
One Year After Quitting My Job - nathanbarry
http://nathanbarry.com/2012-year-quitting-job/
======
neya
First of all, congrats Nathan! Cheers bro :)

At the same time, while all this sounds so promising, in my humble opinion, I
would say this wouldn't apply to everyone. Whether you know it or not, Nathan
_seems_ to have a solid plan - 'This is what I should do. This is _how_ I
should do it. And this is _how much_ what I do _might_ generate.'

I see a lot of people quitting their jobs just because it's become more of a
cool factor now and most importantly because they think they could become like
Nathan _easily_ or rather _quickly_ (like it's some get-rich-quick scheme).
You should understand that Nathan has put in some significant, rock-solid
hardwork (like developing his own apps, writing some quality books, etc.) into
all this. If you just quit your job dreaming of cash flowing in the very next
minute, that might not happen.

FYI - I quit my day job too. I wrote some apps too, dreaming of becoming
someone like Nathan someday. Here I am, commenting here on Nathan's success
story instead. Life ain't that easy dudes :D

~~~
nathanbarry
When I quit my job last year I had a couple things going for me:

1\. I had freelanced before in college, so that life wasn't totally new.

2\. I had a lot of connections so finding work was never a problem.

3\. I had almost $30,000 in savings to even out the slow months.

4\. I had iPhone apps that I had built in my free time while I was employed
that were making $2k+ a month.

So quitting my job was not risky at all. In fact, I really dislike risk.

All that said, I did come fairly close to running out of money this last
August when I had put all my time into the first book and a consulting client
didn't pay a rather large sum of money. Now had I not been working on the
first book, I never would have used up my reserve cash.

~~~
pinaceae
point 2 is the most important one in the long term - once your initial sources
run dry, you need to find new clients/customers. this breaks a lot of
freelancing careers, have seen this time and time again in my circle of
friends.

going solo means you not only spend time on building/creating stuff but also
devoting time on building up a pipeline of work - which is initially a lot of
unpaid work.

good luck to you nathan!

------
qeorge
_Checking email, Twitter, and Facebook on my phone has also been a constant
interruption of time spent with family. I think this is the biggest issue I
need to deal with in 2013._

Man, do I ever sympathize. I was finding myself standing in groups of friends,
outside on beautiful sunny days, and we'd all have our phones out looking at
Facebook and commenting (out loud) on people's statuses (and the comment is
always the same - "yeah, I saw that"). Its so lame!

For me the answer was really easy - just uninstall the app from your phone.
You don't have to do anything drastic like quit FB, just uninstall the app
from your phone and stop letting it fill up every free moment you have.

Do it now, before you do anything else. It will take 30 seconds and could
change your life. Uninstall the FB app.

~~~
nathanbarry
"Do it now, before you do anything else. It will take 30 seconds and could
change your life. Uninstall the FB app."

That's actually what I really needed right now. Both Twitter and Facebook are
now gone from my phone. Thank you!

~~~
c141charlie
Facebook. Twitter. Uninstalled. What about a moratorium on Hacker News?
Personally, I could have launched several apps with the time I've spent
reading Hacker News. However, I get a lot out of HN ... Damn ...

~~~
mej10
I am a bit late to this thread, so you may not see my response. Regardless...

I have wondered about this as well. I am considering two strategies:

1) Stop checking HN at all, and subscribe to Hacker Monthly
(<http://hackermonthly.com/>), which is the best articles of the month in a
nice format.

2) Schedule a time to check it once a week, and only look at the list of posts
with over 200 points. <http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=200>

We have to stop spending time on these sites, even when it seems valuable.
Nothing is as valuable as actually building something and interacting with
users.

------
mikeleeorg
_Clients being unable to pay has been frustrating and made me want to do less
consulting... That’s why I love selling products, I get paid up front and
don’t have to worry about collecting payments._

This is exactly why I left the consulting biz too. I had a web development
agency with a bunch of friends & ex-colleagues that was about to make $1M in
profits after 3 years. That number would be much higher, had it not been for
clients (mostly startups and small businesses) that weren't able to pay (so
they claimed) or went out of business. This is despite collecting a deposit of
50% of the estimated costs up-front.

Before we broke $1M, I saw a great opportunity to develop a product, so I
shifted my focus and have been doing that ever since.

Consulting is good for getting (relative) immediate cash up-front, while
products can take a long time to begin earning that same amount of cash.
However, if done well, products can scale and earn much more revenue in the
long run.

Nathan is definitely taking the right approach for an individual entrepreneur.
He's diversifying his income (consulting, apps, books) while presumably moving
his focus away from consulting as his income from apps and books increases.

Good luck man!

~~~
brandall10
I have a couple long term, open-ended contracts right now that I'm consulting
on, billing out anywhere from 10-40 hours per week on each. The deliverables
are frequent, communication is open, I invoice every two weeks with detailed
line items, and get paid within 7 days. There are no up front deposits -
honestly, it goes against my own values, I'm uncomfortable getting paid for
work I have yet to do. The terms are clear in the contracts with work stoppage
clauses and all. It's worked well going on about 6 months of doing this. Maybe
I'm lucky, and maybe this is the nature of doing long-term gigs or just having
clients you mesh well with, but is this really all that unusual?

~~~
sneak
> I'm uncomfortable getting paid for work I have yet to do.

But you're happy furnishing work to people they've yet to pay for?

~~~
brandall10
In these small increments for projects of this scope, absolutely. For smaller
things I have yet to cross that bridge, but honestly I'm going to try to steer
clear from that type of work unless it comes from trusted connections.

------
jjm
I have to point out that most of his income came from the ebooks. His income
from consulting and apps came in less than the job he left. Self help has
always sold very well the last three decades.

I 'believe' that many who come here and quit their day jobs are usually doing
it for _startups_ and/or _app dreams_.

Nathan is working hard, doing as many things possible. Not many people can do
this (unless/until they reach some desperation factor which makes one realizes
the need to _hustle_ and get stuff done).

Bottom line, it's hard work and all sweat. Of course, knowing what industry
sells and finding what niche your skills fit in work too.

~~~
ericcholis
"doing as many things possible"

That's my takeaway from this article, and your comment. Trying to go solo with
only one source of revenue/income is foolish. Do as much as you can, as long
as the return on investment is sound.

~~~
nathanbarry
I wouldn't try to do as many things as possible. Work on one till it is making
money (or needs to be shut down because it is failing) then move on to the
next thing. Be careful not to spread yourself to thin. That said, get another
income source (besides consulting) before you quit your job.

------
juddlyon
Congrats, succeeding on your own terms is what it's all about. Thank you for
sharing your story, we need more of this and less of "hot new shiny mobile-
social-blah raises 69 million, hires XYZ hotshot and fires ABC hotshot."

------
charlieirish
Nathan, firstly congratulations - it looks like you have definitely made a
successful transition from company employment to self-employment. It's also
great to see the variety of income streams that you have.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your book and also learn a great deal from your
blog, especially as you are so transparent with your failures and successes.

It would be great to hear a little more about how your time management
differed in both roles. Are you working less, the same or more hours now? Also
it would be good if you could divulge a little more on how the networking
you've done has affected your success (if that's possible to describe or even
measure!). Thanks!

~~~
nathanbarry
Pretty similar hours (40-50 a week), I just get to pick what I work on now.

~~~
symmet
I think that this is the most impressive fact so far. Being successful on your
own as well as maintaining a good work/life balance (especially with a family)
is an incredible feat. Way to go.

------
keithpeter
"In May I made a commitment to write 1,000 words a day. [...] That slow,
consistent progress is what allowed me to write two books, almost two dozen
guest posts, and over thirty posts on this blog in the last year."

Very well done that man.

I was just wondering how many hours each day it took to crank out the thousand
words? I'm assuming that research time was minimal as these appear to be howto
books - the research was in launching two successful applications.

~~~
nathanbarry
Anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours depending on how inspired I am.

------
codemac
Wow, that sounds great! Thank you for sharing such specific numbers on
financials.

What I'd also like to see is a breakdown on the time spent doing things you'd
rather not be doing (i.e. doing work), and how that compares to your previous
salaried position.

~~~
nathanbarry
I still waste a lot of time when I should be working. Especially on sites like
Hacker News. ;)

Generally I work about 40-50 hours a week, spread out throughout the day, 7
days a week. Most of that time is spent designing or writing.

~~~
emehrkay
Great question and thanks for answering. I think that a lot of us have this
dream where we work 20-30/hours a week and have the same results that you've
achieved. Starting off, as with anything worthwhile, takes a lot of effort,
hard work, and focus on what you want to accomplish. Thanks for the update,
and please keep posting -- its keeps us motivated.

------
josscrowcroft
Amazing, congratulations. And congrats on writing a post like this and coming
off as a down-to-earth, regular guy. These posts (along with the people who
write them) can often come across as "Look how great I am because I don't
follow the status quo!" kind of stuff, but you sound completely humble about
it all.

Best of luck for the coming year!

~~~
nathanbarry
Someone made a comment to me last year about a blog post I made "bragging
about how much money I made." :( That's really not my intention at all. Just
trying to be open and honest. So I'm glad this post didn't come across as
bragging.

~~~
Agathos
It's human nature to feel uncomfortable, even angry, when a taboo is violated.
Talking publicly about your income is taboo.

~~~
clarky07
Why? Just because lots of people don't do it for their own personal reasons
doesn't make it taboo. Lots and lots of people really like seeing these posts
(as evidenced by this and patio11's post being at the top of HN all day) and
they can be very useful. Patio11 for instance said he started doing what he is
doing in part because of a similar post by someone else.

I think it's more likely that it's human nature for people to be jealous. Some
people keep it to themselves, and others lash out on forums like this one.

------
nathanbarry
As always, I'm happy to answer any questions. :)

~~~
16s
When I see young men and women consulting, I'm always curious how it's working
for them. Do your consultation customers care that you are so young?

I'm genuinely curious about this. Most successful consultants (that I know)
have decades of experience in a specific industry or specialty, thus they have
a large amount of knowledge based on actual, real-world experience and that is
why clients seek them out. They are very successful, but that success seems
solely based on their years of experience and insight.

~~~
Swannie
I think the confusion comes from the term 'consulting'. In my opinion:
Freelancing is not consulting. Technical problem solving (e.g. scaling db,
infrastructure improvement, assisting in migrating to a more recent version of
a framework, etc. borderline. Providing advice to a team of developers, and
doing a little of that work is consulting.

I see so many people claiming they consult, when infact they freelance. They
get assigned work, as a temporary employee. Nathan sounds like he started
freelancing and now he gets a bit of consulting in the mix too.

~~~
16s
Very well put. I agree. Freelancing is a much better word. After gaining many
years of experience, then one will have the insight and ability to actually
consult.

~~~
nathanbarry
Based on that distinction (which I think is accurate) I probably do 50%
consulting and 50% freelancing.

------
xmattus
Thanks for sharing this, Nathan. I co-own a web development agency and share
your consternation about accounts receivable. Our strategy has actually been
to vet clients much more carefully and (as the agency has grown) to begin
limiting the clients we take to larger, stable organizations where the
accounting department and the product owner we're working are not the same
person (so that a discussion about payment does not become a discussion about
project status and vice versa).

Overall, congratulations on your success.

------
kylegillen
Congratulations Nathan. I've been a customer since 'The App Design Handbook' -
and have never had an ounce of buyers remorse. I wish you all the best going
forward.

I do have one question regarding consultancy though - how did you crack this
one? How did you make the transition from web designer to consulting for
clients and what does 'consulting' entail? (thanks to Swannie for providing a
nice outline initially)

Thanks again for the transparency and inspiration Nathan.

------
refurb
Congratulations Nathan, it seems like the past year has been even better than
you could have imagined.

I thought the write-up was great. There is something about your writing that
comes across as humble and thankful for what you have, which is pretty
refreshing seeing so many blog posts come across as a little too "know it
all".

------
ashray
Hi Nathan, Congrats on the amazing achievement. Being in a similar situation
as you, I'm curious as to how you and your wife divide finances. What does she
do? I am mobile and me and my fiancé want to travel long term but I'm
wondering on how to handle the money issue because she can't have a job on the
go, and I don't mind bearing the expenses but are there any pro tips that can
help me avoid money issues?

Like could we work on a plan for her to help with my apps, etc. ? How do you
guys do it ? Great family btw :)

------
pnathan
What do you do for health insurance? I'd love to be self-employed, but I have
to take care of health expenses for my family, and they _require_ health
insurance.

~~~
tellarin
This is one of the reasons why I'm an advocate of good public universal health
care. Too bad it's not available everywhere. But this is a discussion for
another thread/post.

------
toobulkeh
Your great success is very encouraging! I'm not sure if I could write a book,
but the results from consulting and programming are very impressive for a
first attempt.

I'm in the middle of making the jump myself, and am currently paying that
$4000/mo for our family of two. Did you simply save up enough to live on that
for a few months to make more of it? How did that work?

Thanks for the inspiration and congratulations again on your successful year!

------
swastik
Congratulations! Not only are those excellent numbers but the fact that you
were able to do more of what you wanted to is wonderful.

Quitting a job isn't for everyone — no matter what anyone says, it requires
tremendous discipline and focus so props to you for pulling it off. The key
thing you are doing here, something that will hold you in good stead in the
future, too, is the diversification of income sources.

Once again, congratulations!

------
chj
Congratulations! Being solo myself, I find that your posts are all very
inspiring, although my story has been much less successful.

------
oceanician
Would be great to hear more less successful stories i.e. first freelance
making less than the previous job.

It's tricky - and my first year isn't over yet, but not living in a
concentrated tech city has made it difficult. Have been considering moving to
a bigger city. I prefer working in teams, which is also an issue as most
freelancers seem to prefer to work solo.

------
31reasons
At the age of 22 if he can manage to do all of this (including great looking
family). I am in awe. This man is definitely gifted.

------
kelechi
You have inspired me to start writing 1000 words per day. While I'm typically
satisfied with my finished written product, the process of writing usually
isn't enjoyable for me. Hopefully, I will find a love for the craft of writing
with this challenge. Thanks for sharing!

~~~
thirdtruck
Do you write and edit at the same time? I found that separating the two tasks
made it much less painful.

~~~
kelechi
Not a bad suggestion! I'll give it a try.

~~~
thirdtruck
Thanks! Let us know how it goes.

------
JDSD
Nathan, Great inspiration you are. I've read your thinktraffic posts and
always enjoy. You have many great things to say.

Concentrate has helped me save thousands of hours.
<http://www.getconcentrating.com/>

Keep up the hard work, and stay writing.

------
jamesjguthrie
Good job Nathan, following the right path to being a successful solopreneur.

Do you use a publisher for your books and/or do marketing yourself to sell
them?

Also, you should have visited Glasgow instead of Edinburgh, we are a much
friendlier place :-P

~~~
nathanbarry
All self published and marketed on my own.

Next time I'll visit Glasgow. :)

------
mcdowall
Congratulations, I've read your other posts and always impressed by your
concise way of describing the processes you are undertaking.

One thing troubles me though, why did you goto Swansea on your UK trip of all
places!?

~~~
nathanbarry
A friend grew up there. Also, have you been to the Gower Peninsula? It's
beatiful!

~~~
mcdowall
I was born in Cardiff but strangely never been to Swansea, currently consigned
to the grey skies of London though!

------
ww520
Great work landing on your feet and got it going great. It's very impressive
to do it for the first year, even more so for doubling over your old salary in
the first year. Keep it up.

------
bvi
Nathan, congrats. You seem incredibly focused (even though you said that focus
was an issue). What is your workflow process like? In other words, how do you
seem to get so much done? :)

------
lukethomas
Love this article - your transparency is commendable. Thanks for sharing the
numbers, it's something I wish more people did.

------
photorized
Congrats, it's always nice to see things work out well.

Next goal is probably increasing the share of passive recurring income. :)

------
philfreo
I would love to hear about how you wrote / published the eBooks and launched
and marketed them.

------
sunnybythesea
Well done Nathan. Hope you continue to do well. And thanks for sharing.

------
jongold
Congrats Nathan - really appreciate the openness & honesty :)

------
asc76
Congrats, brotha!

------
braveheart1723
Inspirational :)

------
sproketboy
Reality: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Hobo.jpg>

------
pebb
Why do you have $4000 a month in expense in Idaho??? That's like bay area
expense level and a sr. anything makes like 150k...

~~~
nathanbarry
We travel quite a bit.

