

What are the chances of one succeeding with moonlighting? - JoeEntrepreneur
http://onista.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/what-are-the-chances-of-one-succeeding-with-moonlighting/

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mwerty
This is like being a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. (paraphrasing
Charlie Munger)

Self-serving bias all over. As far as I can see, the only valid reason for
working on a startup part-time is risk/cost tolerance or some obscure personal
situation.

Some 'advantages':

>You can fund your own startup.

Refer pg's equity equation. I'd love to have sequoia/YC worry about my company
in addition to my co-founders.

> No one is going to kick you because your took money from them for your
> FAILED startup. No one even cares if your startup fails

That's not necessarily an upside. I think most people can deal with personal
failure a lot better than letting someone else down. This affects motivation.
To quote Bezos: Jeff Bezos: I think one thing I find very motivating -- and I
think this is probably a very common form of motivation or cause of motivation
-- is... I love people counting on me, and so, you know, today it's so easy to
be motivated, because we have millions of customers counting on us at
Amazon.com. We've got thousands of investors counting on us. And we're a team
of thousands of employees all counting on each other. That's fun.

>If you love coding then you can enjoy it 24/7

Try it and notice your efficiency. I'd actually recommend switching roles for
your day job and night job.

Regardless, Kudos for being the one-legged man - this shit ain't easy.

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hhm
"# No one is going to kick you because your took money from them for your
FAILED startup. No one even cares if your startup fails"

Actually, this is not the case. Your family is going to kick you big time if
you were away of them for months, for a projects that fails. They are counting
on you... (at least if you are married, or you have kids, etc)

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apathy
> They are counting on you...

More often than not, they're counting on a risk-taker to try and bring
financial stability to the household, as well. If you are spending so much
time away from your family that it's wrecking your family, there's a problem.
But there are plenty of ineffectual workaholics that do the same thing for
some overlord's profit.

If you're going to sacrifice something as valuable as time with your family,
it better be for a good reason. Chalk up another benefit for making these
choices concrete.

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ivankirigin
Watch out in case you signed a contract that explicitly claims ownership of
all your work, regardless of "nights and weekends" spent on your startup.

Also, watch out for non-compete clauses.

Both might be de facto safe if you have a cool employer, but an investor's top
interest will be the protection of the IP of the company. Things that look
risky are to be avoided, and a violation of a contract is a major risk.

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ardit33
not in California. If your startup is not related to your work that you do
during the day, and if you are not using company equipment, any claims like
that would be impossible to enfornce.

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ivankirigin
You can de facto enforce anything by getting an injunction of a product
release. The company starting the lawsuit might lose and pay for it, but the
startup could be killed by a delay in release, legal fees, and investors
backing off from a risky setup.

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dottertrotter
It really depends on what you call success. If you determine success to be
getting acquired and retiring, then no I don't think moonlighting will get you
to that point. However, if you determine success to be creating a side
business that is profitable and has a slower, but possibly more steady growth
rate, I definitely think that is possible if not probable. I have succeeded in
creating a profitable side business and regardless of what others may think, I
consider myself successful because of that.

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daniel-cussen
It sounds as though any strategy can work as long as you're serious about it.

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edw519
Actually, he overlooked one very, very good reason:

You get requirements from your daytime job.

This is so important that when I stopped moonlighting and went full time on my
start-up, I kept an outside client 2 days per week. Let me explain...

One of my biggest problems has always been WHAT to build, not HOW to build it.
Many successful start-ups have been the result of building what one needed
oneself. I just expand "oneself" to include my parttime clients. Think you
have needs? Wait til you see the long lists of needs in almost any small
business. Sure, I lose a little time in the development cycle, but I more than
make up for it at user acceptance time. No cycles there - I already know what
they want.

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jimbokun
If you're curious about this, I suggest following the official Joel on
Software "The Business of Software" Discussion Forum.

<http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz>

I tend to think of it as "Hacker News for people with a mortgage".

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muriithi
You can pull this off if your day job contract has no IP restrictions and
there are no competitors coding full time as you divide your time between the
start-up and your day job.

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mrtron
I enjoyed the article, I think the points are well thought out.

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rms
How are you going to get the initial users for your social marketplace?

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DarrenStuart
this is a good point. build it and they will come does not work? build it,
market it and if its any good your get a couple of users and then refine and
repeat.

