Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?

Similar boat to you. Had the exact same question in my life.

I decided for a totally different option, lets call it option #4:

#4 Take an "easy" programming job and use your spare time on nights/weekends to build a software business.

I chose this option because I wasn't willing to risk my savings. Plain and simple. I want to retire some day, and blowing 60k for a ~5% chance at making a profitable business wasn't worth it to me.

Been there, done that. Honestly, it depends on your life goals and motivations. In my case, I tried starting a business for the wrong reasons, and realized that I'd rather be an early employee in someone else's startup; or be a co-founder in a very small team.

When I was single, a full time job and side projects were perfectly fine. Once I met my wife, I didn't have a lot of time for side projects. The relationship just took over my nights and weekends. Kids sap up most of the time now.

So, IMO:

#3 if you ever find yourself single again.

#2 before you have kids and a mortgage. This will only work if you have a good business mind or a girlfriend who's willing to help you make ends meet. If she really wants to start a family and be a full-time homemaker, it'll put a bigger strain on your relationship than you realize.

And, honestly, there's nothing wrong with #1. After quitting my job when I was 28 and in a similar situation; then getting a job right before my 30th birthday, what I can say is that carefully choosing your employer is the most important career skill to have in your situation. It takes almost a decade bouncing from jobs to know how to recognize (and stick with) a good situation, how to recognize a bad situation in the interview.

That being said, there's nothing wrong with taking 1-2 months off between jobs!

You could try doing something similar to Pieter Levels' "12 startups in 12 months". He only managed to get to 5-6 startups, but from that arose nomadlist.com and remoteok.com where he's making $83k/mo now after 4 years ($10k from user subscriptions and the rest from paid ads/postings).

Forcing yourself to launch/ship a few products each within a month could be good training to not get stuck in idea phase or coding phase, and focus on getting it out. Then you can try judging how the responses are, maybe 1 will take off and the rest won't.

If you're spending a longer time developing out an idea, it's hard to actually know if the market wants it or not, unless you have actual real paying customers. So for example that yelp idea you should be aiming to have paid customers within 3 months anyways.. reduce risk by making the right moves, not hoping that you might have paid customers 1-2 years later.

Take that 60K, go travel the world, it will go a long long way if you are thrifty about it. See how you feel about your project when you come back or work on it while traveling. Bet you will feel different whether your projects survives or not. Ignore all this you need to buy a house garbage, do you want to spend your life investing for your retirement, for when your dick wont work or live now, that is the question. If you are disciplined enough to save 60K, that already makes you an exception to most Americans. You will be fine. You have the rest of your life to slave away and pay a mortgage, go see the world and see how your view and your priorities will change. Being exposed to many different environments and situations will definitely improve your life and your mindset for the long term. You will experience things and situations which you cannot possibly encounter while putting money into a 401K at a job or slaving away paying for an inflated house price wherever your live. Go live and stop chasing 9/10 startup ideas that actually really fail. If you do want to go the startup route. Don't risk your savings on it, risk an investors money.

You left your job because you were burnt out. I think you should also ask yourself what happens if you start your own project and get burnt out again before making any decision, and/or what can you do next time (either with another job or your own project) to avoid burn out.

In your shoes, I'd first get a job, possibly more sustainable than your previous one. Then I'd start working on my side project trying to make a second income stream. BTW, startup school is starting soon, you should definitely join in and test yourself for 10 weeks.

I live in NYC now. If I were you, I'd look for jobs now. Get one lined up or just have a good idea of what it takes to get one. Go for a corporate IT job that is 6 figs and an easy 9-5. Then I'd ask to postpone it, go on a relaxing trip with or without your gf for 1-3 months. Think about life.

Get back, move into a cheap shared studio or 1br with your gf. Work on your stuff after 5:30 and still bank money, and still live in the city. Boom.

With your runway, #2 sounds great, but try and find a different idea.

Productivity apps and yelp like services are a dime a dozen.

You'll probably waste 1-2 years, and expect to waste 3-5 more before you can replace your main source of income.

Entrepreneurship is risky and developing software is the easy part.

I think "runway" (i.e. your personal savings) is a terrible idea that should be debunked and dropped by the entrepreneurial community.

You don't have runway - you have the savings to buy a house, or form the foundation for the next stage of your life.

If you build your business whilst you have a source of income then you have infinite runway - you can keep trying until your dying day or you give up.

It's only after you've tried to build your social network for dogs and failed that you look back and say "wow, that $120,000 was actually ALOT of money - it's going to take me years to make that again". AND now you don't have money to build your next great idea - Uber for petwalking.

Using your savings as "runway" is just gambling with unlikely odds.

Any "runway" that can keep you going for a year in a modern western city is ALOT of money - you're really undervaluing that money if you use it just to live whilst creating a business. And you're also assuming that you're going to be able to make that same amount of money just as easily another time - that may or may not be true at all.

Before you write a line of code for #2, have a clear strategy for app distribution, user acquisition, free to paid conversion. It won’t just happen because you have a great product. Just remember to make a million a year, you need 10,000 people paying you $10 a month.

I'll vote for #1 and starting something on the side. The time constraint may give you more focus and you won't be gambling away more time and money on an uncertain path.

Some people seem to have a knack for getting right to the point of what needs to be done in hustling an idea and making money on it. For others, it's way too easy to spin the tires and get nowhere for weeks, then months on end. At a certain point, the feeling of getting nowhere becomes a drain itself and the likelihood of not finishing grows.

You don't want to find out which category you are in while burning through savings. Better to start with constraints which force that sense of urgency (lack of time.)

#3, for sure. Multiple streams of income is always a good thing to have. Nobody says you have to kill yourself working but spend an extra hour or two building your side thing.

Pro: You only live once. I've never regretted the chances I've taken and failed. I would have regretted it much more if I didn't take the chance.

Con: Statistically, you will fail. There are people out there with the same idea that are better funded, better connected and can move faster.

Pro: Internet projects are cheap. Infrastructure is cheap. Give me a $200/month budget , I could easily host your typical small software as a service app starting off with plenty of headroom.

Split the difference: Work and work on your side project. Even if you fail, you still have something to add to your portfolio.

Never risk your own money. But wasting time doesn't cost anything though. So make sure your expenses are covered, then go at it. And if you are having fun and learning stuff, then it's not a waste of time even if it fails.

But you probably don't want to do it alone. It's better to own 10% of something, then 100% of nothing. Also validate your ideas before doing actual work. For example do a kick-starter, or a signup-page, pitch the idea to possible customers.

Another "been there, done that". If I could give advice to my 30 year old self, without doubt, it'll be: #1. Focus on finding the right job that works for you and pays the bills. Once you are back to feeling good start a side project.

If you're bootstrapping, be wary of the NYC burn rate: your expense base will explode and you're going to get taxed up the wazoo on your early revenue. Worst business environment I've ever had to operate in.

If you're selling primarily to a NYC audience or industry, then move there of course - get close to the customer. Otherwise you've got a lot more runway in the South....

Assuming you were an FTE, if you burned out in less than 5 years and have already held multiple positions here're some things to consider:

- Travel as soon as possible. The world will speak to you in ways a computer never can.

- If you don't go back to work right away, you may be looked at as less reliable to HR department and hiring managers later.

- If you do choose not to go back to work right away, you need to consider the opportunity cost of not getting involved with someone else's start-up right away.

- If you and your girlfriend want to move to a city, be sure she has an opportunity there to save the relationship in the case your your entrepreneurial interests don't pan out.

All of the options you suggested will likely lead to to future burn out if you don't move to a larger company. Find a job you kinda like and stay put for awhile go gain experience and relationships, and place a rock in your resume. Then you can pursue your dreams if you're able to save more or dramatically reduce cost of living relative to a city.

Let me add a complication. You are at an age where most people have kids. Personally I've choose not to and went very careful to successfully not marry nor have kids, so... just saying you should calculate how that will/will-not compute into your plan.

Start with contracting instead of getting a job. A contract will give you more flexibility to work on side projects since you have control over where and when you work while also providing cash flow. It will also teach you important skills on creating and running a business. If you can't sell yourself as a contractor, you will have a hard time selling your product.

Once you have cash flow, start with trying to sell your idea before you build it. If anyone wants your idea, hire others to help you build it and sell it. Your contract cash flow will allow you to trade your time for other's who will have skills you don't have.

Don't move to NYC without a job.

I love living in NYC, have been here for 20+ years. But your $60k will disappear rapidly. If you want to be in the NYC metro area while you look for a job pick a suburb on a train line about an hour out of the City (NJ, NY east of the Hudson, maybe Long Island). Your burn rate will be much less but you'll be able to get into Manhattan and nearby business districts in a predictable amount of time for interviews and networking events (no recommendation on the train line but avoid the single track train lines).

I think the main factor in my response is in how much you feel you're in control of your executive functions and emotions.

If you can easily re-prioritize your tasks because abstract feedback mechanisms tell you so, and you can steel yourself to strategize and make competitive choices under pressure, even when it means you may make a tradeoff that hurts someone personally, you're in a pretty good position to operate a business around any promising opportunity, and to scale it up if needed. That doesn't mean "businesspeople should be immoral," but rather "they are able to make genuinely tough decisions in an impersonal and fair manner, and are numbed to the painful parts where the livelihood of the business depends on it." (Acid test: how ruthless are you when playing board games?)

But if your mindset is more prone to meandering and getting fixated on specific problems and you get propelled by events and emotional energy around you - whether or not that adds up to a diagnosable condition, don't kid yourself. You can have a business, but it should match your personality and complement your strengths and weaknesses, and you might need a co-founder to keep you grounded. Otherwise you'll shut down or divert yourself into solving the wrong problem as soon as it gets hard.

And to some extent, controlling those thoughts and feelings is something you can train up, and finding an appropriate co-founder is something you can achieve by sheer peristence, but it really sits near the top of the heap in terms of whether a commercial project with paying customers and possibly employees will be the sound thing to pursue, because there are all sorts of ways to rationalize yourself into a bad plan.

If you don't think you can do it that way, you can instead pursue a side project with the intent of turning it into your next gig - something that will at least market your skills and dreams and keep you employable even if you do not have a clue of how it would operate at scale or over the long run. And that might be preferable to grinding LeetCode.

As someone who tried to do exactly what you are suggesting, but with considerably less runway, find a job and start the business while you have the job. It was a disaster for me trying to go all in at once. Especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world, NYC. An I was 30 when I did it. I ran into all kinds of issues that I didn't foresee. Health issues, money issues, etc etc. Now I have a job while also starting a business and its running a lot more smoothly.

Starting a business takes a high level of self control. Very few people have it. You should do a critical self assessment to make sure you have it. Since you have no job work on the business plan for your business and continue looking for a job. You will benefit from the experience even if you do not get a job. I advice that you carefully look at your self before you start the business. The big question is do you have the grit to get from nothing to a profitable business.

Nothing burns you out worse than starting a business. Get a job first. You may want to find a company not based on NYC, in order to lower your likelihood of burning out again.

#3 sounds reasonable - unless you know what that startup idea is, proved it with a handful of customers, the likelyhood of it working out is < 1%. Still, keep trying but don't assume your $60k will not be wasted & you'd not get even more burned out.

Also, if you do get a job in nyc area - try for one that pays multiple of whatever you were making down south.

Try to build your project, get full focus and become an excellent empiric, lots of resources these days for this, in your way 1. You can fail. 2. You can get traction and profit but always, 3. you will find a job, eventually, since you became expert in the field you have been working and exploring with your own spirit. This is my experience, 2 failures, both after the apps got traction but competition had more money to run operations at scale the most of the cases. Now my HV looks good because of them and my actual job is thanks to a reference who pointed me for a similar mission of my 2 failures but in different industry, I am developer and never applied to what represent my actual incomes, just do it before having kids and get some mentorship with someone senior, you will need to be confronted with reality or receive guidance on how to do things quicker or easier. Respect for taking the first and most important step.

Working for yourself makes it very easy to burn out. I'd be wary of that as you described burning out already.

re: #2

>[...] I feel like I could make these ideas work, but it's also super risky. I don't want to spend 1-2 years working on these ideas only to look up and realized I wasted my time and money.

If you can't get comfortable with that risk, you're going to have a very hard time being an entrepreneur.

There's always people who luck into an amazing business and business model, but realistically, you're going to have to put some resources in before you figure out if there's value. Even if it's just mocks and time spent talking to folks (do both those before coding anything though!)

Oh, and yelp is a terrible business -- the coding is straightforward. Your problem there is entirely how do you seed a site with reviews and businesses. Typically, two-sided marketplaces are some of the hardest businesses to create.

I wouldn't make any decisions while burnt out. Take some time and recover.

Then I think you need to think about where you want to go in your career. Do you enjoy development and want to do nothing else? Don't start a business, because you'll end up doing a lot of other things. Are you interested in the control and passionate about your solution of your own business? Then start a company.

Note that there's many other routes, some outlined in other comments. In particular I spent years as a contractor/consultant on my own. It paid the bills and gave me a ton of freedom.

Work part time to pay the bills and spend the rest of your time working on your projects. The $60,000 of yours will disappear faster than you think. You'll eventually spend money on the business I assume.

I’m in a similar position and have an option #4 that would be my own preferred route, but I’ve only recently started thinking about it.

#4 Partner in as a tech lead or cofounder on someone else’s early stage idea.

The question is how to find that person. Angle list? Product Hunt? Who has some ideas?

I think once you’re working among the right group, you might find more startup founders to work with in a way that is inline with what you seem to want.

Before you have settle down and start a family...

#3 or #2.

You could also attempt to build an MVP (#2) and try to raise a small amount of money so you can de-risk yourself a bit.

If you have to set aside time to start a business you shouldn't go that route. An idea should take over your life before you consider making it your day job.

Neither.

You are burned out. Rest / have some fun and fall in love. When an idea hits you run with it. If nothing inspires you and you get bored with rest go find a job.

I’m making a similar choice myself. I just graduated though and I don’t think it’s responsible to chase a pipe dream while I have student debt and family responsibilities without at least having more experience.

Badly wanting to be convinced otherwise though, but it’s hard when people are depending on you...

I highly recommend reading the book "Company of One" by Paul Jarvis if you are considering going the entrepreneurship route

If you aren't 100% sure if your ideas are any good, they probably aren't, and it's better to just get a job.

Pick an idea and try to make it work. There's useful advice to be found here and elsewhere on the web, but your own experience trumps all that. You'll learn a lot, and if/when you decide to return to the corporate world you'll be in an advantaged position to do so.

Well if you’re happy with a prior that sees you fail after a year’s effort 95% of the time; you should do a startup (don’t kid yourself about better odds). Perhaps if you were capable of putting in 5 years of pivoting trying and failing your odds start to look much better.

Otherwise, get a job.

I wish I had more experience, because then I could help you more. I unfortunately am in a similar situation and have less work experience than you do. My sources will mostly be from my studies and HN. I hope some people will amend my thoughts or challenge them strongly.

Some hopefully helpful thoughts:

1) Is it for fun or profit? You can't have both motivations

One thing you should think about with #2 is the overjustification effect [1]. I think there's a cognitive dissonance effect at play [2]. In practical terms, ask yourself: are you having a side project because you like to do it, or because you want to make money and "scratching your own itch" is simply a marketing tactic of understanding your users? If you say: well, both! Then you're prone to the overjustification effect and you might sap a lot of intrinsic motivation away.

2) Generalists tend to earn less money

There was a recent thread on HN that made me believe that specialists will fare better in big(ger) companies and generalists will fare better in small ones. Since big(ger) companies tend to have more resources, specialists tend to be paid better salaries. I presume your entrepreneurial motivation is in part financial. Being an entrepreneur prepares you to be a generalist [3].

3) With that said more motivated people are more competitive and earn more

This is a bit of a tricky one. It has been my observation that CS students who enrolled into university and were passioned about coding tended to be more competitive on the job market than the average CS student (if I have to believe my LinkedIn, which has +500 connections and +100 recent graduated programmers on it).

One confounding factor, however, with competition is not that you simply have to be motivated. There is a certain baseline of motivation depending on whom your competition is. For example, the gaming industry is a more competitive industry simply because employees are more motivated (I read it somewhere, I do not have the source). Another confounding factor is that the distribution of wealth regarding an industry matters. If you are the 50th percentile earner in the compiler industry, you'll earn a lot more than if you are the 50th percentile earner in the game development industry (with its many indie companies that are underfunded).

What I described here I'd equate as (with the strong assumption that people their ability to learn is similar and they are at a similar level as you):

wealth = motivation_percentile * wealth_distribution_percentile

motivation_percentile: your motivation ranked to that of peers who are in the same industry. A simple metric is: amount of hours worked on relatively high focus.

This is a long way of saying: do you know how motivated you are compared to your competition? And do you know the wealth distribution of what job and/or app you're getting into? In terms of entrepreneurship on wealth distribution: education is less lucrative than healthcare, for example. A heuristic following from this: if you can find a boring industry that you're excited by, then your chances of success are higher.

4) How many product market fits are you able to validate?

It took Rovio games 52 games in order to produce Angry Birds [4]. I am not sure if this is a fair comparison as many industries are different and the average amount of tries to make it big can vary. However, based on stories of most entrepreneurs, I think it is safe to assume that this number tends to be bigger than 10. I hope other people could get some good statistics on this, I couldn't find any.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

[2] https://youtu.be/h6HLDV0T5Q8?t=488

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20094242

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovio_Entertainment#cite_note-...

If you're serious about it, there is another option. You can move to Europe or Asia and live cheap while working on your business. I make ~$1,000 a month doing freelance work 30 hours a month. The rest of the time I spend working on my project ideas. My living expenses are ~$400 and I spend another $100-200 on project ideas.

> “Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.”

From “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” by Mary Schmich

I highly advise u choose safe routine, while spend your spare time on side projects. You can always find sparks on HN or Indiehackers websites, or some Internet Marketing related forums.

Do you know PHP and wordpress? I personally have a very big project idea, but only need a very very high level technique involving design a wordpress plugin using PHP, if this can be done, it would be a very good side project and passive. (no need big investment, the plugin is the main goal)

good luck to u and your family.