

Ask YC: Are you working part-time on your startup/project/idea? - martythemaniak

I'm curious how much time you guys are devoting to your work? I have a FT job and I'm working on my own project that may become the basis for a startup or remain just something neat to showcase and develop my skills. Over the last four months I've managed around 2-3 days a week, which adds up to around 10-12hrs of coding a week.
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nostrademons
I did that for about 9 months before going full-time 6 months ago. I'd usually
work on the startup for an hour before work and then 1-2 hours after dinner,
so maybe 15-20 hours/week.

I've found that my coding time hasn't really increased much since going full-
time, and yet I'm vastly more productive. The limiting factor in startups does
not seem to be time: it's attention. Having that extra 8 hrs/day to think
about the problem - and more importantly, _not_ having to shift gears and
think about my employer's problems - makes all the difference in the world.

I've found it also changes the incentives around development and leads to
better development practices. For example, I was much less likely to use
frameworks or large libraries when doing this part-time, because I didn't have
a solid block of time to thoroughly learn the library. If there was a major
problem in the design, I'd be inclined to hack around it rather than tackle it
head-on, because I didn't have the necessary brain-cycles to hold the whole
problem in my head. I'd often cut the design down to what I knew how to do,
rather than the product I'd want to use, because that was all I could handle
in blocks of an hour.

I don't think it's really speed that suffers when you work part-time. Rather,
it sets a ceiling on the difficulty level of the project you can do. So you're
fighting over the same problems as all the other folks who're doing startups
part-time, while many of the harder problem lie unsolved.

~~~
jfalk
I completely agree with you. I recently left my career at one of the larger
banks and the additional time has made all the difference. Now I get to spend
time prototyping various ideas I never would have been able to otherwise with
very small blocks of time. Best decision, ever.

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dstillz
I feel that THIS summer will be THE summer that I turn one of my projects into
a startup, so in the past month, I've quit full time work and moved into a
cheaper place to live.

I'm currently doing requirements gathering for my first project, and I've
already done around 400 lines of coding. I wish I wasn't alone.

~~~
jdg
You are not alone. ;)

~~~
ovi256
Guys, I think he is talking about a different kind of alone. Do not worry man,
good things happen to those who wait.

~~~
dstillz
Yeah, a different, more literal kind of alone.

I got burned last summer by bringing people on board too early. I'm the
hacker-type.

The other people were the kind whose strengths too were different from mine.
One was a high-powered client-interfacing guy, who has since taken a full time
job as an IA, after the failure of his own Web 2.0 startup (all in under a
year!). The other, and the troublemaker, was a high-powered marketing person
who wanted to fasttrack the branding campaign before I even had a product or
clients. We'd all worked together well in the context of a larger company, but
we couldn't reconcile our directional aspirations for a startup.

So this year, I'm alone. In Northern Virginia's technology corridor. I would
love a hackerly co-founder, or at least someone to bounce my ideas off of. All
my friends from CS classes keep moving to the West coast to work for the
Googles and Microsofts of the world. I have a feeling my YC application this
year is going to be rejected simply because I'm a sole founder.

~~~
notauser
I'm also a sole founder. I don't feel _that_ disadvantaged because I have a
mixed business/tech background, but in terms of applying to YC it's clear that
being on your own is a major mark down.

It could be fairly interesting to see if a couple of technical people, working
on different products, could act as one company. Both parties get the benefits
of having someone to look over their shoulder (as they have a financial
stake). You also get the sum of both sets of secondary skills and contacts.
The downside would be a split in focus, but that should be no worse than the
two working individually.

~~~
dstillz
I'd love to have that.

Kind of a more-intensive, tech version of the Tuesday Night Music Club.

First rule: no bringing your girlfriend, even if she is Sheryl Crow.

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icky
I've found that I really enjoy my job, so my outside projects have started to
shift from "this might make me money someday" to "this is really fun to code!"
things.

It's weird how stability (and yes, coming from consulting and startuppery,
this lion freely recognizes his gilded cage) and lack of where-is-my-next-
paycheck-coming-from frees the mind to coding pure-fun stuff.

~~~
notauser
I like my regular f/t job as well, especially since I get moved within the
company ever six to twelve months. It has given me a lot of freedom to do
things that won't show a profit instantly like write and get some accounting
qualifications.

However looking at what I really want to achieve I have decided that a startup
is the way to go for me. Exit planned for September. Unfortunately it's not
something I could run concurrently with a full time job, or else I might
launch earlier to reduce risk :)

To answer the original question: Specs, use cases and UI mock-ups were 12
hours a week for 3 months. I wrote the first prototype this weekend (60
hours), so now I will be doing increments towards a stable production version,
planned 12 hours per week.

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mikesabat
Straight out of college when I was 23 I was working on a startup idea with a
friend. we each had jobs, but they were very different. I was working as a
mortgage broker (back then it was a good business) and my friend was working
at a restaurant. I would get off work at 5 or so and my co-founder left work
at 11-12.

So 4 nights a week we would meet at kinko's at 1am and work until about 4 am
together. I would sleep for a few hours early morning and I'd also sleep for a
few hours after I got home from work.

We weren't coding, just writing a business plan. We actually won an SBA
business plan contest and got a little money to start the company. This was
definitely the craziest hours that I've ever worked.

~~~
huhtenberg
And how did your company do ? :)

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mmcelhinney
The past few months I have been working my FT job, and also working on my
start-up every spare moment I have (I would say 25 - 30 hours per week. Come
June, I will be quitting the FT job and focusing exclusively on the startup.

I have been working FT for a large company for the past 5 years (past year
remotely from home) and am really excited for moving to full time on my
startup.

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adityakothadiya
Yes. I have been doing this for last 2 yrs and worked on 3 diff startups.
First one is still operational, but I m not part of it, second one failed
after 6 months of hard-work, and now I'm working on Third idea since last few
months. There are mainly immigration issues bcoz of which I'm not able to go
fulltime, so still continuing with part-time option.

During first idea, I was a bachelor, and used to invest more time on business
development activities, product planning & management, networking events,
mentoring sessions, reading books + blogging. I used to spend daily 3-4 hrs of
evenings for this. My co-founders were doing coding. I did this for 1 year.
Then bcoz of certain concerns, I left this project and started another.

During second idea, I got married, so working in the late evening was not
justifiable. I used to work in early morning from 4am-7am, mostly coding and
then in the evening, if necessary, meet some potential clients or advisors for
business development activities. So daily I used to work for 4-5 hrs.
Unfortunately, my other co-founders were married ones, and couldn't cope up
with fulltime + mariage + part-time startup pace. So naturally, I was alone at
the end, and after certain time, had to close the idea.

Now I again started with the third idea. Now I spend maximum time on learning
technical stuff, and coding my application. Most of the times, I am the only
one on this idea, I'm spending max time on developing product rather than
building business, which I did lot in previous startups. I spend daily 2-3 hrs
on weekday, and 5-6 hrs on one weekend.

In general, I try to put 15-20 hrs a week. Which i know are still very less
for a startup :( I think having equally entrepreneurial and passionate co-
founders, who are ready to slog hard in the part-time is very essential, which
was the case in my first idea.

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webframp
I don't enjoy my current job at all. I work part time in a non-tech related
job. the rest of my time is spent thinking about what projects to best devote
my time to and experimenting.

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aklemm
2hrs/day * 2 ppl for 2 months == <http://unripped.com> (OpenID-based file
storage and sharing)

The application works well and we hope to break free of part-time mode this
summer. Opportunities for improving our product and exposure are limitless, so
I guess that means the time we can/should spend on it is also limitless. ;p

fp's comment is right on: "The limiting factor in startups does not seem to be
time: it's attention."

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slim
i began working on <http://markkit.net> after hours. it took me about 9months
to have first version online. then, beginning january 1st 2008, i negotiated
with my boss to work part time (i had a good argument for negotiation : if he
did not accept, i would go full time on markkit).

now i feel like i have the best possible situation.

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wenbert
i have a fulltime job and freelance... i spend the time i have left after
doing freelance at home to work on my "idea" - building something i need (and
hopefully others would want it too...) and for the experience. basically it is
like hitting two birds with one stone.

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kschrader
When I was ramping up my last startup, I met my cofounder about 4 days a week
after work and we worked until 9 or 10 at night.

I've found that when I go from "this is a cool project" mode to "going to turn
this into a company" mode, the hours just start piling on.

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arooni
Quit Microsoft in January (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=110792>) and I
am loving working full-time on my own ventures.

I did build all products: (<http://www.phonemyphone.com>,
<http://www.craigslistautoresponder.com>, and <http://www.emptyspaceads.com>)
while working full-time at Microsoft, it seems really hard to succeed working
part time on your startup.

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dangrover
I average roughly the same. The last time I had a dayjob, I did about that
amount of work each week, then stepped it up considerably in the couple weeks
before a big release.

My problem is that, while working on my own stuff is fun, I'm often too pissed
off about the dayjob when I get home each day and I tend to ruminate.

Sometimes I just end up not doing a hell of a lot. But other times I can
salvage the rest of my day -- I'll take a quick shower and nap, then plan on
spending 3-4 hours at my favorite cafe with a specific set of bugs or features
to work on before leaving.

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maryrosecook
I work some weeknights, plus large chunks of the weekends. I get maybe 10-20
hours a week on the project. I find this approach quite frustrating, though:
you get totally in the zone and then it's time to go to bed because you have
work the next day. Also, I find that I no longer have so much energy for
volunteering or writing music or socialising. I knew that doing a start-up
meant saying goodbye to your life, but I didn't realise that sacrifice would
have to be made so early.

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justindz
About an hour a day, averaging weekends in with weekdays. I partly became so
interested in Rails because I could actually accomplish things noticeably in
that amount of time.

~~~
jjburka
I agree completely with the rails aspect. I've only been using ror for about 3
months and as long as you think of what you want to do in a 'rails' way you
get lots done.

In regards to the parent question , when I first start a side project I spend
a fair amount of time on it afterwork. But it usually settles to 2-3 nights a
week for a couple hours and 9-5 sat.

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prateekdayal
I started working on <http://muziboo.com> last year and then worked with my
job for about 4 months. Quit my job and did it along with consulting for
another 3 months and fulltime now. At one point, it gets very tough to switch
your brains :)

Sometimes you can think of neat features/ideas only when you think for long
enough and observe for long enough and atleast I need to be fulltime for that

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wayland
Hey, i've spend more than 4 hours per day, and 10 hrs more for weekend, so
together added up to 40 hours a week. And i'm keeping this for months now.

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charly
I've been thinking about this startup 2yrs and 1/2 ago now - started design &
planning while i was student, then got a FT job, convinced a friend to join me
in the meantime...

My teamate worked non-stop on it only 1yr ago, mainly coding the application -
i was dedicating early mornings and late nights + weekends at it.

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LostInTheWoods
I'm curious, for those who have gone fulltime on their startups, are you
making any money at it, and if so how much?

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nweiner
I did that for most of last year. But you can only do it for so long since all
you do is work, then go home and work. Plus it just takes so much longer.

If it's an idea you truly believe in, it may be worth making that your full-
time job. But it is a risk, you just have to decide if it's worth taking.

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ivankirigin
Make sure you own your IP if you're working at a big company and part time on
your startup.

~~~
Poleris
How have people reconciled being able to work on your startup part time while
at a large company full time? By reconcile, I mean in terms of legal
contracts, etc. I'm pretty sure most people sign a non-compete clause in their
employment contract.

~~~
ivankirigin
The non-compete clause is for when you leave. IP rights are explicitly signed
away in employee agreements.

The easiest way to reconcile is to quit and do the startup full time.

People shouldn't do things half-assed anyway. It's all about the focus.

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flanagonzales
I'm a full time student so time comes and goes-- however, the Oxbridge term
calendar (I go to Trinity College Dublin; the Oxbridge tag-alonger) gives us
one hell of a summer holiday.

Hopefully something will come of this summer.

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paris75
Ive been working on my project <http://www.mee-mah.com> for the last few
months for about an hour or two a day. However I did have the help of rent a
coder!

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run4yourlives
I work a couple of hours every few days, and try to get at least 8 in on the
weekends. I've got a wife and kid and a FT job in a management capacity so
it's tough, but I'm seeing progress.

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wlievens
I'm doing the same thing, on pretty much the same time budget.

