Moonlighting? Please Tell Me About It - henryw
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henryw
I've been working 2 weeks now full time, and been trying to work on my own
startup on nights and weekends. I didn't know how hard it was when people
talked about it until now. And I thought school and startup was hard. To
illustrate, I come home at 6pm, fall asleep until 8pm, code until 1am, sleep
from 2am to 8am, and start all over again. I guess this is called
moonlighting.

I am going to stop this moonlighting stuff and work full time on my startup
with a new appreciation in about a week. I'm saving about 1k per week, which
is about my monthly expense. I'm almost done with the beta (after 6 months),
and I think the reason I'm not at full time is because I'm afraid of failing.
But it doesn't matter now because I just paid $500 to get inc'ed and I got
enough to last until the end of summer.

A side note, from my full time job, I've learned that lunch breaks are a boost
to productivity.

If you moonlight too, or did before, please share your insight.

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mynameishere
Two weeks? Wow. And those eight hours of sleep you get seem brutal...

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palish
I'm not sure which is worse.. How mean you are or that people are upvoting
you. At least he's trying, and he just wanted a little support. From the sound
of it, he's a single founder, so it can get pretty harsh.

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pg
I agree. This sounds like a tough schedule. I once tried to write a book at
the same time as having a 9-5 job, and I was dismayed at how little time was
left over from the job. When you add in travel to and from work, the day's
practically shot.

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darose
I'm moonlighting, and I have to say - it's brutal. I get a couple of nights a
week to work on my startup project, and it sucks: a) it's not nearly enough
time, b) I totally lose flow, c) I'm tired before I start, and so have really
motivation trouble.

Many a-list bloggers say it's really not an ideal approach - and they're
right.

That said, I have no choice. I have a wife & 2 kids, and not that much money
in the bank right now. So my choices are either moonlighting or give up the
startup dream, which I absolutely refuse to do. (Which reminds me: all that
stuff about the tech industry being a complete meritocracy, you can start a
startup on no money, etc. - that's all just crap. There's no meritocracy. You
can only launch a startup if you - or someone else (your daddy, etc.) has
enough money to pay all your bills while you do it. That rules out: working
class people, middle class people with kids, etc.)

Anyway, my goal is to work enough to just get something launched, and then
hope it takes off from there enough to transition to it full time. It's a long
tough road, but I'm tough enough to stay with it.

Still, I would not recommend this route.

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Psyonic
I partially agree with your comment about it not being a meritocracy: yes, it
is still very difficult for those with prior commitments. However, it is still
much more realistic than starting a B&M; store or something along those lines,
where you need significantly more startup capital and working on it in your
spare time just doesn't work.

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brlewis
I'm moonlighting, but I'm going after customers who move slowly. That is, if
full-time founders decided to compete head-to-head, they might pump out
features faster, but would still be stuck in the same long feedback cycle I'm
in as far as knowing what features are and aren't worthwhile. For that kind of
customer base you can afford to moonlight; in fact you should moonlight
because you would burn through funding before getting traction.

If you're going after faster-moving customers, e.g. Techcrunch readers, you
really need to go full-time. Otherwise once you get traction full-timers might
imitate you, and then woo those fast customers with fast development.

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webwright
I'd echo the "find a cofounder" sentiment. Sharing the load is good and a co-
founder is a good energizer/motivator.

I'm not entirely clear why you incorporated.... Definitely something you want
to do, but why not wait a bit and see if what you build sticks/takes off?

My last startup was an "off-hours" thing, and my current one was an off-hours
thing for the last few months (and is a full-time effort as of monday). While
I didn't work NEARLY as hard (generally one evening and one full weekend day),
I sympathize.

G'luck!

My only advice is to brutally slash your idea down to the core-- find out the
BASIC value proposition you can offer and get it out...

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dhouston
i've done this kind of thing for spans of a year or two. besides the advice
you're probably already getting, i'd say going running regularly helps a lot.
when i was running, i'd be have a lot more energy throughout the day and
night; when i wasn't i'd want to nap when i got home.

finding a cofounder is also a big productivity boost. find one early -- the
more progress you make by yourself the harder it is to get someone else
excited about "your" idea. if you're moonlighting, it's easy to put this off,
but you're only hurting yourself long term. (i used to believe the single
founder thing was doable for a while, but all of pg's counterarguments are
right.)

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twelve88
i've been doing this for a little over 3 years now. during grad school i wrote
the beta version of my software when i wasn't working on my thesis. now i work
during the bulk of my non-day-job time, but i make sure to have leisure time,
too.

i think the danger of this lifestyle is the risk of not getting things
accomplished in a timely manner. if we spread ourselves too thin we end up
with our hands in a bunch of half-full pots.

nonetheless, kudos for the stamina. we have 24 hours every day to use how we
see fit. 8 hours for sleep is a given, 8 hours for work is another (almost)
given, and what we do with the other 8 hours is the difference between
mediocrity and success.

~dean~

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rami
it sucks, it burns you out, but if you can do it, then startups is for you :)

