Part-time founders more productive than full-time founders? - vlad
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webwright
I built a company as a "part-time founder". I think it's quite do-able and
really forces you to focus your time. Parkinson's Law states that tasks tend
to expend to fill to time allotted for them... That's true with Founders as
well.

That said, I think your day job needs to be fairly light for this to work. At
the time, I was doing light consulting after having sold my first company.

I'm currently working on another little startup idea
(<http://www.rescuetime.com)> but it's been moving a LOT slower, as my day job
is something I invest a lot more time and energy into.

Of course, it very much depends on the scope of the problem you are trying to
solve. You're never going to build the next salesforce.com as a PT founder.
;-)

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juwo
The look of your website is very professional. Just curious, did you hire
someone? what tools did you use to do it?

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Readmore
I'm actually quitting my day job today so I'm betting that a full-time founder
is more productive.

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leisuresuit
I wish part time work was easier to find. I would much rather work 20 hours a
week for someone else than 40 hours a week. It'd give me a lot more time to
work on my own projects.

You can only be so productive anyway. Just because you spend 8 or 9 hours a
day at work doesn't mean you're working the entire time you're there. More
like 1/3 of the time is actually spent thinking and working. It's not even
that you're being lazy, it's just you burn out if you work too hard and too
often.

The strange thing is, nobody who's in a position to hire understands this. And
if you do find part-time tech work, you're most likely going to be paid LESS
per hour than you would if you were doing the same thing full-time.

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juwo
Even stranger: people who work in manual jobs and even in healthcare, do
actually work the full 8 or 9 hours. So, maybe we ARE goofing off (me
included).

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dhouston
short answer: part time sucks. long answer: part time sucks. i did a variant
of this (school for part of it, work for another) for 3 years with my first
company, and it was frustrating because you miss opportunity after opportunity
because you move so slowly, and everything just turns out mediocre.

so if you have to do your startup with a 40-50hr/wk job, do it as briefly as
possible until you can prove to yourself the worth of the idea and then make
the jump. and this may sound strange, but get yourself in decent physical
shape so that you have more stamina and aren't exhausted after a normal 8-9
hour work day. in my case i had way more energy/focus if i was running/lifting
regularly (and frittered around/needed more downtime if i wasn't.)

i'm going full time on my idea at the end of this week and have a lot more
momentum because 1) other people will be working on it with me and 2) i will
be able to focus 100% and do things like pull all nighters when necessary and
basically not have any other constraints in the way of getting things done.

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rokhayakebe
That only depends. Some people are good only 3 hours a day, but you best
believe that they will outdo most programmers who put in 8 hours/day.
Nevertheless I would advise you to quit your job and focus full time on your
startup.

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vlad
Do you think about your startup at work, and then rush home to implement,
knowing you have a limited amount of hours? A lot of startups have begun this
way.

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orlick
I had a unique idea that I implemented in my part time. The site was featured
on Techcrunch a few years back and quickly started making a lot of money.
Within a few months a handful of VC funded competitors sprung up. They were
able to iterate on the concept very quickly and completely destroyed me within
the year by developing a significantly better product then I did.

The moral of the story: Working on your startup part-time is a great way to
mitigate risk while you build out your first version. However, if you see some
traction quit you day-job and start executing relentlessly.

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sbraford
I think it would also be tricky to explain to your employers why you're
working on a startup on the side.

Was your name featured on TechCrunch, or just a URL?

I've tried doing "anonymous" startups under pseudonyms, it's hard to be taken
seriously by the likes of TechCrunch, etc.

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dawie
I think Part-time founders are less productive, because they are tired from
working for 8 hours. This causes silly mistakes and bugs to happen.

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asdf333
full time, definitely. Part time, you are just too tired out.

