Ask HN: How many of you built a profitable startup while having a day job? - iworkforthem
======
jasonkester
I have two profitable SaaS products that were built while I was theoretically
working full time on something else. I was a bit fortunate that my "something
else" was Consulting, which you can ramp down by exactly as many hours per
week as you'd like to devote to your side project.

The thing is, if you use the term "Startup" here to describe anything other
than a zero-profit 80hr/week scramble for VC funding and eventual acquisition,
you're going to get people popping up and claiming that what you're doing is
not startuppy enough to count. So for the benefit of that crowd, you might
want to rephrase your question in terms of building a product that brings in
enough revenue to quit your job.

If that's what you want to build, then yes. It's absolutely possible, and
there are dozens of people here who have done so.

~~~
dclowd9901
Your latter input is appreciated, but I'm not sure being a "full-time
consultant" qualifies you to answer this question, which is almost certainly
directed at those with less daily flexibility. If my site explodes in activity
while I'm at work, I can literally do nothing to sop up any problems that
might arise, unless I decide to try to cash in sick time and head out early,
or sit on my hands til I get home. A fulltime consultant faces none of these
issues.

~~~
coffee
> I can literally do nothing to sop up any problems that might arise

Have you trained your job (bosses) to understand that you take periodic breaks
outside of the building (i.e. grab coffee)?

Once you have, you simply grab your bag, with personal laptop, hit the wifi
enabled coffee shop, and stop or at least slow down the fire.

I've done it. You lack creativity :)

~~~
lsc
I've done it too... but yeah, it is not so nice for the employer. I'd much
rather have someone like dclowd9901 working for me than someone like you or
me.

If you do run a side business and keep a dayjob at the same time, you need to
know going in that you won't be 100% for that dayjob. I mean, you can make
excuses for it, like nobody is 100% for their dayjob; other people have kids
they have to deal with, etc... but in the end? you are choosing your own
interests over your employer's.

I'm okay with that.

(I mean, I was up front when I'm hired that I had this other thing going on;
but I recognize that I was a much worse employee than I would have been
otherwise.)

~~~
coffee
>...it is not so nice for the employer.

I can see how my comments and actions could be taken negatively, but I
disagree with that generic statement. Yes it can be not so nice for the
employer, but it could also have zero negative impact.

I was able to successfully do with zero negative impact. In fact, the
flexibility that I trained my employer to have, made me a happier and more
productive employee for that company. The ability to attend to my personal
business, regardless of what it was, made me appreciate them and work harder
for them.

>I'd much rather have someone like dclowd9901 working for me than someone like
you or me.

Please don't lump me into that category.

~~~
lsc
>Please don't lump me into that category.

It's quite possible that I'm wrong, of course.

------
a5seo
I built review site ten years ago and sold it.

It was profitable within 6 months off organic traffic and lead gen.
Approximate revenue by year: $10k, 40k, 70k, 100k, 150k, 250k, 500k, 750k,
1.5M, 2.5M.

Built entirely while working for another startup (unrelated), first 3 years I
was in graduate school, year 4 I was a product manager for another startup.
Year 5 I finally took the leap to run it full-time.

I was the sole owner, never had more than 7 employees, and I sold it for a bit
over $10M (ttm revenue was around $700k at the time).

Leading up to launch, I typically worked 10-7 at my day job, then wrote my
code from 8p-1a M-F (20 hrs) and all day on the weekends (20 hrs), so 40 hrs
per week. During school, my wife handled the sales part-time (16 hrs/wk), and
I probably spent 8 hrs a week on it fixing bugs, implementing ad deals etc. In
Year 4, I spent ~16 hrs a week on it outside of my day job (misc. tech upkeep,
link building, PR, etc.).

It's definitely doable, but your SO needs to be on-board because you'll be
taking the time away from them. Or do it before you have a SO to worry about.

~~~
jadoint
I'm almost in the same boat right now. I built a niche Adsense-supported
social networking site around mid-2009 and my approximate revenue by year is
something like: $100 (Y1), $13.5k (Y2), $90k (this year). Assuming no growth
next year, it should be around $130k.

I hope you don't mind me asking these questions since I'm in the thick of it
myself at the moment. I'm new here so I hope I'm not breaking etiquette.

At what point did you realize you needed help and then decide that you can
actually afford it?

What made you decide to hire your 1st employee rather than a co-founder?

What role did your 1st employee have?

What kinds of employees did you end up hiring?

How did you find your employees?

Any insight would be appreciated!

~~~
a5seo
We hired someone to handle customer service in the 2nd year. We also had some
manual processes that they handled for building out the site. Since we'd been
doing those things ourselves for a while, we optimized the processes a lot and
had a bunch of templates, so training someone else was pretty easy.

W/r to hiring vs. getting a co-founder... I strongly prefer hiring if at all
possible. The rule of thumb I go by is that you should only use equity to get
skills you can't rent/buy (e.g. a big network or personal brand).

The skills we hired for, in order, where:

Sales/account management as needed (wife) Accounting/bookeeping, part-time
(wife) Customer service, part-time (stay at home mom; part-time) Sys admin,
very part-time (did as much as possible myself) Project-specific Java
developers, part-time/moonlighters All-around Java developer, first FTE (did
everything including some light sys admin) Additional Java developers
Additional customer service Product manager

Most of our employees we found via Craigslist, or via our personal network.
Later we used a recruiter to find Java developers. But hiring for developers
was always a big problem.

I think part of the reason recruiting is a unique challenge is that you'll
(probably) never be the hot shiny new startup with pedigreed VC's vouching for
you. It's lame, but employees rely on those signals to separate dead-end
startups from something "real". Of course, the more likely scenario is that
VC-backed company without revenue is far more at risk for being an elaborately
doomed ponzi scheme than your profitable micro ISV. Whatever... You have to
try harder with everything else you can control-- comp, office environment,
developer-friendly culture, technology stack, profit-sharing if you're so
inclined, etc.

Good luck. You'll be glad you took this route down the line.

~~~
jadoint
I've started to find that I'm reaching the limits of my time constraints what
with holding down a full time corporate job. I've been trying to expand my
network to get in touch with good developers that I can pay on a part-time
basis for now since I can't afford anyone full-time. Even harder to find a
decent part-time sys/db admin here in NJ! Thanks very much for the insight.

~~~
a5seo
No problem. I should have also mentioned that we didn't add our first FTE
until revenue was about 3x my corp job, so close to $350 at the time. My
theory was that even if revenue dropped by half overnight, it would be
possible to keep our FTE employed and scrape by long enough on the remainder
to either wait it out or decide to fold (and that's with a year's worth of
cash on hand). But I'm super risk averse, and others probably could handle
less buffer.

------
whirlycott1
I started StyleFeeder in January, 2005, built it into a profitable company of
8 people and sold it to Time Inc in January 2010.

From January, 2005 through May, 2006, I worked on StyleFeeder on the side -
while I had a pretty demanding day job, mind you - as I built up the basic
business... until I had invested so much time and effort into it that I was
maxed out and needed to find a way to work on it full time with the help of
others.

I don't see any plausible way that I could have made it into anything
significant while at the same time working a day job. I think some people can
do it with some businesses, but I think it would have been impossible in my
case.

But the bootstrapping phase, yes, I think you can do that while working a day
job. That's very common.

More details here:

[http://www.whirlycott.com/phil/2011/08/05/stylefeeder-
histor...](http://www.whirlycott.com/phil/2011/08/05/stylefeeder-history/)

~~~
geoffw8
Hey - we're building a similar site (fashion search, UK based), and yours has
always been one of our comparison sites. Nice job, didn't realize you were a
HN'er :)

~~~
whirlycott1
Good luck to you with your new venture! I'm easy to find online and will be
happy to answer any questions if you like.

------
bradleyland
I found it incredibly difficult to provide the value I'd expect out of an
employee at a "day job" while building my business on the side. Ultimately, I
took a different route. Note that this plan works best for young, single
folks. This is also not a "get rich quick" scheme. Positioning myself took
about three years on its own, much less getting going on a start-up. Keep in
mind that this was my plan. It is not the only (or best) plan, but it worked
for me.

* Position yourself for minimum cash outflow. Minimizing your cash needs means you can take bigger risks. I found a decent 500 sq ft apartment and drove a cheap car. Without a family, all my other expenses were dirt cheap.

* Save up a three month buffer and strike out on your own gig, but not your start-up yet. I chose consulting because the income potential is so high and it provided a great networking opportunity. I doubled my annual income (from my old salary) within a year, but far more importantly, I was able to accomplish a few transitional steps in getting my start-up going:

\- I built a relationship with a great developer by feeding him work from
consulting clients.

\- I built relationships with other business owners and took a lot of time to
understand their business.

\- Ultimately, I met the person who would connect me with the greatest team
I've ever worked with.

By the time I found the right team and opportunity, I had a year's worth of
expenses saved up, and a small amount of money to contribute to the
operational expenses of the company. Coming to the table with cash in-hand
gained me a lot of respect from other team members. Because everyone came to
the table with their own income streams, we were able to bootstrap and now,
100% of our equity is founder owned. That's a pretty exciting reality for us.

------
fotoblur
Yes. For 4 years now...2 hrs in the morning 2-4 hrs at night + bigger chunks
on the weekends.

When I look at my day job I only ever get 4 hrs of real work done
anyway...with wasted time for meetings, bureaucracy, and being blocked by
others. So even though I'm at work for 8+ hours, on my free time, I'm able to
work on a similar sized project putting in less hours because there is usually
no waste in that time. I've also got 2 kids and train 4 times a week at the
gym or jiu jitsu. It can be done!

After reading a few more comments I want to add something. Work hard at your
day job, do your best work, and make them dependent on you. Here is why...if
you ever come in late, or leave early because there is a crisis on you side
project your employer usually won't care. Your the superstar so that's
expected. However, you've got to keep your day job really, really happy to
walk this fine line between pursuing your own interests and meeting the needs
of your day job. Plus when you have a successful side project (that maybe
can't support you just yet) and you're out job hunting people will see you as
a golden ticket, a diamond in the rough. Usually when I interview people I
often ask what they're working on on the side. That indicates to me this
person has drive and determination.

------
paraschopra
I built Visual Website Optimizer during weekends and during evenings after
work (while I was working full time at another day job). Initial prototypes
and first beta version took about 6-8 months. Beta remained for about 4
months, had thousands of beta users by then, quit my day job, polished beta
for 2 more months and then launched paid plans. Today we are a team of 8
people (and hiring more) and many happy customers.

To be honest, I think the time constraints posed by day job (you got only 2-3
hours of working on your startup) really made you focus on important stuff
(such as working on user feedback and iterating). Plus, the comfort of having
a salary provided let you invest in site design, marketing, AdWords, etc.
without having you unnecessarily worry about "funding" or borrowing from
parents/friends.

~~~
kalid
I'm so happy VWO came to be :).

------
ry0ohki
I'm not sure if they are considered startups per say, but I've started two
profitable companies while working a day job (to the point where I could quit
my day job!) <http://www.AUsedCar.com> and <http://www.BudgetSimple.com> . I
should say I also created a failed startup during that time. The biggest
difference between the successes and the failure were that the successes did
not require me to answer phone calls, make sales etc... In other words,
completely passive income businesses are the easiest to do with a day job.

~~~
timimit
Hi ry

AUsedCar.com

How does that site compare in a very busy market with established big name
players?

Thanks

~~~
ry0ohki
It's very difficult to compete with the big names, but even .01% of a huge
market adds up to something significant.

 _edit_ I should also say I started this a LONG time ago, so I have a long
tail SEO advantage. I wouldn't envy anyone trying to start a used car site
today.

~~~
mzarate06
How much did that discourage you in the beginning (the thought of it being
extremely hard to compete w/the big names)?

I ask b/c I've been developing an app of my own and this is one of the doubts
I have. I love building stuff too much to let that stop me, but it's still
something I think about from time to time.

~~~
ry0ohki
Well the beginning was 1995, so I was competing with Newspapers and Weekly
Magazines more then websites. People would refuse to let me list their car for
free because they were scared of the Internet.

------
Jun8
I wanted to do this so jumped in and read the comments to this post to try to
get some ideas on how to do this. They made me a bit depressed: Most people
achieved this while working as a consultant (i.e. flexible hours, etc.), not
as a big company employee, like me. Also from what I gather, many data points
come from young people, unencumbered with a family life and kid(s).

So, my more specific question is: Has anybody done this while picking up your
kid from daycare at 5pm, having family business until 8:30pm _and_ working at
a day job. Id this impossible?

I think the viable alternatives in this case are trying to earn money from
blogs and mobile apps.

~~~
Sukotto
I hear ya... This is something I struggle with too. Long workday at Mega
Corp., 45min+ drive-commute each way, 3 kids (7, 5, 2), a spouse with a highly
variable work schedule, and ongoing charity work.

It's really, _really_ hard to make time for a side business in there too.

Are you working on something? How are you making the time for it? How's your
progress?

~~~
zwischenzug
The downsides are greater too. It's one thing to miss out on TV or drinks with
friends; quite another to miss out on the one evening you might get to sit
with your wife and have dinner, or not see your kids for a week.

It doesn't matter how rich or respected my side-project startup would make me,
I wouldn't be able to get that time back.

~~~
ryanhuff
Yeah, don't skip on the family time. Your family (spouse) will resent it.

------
forcer
I started doing affiliate marketing and building websites on the side for
about two years before handing my notice. I could have quit after few months
where my revenues from the side job exceeded what I had in my day job as a
software developer. Nevertheless it took about 2 years because I was scared, I
should have quit much sooner. Now 4 years later we are doing 7-figures a year.

I think its the best way to start a company because you are only risking
sweat-equity. The danger is that your day job holds you from growing your
startup more.

~~~
acangiano
What's the per-site median monthly income?

------
dazzla
In the last couple of years I have built up Deal Drop
(<http://www.getdealdrop.com>) to be $3,000/month in revenue as an antidote to
the abusive relationship with my day job while helping raise my daughter of
the same age. I hoped by now that I could quit and work full time on the side
project but I settled for a less abusive day job instead.

This week I took a trip to the ER in an ambulance because I had a seizure at
my new day job after one too many late nights working on the side project.

Be careful and know your limits better than I do.

~~~
nsiemsen
I use Deal Drop daily on my iPhone/iPad. It's a great application, thanks for
your work.

------
DougN7
It took me 10 years of working on a few apps on the side, but today they are a
$600K/year business and my full time job. Not the shoot-for-the-moon social
apps everyone wants to do, but I'm quite happy.

~~~
roel_v
Desktop apps I presume if you've been working on them for 10 years? B2B or
B2C?

------
nathanbarry
I did. My iPad app was at $19,000 in profit before I quit my job to focus on
it. The details are here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3238834>

~~~
nischalshetty
I had read your post when it was published. Very cool, has a social touch and
inspiring!

~~~
nathanbarry
Thanks!

------
nischalshetty
I started <http://www.justunfollow.com> as a way to learn Google Appengine.
Sent a tip to TechCrunch, @arrington seemed to like it and profiled it. It
started making profits but I did not quit. I finally had to quit after about 1
year of this product going live because it started making me more money in 2
months than my day job was paying me for an entire year!

I quit my job around 9 months ago. Finding too much of time on hand I
subsequently started work on a new app, got my friend to join me and we got
into Start-up Chile. It's been a great journey but I'm so glad that I did not
quit the moment we were profitable. It has taught me the most important thing
you need to learn while starting up, being efficient.

I always suggest everyone who has a product to not quit until it is virtually
impossible to keep up with a day job. You then become a time management champ
and know how to do more with less :)

~~~
roel_v
Am I reading that correctly that that site is making 25k+ a month? How is that
possible? Do people pay for the site or is it from ads only?

~~~
nischalshetty
I did not put any numbers anywhere about our profits. We have a freemium
model. Ads are just a small part of the revenues we make.

~~~
roel_v
"making me more money in 2 months than my day job was paying me for an entire
year!"

Day job of 50k / year, over 2 months, so per month 25k. 'Making money' =
profit, otherwise I could be 'making' 250k / month by opening a BMW dealership
and selling 2 per month - which in the real world would bankrupt me Very
Quickly.

So, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but didn't you say that you were making 25k or
more?

~~~
nischalshetty
I'm from India, we make money in our currency which is Rupees (INR). I do know
that 'making money' = profit and that is exactly what we are making. I'm not
selling BMW cars. I write code which takes my time but needs no money, host it
on GAE and AWS, which is not so expensive and so make a very good profit.

Yes, you are misunderstanding what I said by pushing those figures.

~~~
roel_v
Oh OK, so then you were making in the magnitude of $250 - $500 / month back
then, that seems plausible. I wasn't saying that you are selling BMW's, what
you sell doesn't matter - my point was that people use 'make money' when they
mean 'revenue', so the BMW is my standard example for illustrating the
difference.

I'm not sure why I'm being down voted - my numbers are quite plausible, I was
just doing a sniff test. It would've been quite remarkable if a simple site
like that would've been making several k / month after just 2 months.

------
swalberg
I built an online payroll service for Canadian families who hire staff like
nannies or home care workers, or small businesses that wanted a very simple
payroll solution. At the same time I had a day job.

I wasn't raking in money but I had customers and my revenues exceeded my small
expenses.

Over the summer I sold the company and went to work for the acquiring company.
In retrospect, this was probably the best move for me (I had considered taking
investment to move to it full time.)

Like one of the answers above, I don't think I could have grown the business
significantly without spending more time on it, and for me (day job, 3 young
kids) this was the only way I could have done it.

------
jv22222
I have built Pluggio.com that has $3500/month profit on the side. It's been
built in approx. 2 hours a day during the past two years.

~~~
TY
Justin, you probably meant revenue and not profit :-)

------
lsc
I've been running side businesses while having dayjobs most of my working
life. One of those side projects, my xen vps hosting company, is now my
dayjob. Of course, you might not call it a startup; I'm not really looking to
sell (I mean, I would if someone wanted to give me a 10x revenue valuation or
something silly like that, but I doubt that will happen.) and it's north of
six years old, but revenue is doubling every year or so, and it pays my rent
and covers another full-time employee (plus contractors)

Having a well-paying dayjob changes things. You will want to hire your first
employee long before you would if you were working full-time at the startup.
You will want to spend money rather than do work more often than you would
otherwise. Assuming you have a high paying dayjob and you are willing to live
cheap, your runway is now measured only in terms of your motivation.

Note, you will not be performing 100% at the dayjob. I got asked to choose
between the dayjob and my business only once, though, and that was near the
beginning, before I really learned to compartmentalize, and when I was most
focused on my business.

My style of work is and always has been very burst-y, which works out well.
When I wasn't that focused on the business, I'd get a regular dayjob and top
off my COBRA and rent money. When I was focused on the business, I'd either
focus on the business completely or work contract gigs for extra money. It's
interesting; if you contract through a body shop for non-expert work? (e.g. if
they rent you out as a normal programmer/sysadmin?) it pays only slightly
better than doing the same job as a direct employee (sometimes a little worse
if the benefits for the direct employee are good) but the expectations for
your work are much lower. I mean, think about it; if they are paying about the
same for a contract as for a full-time with benefits job, do you think they
are going to get good people? The lowered expectations along with the ability
to spend pre-tax dollars on company equipment made that a pretty good deal for
me.

Especially during the money-losing phase (and this /will/ be longer than it
would have been if you were full time.) the taxes are complex and can make a
huge difference. get a good accountant, and listen to him or her. Small
bullshit changes can make the difference between spending pre tax money buying
servers and spending post-tax money on those servers.

------
acangiano
My technical blogs, while not technically a startup, do have the habit of
making me mid-four figures per month with very few hours per month investment.

~~~
16BitTons
I just finished reading your book. It is very well done. I recomend it to
everyone interested in this thread. (<http://technicalblogging.com>)

~~~
kalid
I agree. I'm blogging now (side project, about ~1k/month via an ebook) and
Antonio's book would have saved me a lot of time. I'm planning on using it to
boost up that number :).

------
benedwards
I have built, launched, and run Swappa <http://swappa.com> while having a day
job. Revenues won't support me quitting yet (or anytime soon), but Swappa is
profitable.

------
digitalengineer
I'm doing that right now. My startup is selling you, your kids and the girl
next door. Heck, I can even sell your grandmother!

Advertising agency's (my day job) can rent them for a fixed price. Royalties
included.

(I'm not spamming. You're not my targets and only Dutch people can read it
anyway). But have a look at the several hundred people that signed up if
you're interested: <http://royaltyfreemodels.nl/zoeken/page:11>

(It's run on CakePHP for the interested).

------
thenduks
I started working on a bug tracker (who hasn't at some point, right? :))
because we were using Bugzilla at work and I absolutely hated it and didn't
think it fit with our workflow at all.

About a year later I brought it to the team and we decided to switch to it. A
few months of light iteration and polish after that and we launched it as it's
own product (<https://bugrocket.com>) for $20/month.

Pretty happy with how it's going, too. It hasn't really interfered with the
'day job' at all besides the occasional email to answer or tweet to reply to.
We have really flexible hours here so I shift my day around sometimes to
accomodate both projects. Totally do-able.

 _edit_ : Seems there is some interest in the 'family situation' of these
success stories. I'm married (with kittens, no kids) and it generally hasn't
been too difficult to keep a balance. It's helped me a lot having some people
working with me (especially on non-technical bits), and not just alone as a
single founder. It's hard to say how much time I actually put in because it's
kind of a 'here and there' whenever there's the opportunity kind of thing. I'd
probably estimate 3-5 hours during the week and then either a lot (8+ hours)
or nothing on the weekends, depending on else is happening.

------
nhangen
I do this now.

I was doing client work, and to be frank, got tired of working from home and
dealing with low-grade clients all day. So instead of worrying about finding
better clients, I took a day job to support myself and my family (wife and
kids) while I worked on side projects with my co-founder.

To date, we've built a fun iOS game, Santa Strike, a crowdfunding plugin for
WordPress, IgnitionDeck, and a few yet to be launched iOS apps, among other
simple software utilities like Iconswitch.me and GameDesignTemplate.com

I drive to and from work an hour a day, which kills me, but we're very close
to being profitable enough so I can quit my day job.

We're not zillionaires yet, but I do think it's possible to do what you're
asking. However, it's very very difficult, especially when you have a spouse
and/or kids.

I work on my stuff from 7-8 am, drive to work, try to fend off the thought of
being an unproductive employee so I don't get fired (I'm actually the only
developer they have, and I'm in a very good position because my predecessors
set the bar so very low), but do spend some time at work handling side-project
stuff, get home at 6:30, hang out, work more, go to bed, rinse, repeat.

My wife is stressed because my mind is elsewhere, but she understands. We
spend time on the weekends going out and doing family stuff, but not as much
as we'd like.

When we ship new versions of software, I field customer inquiries and
complaints on the go, which isn't ideal, but is what it is.

In other words, I have very little personal time, it's very stressful for the
entire family, and it's a lot of hard work over a long period of time. It's
not for the faint of heart.

------
spodek
I co-founded Submedia in 1999 while finishing my PhD in physics at Columbia.
By then the other we worked on the project three years developing the
technology, writing patents and business plans, etc.

I defended my thesis around that time too.

I consider conserving cash fundamental. The stipend for a PhD candidate was
under $30k/year for living in Manhattan. I wasn't in subsidized housing and
had no savings or other source of income.

~~~
joejohnson
Submedia.tv? What is Submedia?

~~~
spodek
We put boxes on the walls of subway tunnels that, when the train passes, look
like movie screens to riders. We sell ads on the displays on a monthly basis
and share revenue with transit authority.

Some videos here:
[http://www.submediaworld.com/submediaworld/Submedia_Tunnel_A...](http://www.submediaworld.com/submediaworld/Submedia_Tunnel_Advertising.html)

I also make art with the medium, but that's another story.

~~~
sejje
That's badass. I would ENJOY watching those.

------
dbrannan
I have a start up in the black since 2006. All three partners contribute to
the code, help debug, and provide customer support. All of us work at other
jobs, or independently.

Currently we use profits to pay anyone willing to work on the code and add
features. It is self-sustaining, at least.

See: <http://www.examprofessor.com>

Comments, ideas, suggestions are welcome.

~~~
aoza
I just released <http://www.examcommunity.com> about two weeks ago... its a
ghost town now... hopefully that will change.. How long did it take for you
guys to get some traction?

~~~
dbrannan
I registered on your site and took it for a spin - very well done.

We initially geared our site towards teachers, but later learned that wasn't
the market that was willing to pay for our services. Maybe your experience
will be different.

It is a slow process. About 1-2% of our customers convert to paying accounts.
When we started limiting what was free it seems people stepped up to the bat
and subscribed to a paying account.

Note - your prices seem very low. You could experiment with your price
structure, people might value your service more than you realize.

~~~
aoza
thanks for the thumbs up... as time goes on will experiment with the price.

------
tatonkathomas
I started InkedPlaymats.com a month ago. I work full time as a purchasing
manager, have 3 kids under the age of 5, and take online courses full time. I
am way over my head and sleeping 4 hours a night, but I am making it work. I
am getting a 4.0 and just after a month open my business is starting to boom.
I get up early and make breakfast and get orders ready to ship. I spend my
lunch break shipping items and answering emails. I come home from work and
spend 2 hours having dinner and playing with the kids. I then spend the next
few hours doing schoolwork and printing out mats. My wife supports this
knowing I am in a growing period. School ends this week, so I am looking
forward to that. Anyways, I think it can be done, but is not ideal. And your
family has to support you 100% of you will be lost.

~~~
kellyreid
Hey, didn't know you were on here! I run quietspeculation.com. Incredible that
you're doing all that. Can't wait to get my mat design to you.

~~~
tatonkathomas
Yep, can't get enough. I am waiting on you man! I want to hook you up!

~~~
kellyreid
I should stop being an anal-retentive entrepreneur and just hire a graphic
designer. Am considering commissioning custom art from an MTG artist (rk post
maybe?)

------
mendicant
I spent nearly a year building a SaaS application for Oil and Gas companies
here in Calgary. My partner had the idea after he got tired of
phoning/emailing/talking to every contact in his book in order to find
partners/buyers in land deals.

So after a year of weekends and evenings, my partner started to pound the
pavement. We were profitable in our very first year after launch, and continue
to be. Our biggest expense is advertising, which is very targeted. I think
about 80-85% of our pre-tax revenue ends up being profit, which is great.

I still have my day job, and for the 30 hours/week between us that we still
put in, we've been _very_ successful.

------
raju
There was a similar discussion (on side-projects) on HN a while back - Perhaps
it will help the discussion?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2795760>

------
lmauri
I and 2 cofounders are near to launching our iphone app and we have our daily
job.

I'm the backend and frontend developer(rest-full api needed for our iphone
app), the other two are the creative guys, and I've to admit that it has been
hard to think, design, and do a product in a spare time(especially if you have
a wife and a child).

And there are other aspects of the launching such as the site, the company to
found and many things that require a lot of time.

I hope the app and the business I want to build around succeded so I will quit
my current profitable job.

------
tcarnell
I built Femtoo.com in my 'spare' time. It was built whilst working at a day
job over the course of a year or so.

It brings in a small amount of money each month and it pretty much requires no
maintenance. However I would not say that it is profitable (yet), there is a
fair way to go before it brings in enough money to have justified the time.

I would spend more time implementing new features if I thought it would result
in a significant increase in paying users.

...not sure what to do with it now really!?!? Suggestions welcome!!!

~~~
kalid
Some off the cuff feedback: I wouldn't spend time on features, spend it on
cleaning up the design.

* Use twitter bootstrap or some other framework to make the site look more professional.

* Why are the prices in weird denominations? $1.60 per month? Just make it $25/year.

* Don't show the social sharing button (G+) until you have a few hundred shares already

* Why is the video so small? Have screenshots on the homepage.

Basically, I'd suggest copying the style of a landing page of a well-known
SAAS product. Nice bright colors, big fonts, screenshots, etc. I'm sure your
product is feature complete, just work on design (or hire someone to make the
above changes).

~~~
tcarnell
thanks so much for the great feedback! I'll make the quick changes ASAP and
start reworking the UI - again, thanks so much!

------
dylangs1030
I think this depends entirely on the nature of the startup.

If your startup requires consistently high turnover for new features, then
it's going to occupy easily 40 hours per week on just that project.

However, if what you build doesn't need to be updated for months at a time
(like some mobile apps or other software) you can probably get away with doing
this. An entire company? I don't think so. A particular type of website, or
app? Sure, if all you're doing consistently is maintenance.

------
kin
Geez, you all inspire me so much. I'm trying to do the same and have switched
to smaller and smaller side projects so I could get SOMETHING out there.
Currently I've been distracted by time with friends/family/SO/and the current
barrage of amazing fall video games all which pushed my project to the point
of is it even possible?

Apparently I'm the only thing in the way. Thanks for the inspiration everyone!
You guys are all amazing.

------
landonhowell
I built an online news service in 2002/2003 with zero coding knowledge, $100,
and a bootleg version of Adobe Illustrator.

I put every spare moment I had into it, skipping lunches and dinners and sleep
(though I never skipped church) all for the sake of keeping it lean before
keeping it lean was cool.

5 years later I sold it for a paltry sum, mainly because I didn't add enough
people fast enough.

~~~
zyang
so you never skipped church yet you had no problem stealing software.
interesting.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Oh common now, we've all had cracked versions of Photoshop at one time. Had we
not pirated it we never would have learned how to use it during the 30 day
trial and later become loyal customers.

------
listrophy
I started a Ruby on Rails consulting business with another dev while at my day
job, I was an aerospace engineer. His day job was freelance Rails consulting.

After 2.5 months of 80 hour weeks, we quit our day jobs and went full time
with the consulting business: Bendyworks. Now, almost 3 years into the biz,
we're at 10 people and having a freaking blast.

------
iguanayou
I have a (barely) profitable SaaS app that I wrote while having a full time
job. The advantage I have is that my day job is teaching, which gives me
chunks of time off during the summer and winter. I think that if I had a job
coding all day, the last thing I'd want to do is come home and do more coding.

~~~
bretr
this. it's my biggest struggle.

------
nopal
I built a service for monitoring SSL certificates
(<https://www.certician.com/>) in my free time, although it's not yet
profitable. I'm hoping it will be someday soon.

The feeling when a new customer from across the country signs up is a pretty
good one!

------
cullenking
School and part-time student programming work took up 40-60 hours a week, and
I put in another 20 on our business on top of that. Got barely ramen
profitable by graduation, which let me keep from getting a job for 8 months
while it ramped up enough to start actually supporting me.

------
brackin
I've achieved this in school if that counts. GetDealy which runs flash sales
for designers and geeks has 35,000+ users and 2.3 million credits earned,
which is our rewards system.

<http://getdealy.com>

------
iamandrus
I'm actually working on a startup while in school (not technically a day job,
but similar). I think my idea has a ton of potential in the market I'm aiming
for, so I've been working on it for almost a year now.

------
stevoski
I started Poker Copilot mostly while doing full-time consulting. I was able to
scale down my consulting work gradually as Poker Copilot sales increased,
until after 15 months it became my main income source.

------
iconfinder
I have built Iconfinder into a profitable service while having a day and
studying at business school.

I still do some work next to the startup, but it is basically paying for
servers etc. plus a salary for me.

~~~
ecaradec
Iconfinder is great, I use it every times I need to get icons. Icons are very
well picked. Do you manually select each one ?

~~~
retube
Yeah ditto that question. The icons are great, use the service all the time,
always wondered how they were sourced/selected.

------
vaksel
Doing a startup is 90% waiting, and 10% doing. It's perfectly possible to do
one on the weekend.

Especially since coding is a tiny iota of actually doing one, most of it boils
down to marketing anyways

~~~
digitalengineer
I must be doing something wrong then. I'm constantly running out of time. I'm
always thinking about who to meet, who to talk to, what to change in order to
become better. Not to mention optimizing text, updating the blog, doing the
paperwork... I don't understand the 'waiting' part really.

~~~
vaksel
then you probably just started...I don't mean the first few weeks after you
launch...there is plenty of things to do then.

I mean that period for all sites after the launch coverage, the time where
your traffic goes down to almost 0.

Who to meet/who to talk to...should have been done prior to launch.

optimizing text? it takes a while to do a/b testing if your traffic is
tiny...same goes for seeing results from marketing campaigns.

updating the blog? that takes a few hours each week.

I mean sure, there is plenty of things to keep you busy, but most of it is
just busy work you assign yourself because you are thinking "hey, I'm doing a
startup, I should be doing something"

~~~
martinkallstrom
You must be joking right? Except you're not, which makes it sad instead of
funny.

It must be very comfortable to not see the endless opportunities in increasing
traction for your service after launch. Not even bothering to commit code any
longer, since it was perfect at launch. Or doing marketing, sales, community
and customer support, PR, ops, paying bills, sending invoices, handling
complaints, bookkeeping, etc etc.

I never ever had the problem to keep myself busy, the problem is always
prioritizing among the plethora of tasks you need to do and accepting the fact
that you never will be able to do all of them.

~~~
vaksel
I did say marketing/sales is the exception.

Not bothering to commit code? If it works, and you don't have actual customers
yet? Then yes...it's just busy work at that point.

Community/Customer Support? I dunno about you, but customer support is only
required for less than 1% of users. And even then it's usually a case of 1-2
sentences.

Paying bills? How many bills do you have as a startup?

~~~
martinkallstrom
Hundreds. Please stop diluting the startup term with your hobby projects.

~~~
vaksel
We are talking about fresh startups, that are just getting launched. Twingly
has been in business for 6 years.

And even then, "hundreds" of bills is crap...unless of course you count every
purchase on your credit card statement as a "bill"

------
amdev
My partner and I started return7 with $800 (mostly design, Apple dev fee,
etc.) in 2008 when the App Store opened up. BillMinder, our main app, is
profitable.

------
soho33
i have built a startup on the side while working full time still. due to the
fact that we are 3 partners, the money is not enough to quit my day job but
it's getting there. we have grown from $0 to $200K in 2 and a half years while
all 3 of us do this part time. i did all the development and sysadmin work and
the other partners took care of the marketing and business side of things.

------
hndl
I'm curious to know what the typical day of a person in this setting is like?
As in, what were ones' day-job hours and hours for project work?

~~~
flacon
I have built two startups while working fulltime and raising 2 kids. The first
startup failed once my co-founder left town, after the business model and app
were about 90% completed. My 2nd/current startup is <http://targetmobi.com>.

My schedule M-F for the last 3 years has been: 7am wakeup, feed kids etc. 9am
- 5:30 work fulltime. 5:30 - 10pm family time. 10pm - 1am Startup time!. Yes
thats 5-6 hours of sleep! Trying to do a startup on the side with children has
been very challenging for me. Maybe its the biz models I am trying to tackle.
Maybe building simple iphone/ipads apps would have had a better ROI.

~~~
hndl
Thanks for sharing. One followup question: given your schedule, how much time
did it take for you to launch?

------
veyron
What do you mean by built? I ask because some people have noncompete or other
contractual obligations that prevent launching a startup.

------
svisstack
I started www.pokertablestats.com while working in day job and now i'm working
on 2 other startup's after work hours.

------
kellysutton
I just put in my two weeks to pursue LayerVault full time. It's all up and to
the right from here.

------
guscost
I did this with a collaborator, and intend to do it again soon. The way of the
future...

------
mitko
If you are building something on the side in which cases your day job company
owns it?

------
bluesmoon
Ask me again in 6-8 months. We haven't launched yet. Both me and my co-founder
have day jobs.

------
pitdesi
I started a couple of profitable small businesses while working a ton of hours
management consulting, including a headphone website where I used all my
vacation to travel to China to get my products manufactured cheaper. I was
hoping to do a few things on the side until it made sense to quit my day job,
but I found it never made sense to quit my day job.

More incredibly to me is FeeFighters (<http://feefighters.com>) CEO Sean was

1) Raising a VC round

2) Having his first kid

and 3) Working full-time at BCG

All at the same time (May 2010) Any one of those are enough to make you go
crazy, but he managed all 3. (note: FeeFighters is not profitable)

He also previously started <http://tss-radio.com> and bootstrapped it to a
spot on the inc 500 list, all on the side while working at a VC firm
(Longworth) and then while at BCG (management consulting).

~~~
shiftpgdn
Do you have a blog or anything where you've written about your trip to china?
I've been reselling Chinese goods for about a year and a half and I've always
wanted to go over there.

------
davidhansen
_raises hand_

My current company started out as a side project. I decided to make it a
fulltime project after about three years. We are quite profitable.

Today, we operate a few "premium" domain name businesses, but we started with
a rather obscure one, and did well enough to purchase more properties from
cash flow.

------
paulhauggis
It can work, but you can easily burn yourself out.

Rather than working 8-10 hours on your startup and having some free time. You
work 8 hours and spend all of your free time on your startup.

I prefer getting some capital saved and then quitting your day job.

------
daliusd
What's the point of this question? There are people who did that and that's
possible. patio11 is one example and I must say very good one.

I am example of person who has not managed to do that in 3 years but I have
learned a lot and my trial contributed to my well-being in many positive ways.
Some of those are like salary growing faster than planned and some are small
but pleasant things like Nokia N950.

~~~
daliusd
I would love to know why I am downvoted.

~~~
jasonlotito
Because you aren't contributing to the thread, just complaining.

~~~
daliusd
It looks like two options: you have read only first sentence of my comment or
I am not clear enough. I have tried to do two things:

1) I have encouraged question's author to do that anyway even if there will be
no profit because that has indirect positive effect;

2) I have tried to point out that such question is wrong to ask and there is
very simple reason for that. It will attract only people who have succeeded in
doing that: they will write what they did, maybe how they did that and maybe
will try to identify reasons why they succeeded (not necessary correctly).

For every successful startup there are 10 unsuccessful (unprofitable) and if
stating the reality is complaining then well OK - all who downvoted me has
right to live in their rosy dream illusion world where they get rich just by
reading HN.

~~~
jasonlotito
1\. You asked, I answered. I did/can not up vote or down vote your post as a
result.

2\. The OP asked a question, and you questioned why they should ask. More
importantly, you merely pointed out that yes, people have, and have not been
successful at it.

3\. If you intended for something else, you weren't clear. Mostly because you
didn't say anything. What you did say didn't amount to something that offered
anything constructive, hence the down votes.

> For every successful startup there are 10 unsuccessful (unprofitable) and if
> stating the reality is complaining then well OK - all who downvoted me has
> right to live in their rosy dream illusion world where they get rich just by
> reading HN.

But see, you didn't say that. You didn't come close to saying that. You might
think you did, but I assure you, you didn't come close. Your comment wasn't
insightful or intelligent. You wanted to know why you got down voted, I told
you. Don't try and now pass this off by labelling those who down voted you.

~~~
daliusd
Thank you for your answer ;-)

------
Maro
You mean "profitable side-project"?

"Startup" usually means a _company_ that fulfills a few of the below:

    
    
      - something the founders do full-time
      - less than 3 years old
      - in a bootstrap phase or burning VC money
      - in search of a business model (not yet profitable)
      - has the potential to grow

~~~
Duff
I think that you're talking about a very specific type of startup business.

People start and build businesses while employed all of the time. Some of
those businesses require that the owners devote their full energies to them at
a certain milestone.

Others do not -- plenty of software and consulting roles do not require 100%
commitment, particularly if you have a flexible employer and can bootstrap.
Many college professors have side gigs, for example.

~~~
Maro
You said it: "consulting roles", "side gigs". Why overload "startup" with
something that can be better described by calling it what it is.

~~~
Duff
You kinda missed the point. Consulting can be a side gig that stays a side
gig.

Other businesses can start slow/small, but you reach a point where you need to
choose between the full time gig and your startup. There are a few clear
examples of this phenomenon in this thread.

