrepreneurship rates would be even higher in this country if we had a non-employer based health care scheme. I base this on the anecdata of having met easily dozens of people over the years who wished to be entrepreneurs but stayed in job because of the health care benefits. Would love to see further studies of this correlation between health care costs + entrepreneurship.
- simple_phrases 7y ago
  Entrepreneurship in Scandinavia is higher than in the US.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  There are many confounding factors there. Countries with government-provided healthcare also have many other differences that contribute positively or negatively to entrepreneurship.
tempsy 7y ago
What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.
- 7y ago

JoeMayoBot 7y ago

Wondering how many other people are beginning to consider their future in this way. It's interesting that he linked to the a16z post on Passion Economy. As opportunities for remote work where each individual charts their own course increases, the future of work could change significantly.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
arvinsim 7y ago
I don't see this work for everyone. In the HN discussion[1] about Passion economy, someone mentioned that industries with the most creative and "passionate" people, the distribution of rewards follows the power law. Only a small percentage of the total industry will be able to capture the profits that is sustainable. So yeah, I am skeptical that this is the "future of work". [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21200795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21200795

thaumaturgy 7y ago

Funny to read someone else's musings on this as I've been working through many of the same questions for a while. I started full-time in the tech industry before I was out of high school, then went corporate, then got out for a while, then back in, then had my own business for a while, sold that, got a job for a few years, and recently left that job and went traveling for a bit to think about things and consider going back to full-time employment or work on a project and hope it makes enough to survive on. > Do I have to choose it now, or can I do what I’m doing now and decide later? If you're thinking about it now, then you should start figuring it out, or you're postponing the inevitable and these questions will be on your mind every day. > If so, why are these questions disturbing me now and not in the future? Possibly because you are dissatisfied in some way with what you're doing now. A good chance that you're finding it comfortable but not stimulating. > How do most people work out what’s the right path for them to take? Most people don't, and don't believe the ones that say they knew in advance what the right decisions were. None of us can see clearly into our possible futures; we can't see in advance the successes we'll have or the mistakes we'll make. The best we can do is to understand our motivations when we do make a decision, and then at least be at peace with that decision no matter how it turns out. > Does it have to be either or can you do both things together—have a full-time job and do your own thing? If you want to live a balanced life -- i.e., without all of your waking hours behind computer screens -- you should choose either/or. Working full-time and trying to put real energy into a side project doesn't leave much time for anything else, and it will cause both your full-time work and your side project to suffer. This isn't to say that people never manage to pull this off. Some people make it work out. They are the exceptions that prove the rule. > Looking back to the twenty-year-old me and the person I’ve now become, I see almost no similarities, interests, or passion. I was a completely different person back then and the only thing that has stuck with me after all these years is my love of soccer. How do people predict the future? Clearly, I’m no good at it. Congratulations, you're a normal, healthy person that's still growing and maturing. Keep doing that. > I wonder whether, as we grow older, the rate of change in our interests slows down too? It hasn't, for me, and I think I'm at least 10 years ahead of you. Nor has it for any of my more interesting older friends. What does change is the gradual realization that you won't have time for all of your interests. Being a dilletante is a lot of fun while in your 20s and 30s. Some manage to have fun continuing to dabble in a bit of everything for many more years, even into very old age. Other folks start to feel like they might be missing out on something by just grazing the surface of their interests, and start to consider whether their time might be better spent focusing more intently on just a few. > I imagine working on your own thing full time and on the side are definitely not the same; it’s scary, to be frank. If my side-project became my full-time work, might my passion for my project dwindle and become yet another job? How would it differ from my current job? Your project should become your full time job. You should maintain the discipline you have in your current job and resist the urge to fritter time away here and there. But it will be different, because you'll be investing in your interest, and despite it becoming your job, you'll still feel an ongoing sense of satisfaction at being solely responsible for your success or your failure. If you wake up one morning and have a great idea for your project, you won't have to convince middle or upper management, or enlist a sales team, or wait until the next company all-hands. You'll just do it. And that can be really rewarding, and it can also be a great big trap you fall into, without anybody else holding you accountable or challenging whether your next idea is a good one or not.

hownottowrite 7y ago

Cached Version: http://archive.is/vgHTv http://archive.is/vgHTv

mc3 7y ago

A day job doesn't have to be your side project's enemy. If you do web dev at work you get paid to do something that makes you efficient at web dev. Then you go home and work on your side project and you don't need to spend hours struggling with webpack or why str=((num || fallback) + '') works, so your side project is done more productively too.

moretai 7y ago
I personally just get so drained after a day of work, on top of exercising, and some sort of recreational activity would be nice. The work isn't hard. It's the thinking that goes around the work that is the draining part. Especially if you want to keep a job. Others can perhaps compartmentalize a bit better than I can.
- opportune 7y ago
  It depends on what you do at work a lot I think. Working on greenfield projects is so much less mentally draining than working on some old thing with only 10% of its functionality encoded in tribal knowledge that interacts with like a 100 different services that you need to constantly be learning about.
  - mc3 7y ago
    Definitely. Greenfield is rare in my experience though. And there is greenfield solo (awesome) and greenfield team of 20 all chucking code in (instant legacy!)
  - non-entity 7y ago
    Most of the time I'm doing nothing at work all day, yet I manage to pass out for 3 hours of exhaustion after I get hone
hanniabu 7y ago
Come home at ~6pm, make/have dinner ~7pm, exercise ~8pm, get home and shower ~9pm. At this point there's not much time to do work, especially if you have to go grocery shopping, do laundry, clean, have a family, or any number of other misc things like get a haircut or have clothes dry cleaned.

opportune 7y ago

Funny they compare working at a big tech company vs starting a business as dichotomies. I actually think there is a lot to be said about saving up a lot of liquid investments at big tech cos, then using that as personal runway/seed capital for your startup. That is my plan, anyway. Having a project that already has ARR is a massive headstart over most people too. Especially if you are close to ramen-profitable, then quitting to run it full time only requires sacrificing relatively assured opportunity cost. I don’t know how it works when you’re on a visa but since I’m not, I know I would probably just quit as soon as I had enough liquidity. You don’t have to be married to your first business for life. It’s an amazing opportunity, not only necessarily financially, but also in terms of learning potential.

j45 7y ago

Doing your own thing often means working for clients which means working for someone .

dilippkumar 7y ago

> I know what most people’s heuristics is when they face this uncertainty: think about ten years from now and figure out where you want to be. And do the thing now that gives you more options to get there. I wish it was as simple as most people claim. Looking back to the twenty-year-old me and the person I’ve now become, I see almost no similarities, interests, or passion. I was a completely different person back then and the only thing that has stuck with me after all these years is my love of soccer. How do people predict the future? Clearly, I’m no good at it. This is actually the primary focus of a book I just read [1]. The author's primary thesis in this book is that that there are some very interesting reasons why we completely suck at imagining what a future life will be like. This isn't really a book recommendation - the author took a single idea and chewed it in 20 different ways to make a larger book. However, if this is something you are struggling with right now, you might benefit from it a little. [1] Stumbling on happiness - https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400077427 https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp...

gerdesj 7y ago

"and I know that working alone can make you lonely. ... If I work on my own business alone, I won’t have co-workers until I hire them." In 1999ish I was approached by two chaps that I worked with and one of whom I worked for (he was my boss.) Would I fancy being the Managing Director of a new company thing they'd dreamed up? Nothing too grand, first customer was where we worked already etc etc. Times have changed a bit now and we have some customers that most people in the UK have heard of. Our triumvirate has worked out really well over the years. We will never set the world on fire but our little business keeps us and our 20 odd staff pretty comfortable. Three directors has worked out very well for us. Two stops one being a twat for example! My advice is that you might consider finding and attracting a few allies but you must position them carefully. Fill in the bits that you are shit at. For example, if you can't be arsed with accounts then get someone in who will and pay them properly with shares if they are an early appointment and you can't give them readies now.

m0zg 7y ago

>> If I work on my own business alone, I won’t have co-workers until I hire them. There's another, more subtle issue. If you aren't sitting on a million-dollar seed round, there's a _huge_ energy gap between working alone and hiring someone, even for a consultancy, never mind some kind of product effort on which you work for a year before you get any revenue. This is in part because of the additional taxes you have to pay if you're no longer flying solo, and in part because of demands on your own time. Say you're doing something solo and you're super strong technically and can do what you do very efficiently. It's pretty easy to generate a ton of revenue working in this way. It's also much easier to tolerate gaps or reductions in revenue - you could just work on your own stuff and continue to pay yourself from past revenues. Say, now, you want to grow, and hire people. But you can't just hire people. Now you have to pay for their benefits, pay unemployment insurance, etc etc. Moreover you have to manage them, which will reduce your own "technical" throughput to basically zero. I've done a back of the envelope, and for me it doesn't make sense to have fewer than 10 people in my employ, since I can't skim enough off the top to justify my own loss of productivity. And 1 person solo LLC vs a 10 person company are vastly different companies in terms of business operations (especially bizdev and sales), taxation, and regulation. I'd theoretically like to grow at some point. But I don't know how to do it in a sustainable fashion as a consultancy. Being (overly) fiscally conservative, I would not feel comfortable hiring for a more product-oriented business either unless it demonstrates traction and upward trajectory. $1k/mo is not what I'd call "traction".

chrisweekly 7y ago
Partnering informally with a "collective" of like-minded independents is one way to thread that needle.
- m0zg 7y ago
  Those independents are few and far between in my field, unfortunately.

tinyhouse 7y ago

I need to meet this guy. It sounds like I wrote this piece. I have exactly the same thoughts and I also love soccer...

Neil2893 7y ago
Strange world, I had the same feeling, and I love soccer too.

h00dui 7y ago

I graduated the same time as you & had a side project that I handled for about 2 years at bigger co before making the transition to running with it full time (now ~3 years).. I can tell you the points that stick out the most for me: - i've learned a HELL of a lot. I've learned so much running through the hustle life that comes with making these projects work & handling life around it etc there couldn't really be a price tag on that. At first I was more or less a hacker w some sales skills. Now I feel like I could handle ceo-coo-cmo-cto type things all because I had too. These are lessons & knowledge for the rest of your life. Even a generalist will be thrown constant challenges, I guarantee it. - I had to make big adjustments to my social life. It's good you have some remote experience because this one was a challenge. Deciding what to go to and trying to spend time w/ community is difficult when you are trying to get it all done. Spend energy and time in places you enjoy & appreciate. When I worked at big co I would go to things all the time on weeknights and throw it on the weekend but you cant really afford all those peaks as much when youre on call as the boss. It's too taxing. - Self Care: Could really go a long way with this one but damn.. This is the most valuable lesson I have learned. You have to watch over yourself. Like Marshawn Lynch put it this past weekend.. "watch over your mentals, your emotions, your chicken (i think he was talking about the body." Take some time off to relax when needed, keep tabs on your body and mental well being & keep close community who can help and support you when needed. It will go a long way to have someone who can help you when you just need to vent or maybe have a glass of wine ~ ~ - I'm happier - I do a little bit of work just about every day but I'm also spending a bit more time in creative areas that really make me feel good that I coulnd't seem to get time for at a big co. I make less money but I can't really seem to put a price on that "hey i'm gonna go surf cos waves are crushing right now.. will do this when I get back" option. The ability to control my time in life is one of the most valuable assets I have. There is something about humans and how we think about what it is like on the other side. Is the grass greener? Only one way to know ~ ~ good luck xX

r34 7y ago

I never use term "working for someone". I can work "with someone" as a part of the team. In my native language (Polish) "employer" could be literally translated as "workgiver", which is a complete bullshit, because "work" is not a social construct, but kind of relation between living organism and nature (and only because of that it is derivately social).

trumbitta2 7y ago

Being alone is easily fixed by a coworking space

posedge 7y ago
Not speaking from experience here, but I don't think it's the same. I'm guessing there's a churn of people, so no long-term relationships, also since you're not working on the same thing you have less of a connection with them.

cryptica 7y ago

These days, you either work for a company as an employee, or you work for cartel as an entrepreneur.

cfontes 7y ago

Why not both?

luord 7y ago

I have nothing to add that hasn't been said in other comments, so I'll comment on something that surprised me a bit: > Looking back to the twenty-year-old me and the person I’ve now become, I see almost no similarities, interests, or passion. Comparing the me of now with the me who graduated college almost seven years ago and I... am essentially still the same guy, only with a lot more money to spend.