
Switching between "school mode" and "startup mode" - kingnothing
For those of you who are students as well as entrepreneurs, how do you manage to switch between going to class and taking care of your school obligations in addition to hacking away at your startup? I find it nearly impossible to work on my startup on days that I've been in class because I'm thinking too much about what I have going on with school. It takes me roughly a day to switch modes, so to speak, and I'm definitely not getting nearly enough done on my startup compared to what I'd like to accomplish.<p>How do you handle that?
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bkrausz
And that right there is why I haven't been to any non-required classes in
quite a while.

I really don't want to advocate my ways but it works pretty well for me: I
don't go to class. All of my classes have notes online, I just attend the
review sessions before exams. If you're interested in the topics covered you
already know the basics, and if you're good at it (strong correlation to
interest) you should be able to teach yourself the lessons via Wikipedia and
the notes.

The reason I don't advocate this is because it's a pretty good way to get low
B's, but makes A's very difficult. I feel that one of two things make this ok:
1) you're going straight into a startup out of college, where GPA doesn't
matter 2) you already had a big-name internship, and potential employers won't
even care about GPA (except Google, but that's a whole other debate)

I've found the second to be true from personal experience. It's a very
dangerous path, but the free time payoff is huge.

I guess there is a huge advantage to finishing your general education
requirements early...

~~~
curi
if you're not going to learn anything, why bother with school?

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bkrausz
I do learn a lot. The assignments and exams force me to learn thing that I
otherwise wouldn't have learned. I do learn, but the value for me is in the
lecture notes and assignments rather than the lectures.

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marcus
Multitask in classes that are a waste of your time, I used to review
contracts, write code, go over the finances of the biz and do homework in
classes.

Condense your school work to a single day in the week or two consecutive days,
I juggled my class schedule so all the courses I wanted to attend or had to
attend were in a single day, I did all my homework assignment for the week the
same evening and had the rest of the week free to work on my startup. It was
an exhausting day but very rewarding and empowering.

Try to cast everything you learn in the context of your startup. This way your
learning is more focused and powerful, it will improve your performance both
in school and with your startup as it forces you to tackle the material head-
on.

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PStamatiou
With all of my other obligations and work I take 4 classes which works out
okay because most of these are senior+ level project classes that take up a
bunch of time anyways. (as opposed to taking 6 classes).

I definitely feel you on the "it takes a day to switch modes" thing. I only
really get into the mood on the weekend . My big problem is that many of my
assignments are group projects so I can't just get them out of my way at my
own leisure. I can only multitask in class so much without losing what the
prof is saying so I don't tend to get much other work done in class than
taking notes.

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edw519
"It takes me roughly a day to switch modes"

THAT is your problem.

You want to be an entrepreneur? You will have to switch modes 4,397 times per
day (on good days). "Switching modes" should take seconds, not days.

Figure out how to do this and get back to work.

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symptic
Exactly. I'm currently in college and working on multiple startups. I've
designed my schedule to where I start class at 2 or 3 PM every day, so i wake
up at 6:50 and get on campus by 7:30 to work in one of the study areas on my
projects.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by things. Just make sure you tackle them one at
a time. Being an entrepreneur takes some hardcore dedication and passion.
Switching from work mode to school should be easy for you-if it's not, you
need to reassess whether you should be doing these particular projects or not.
Passion is key.

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omakase
I never go to class. I work on my startup pretty much around the clock and
then scramble right before a lab to get it done. When it comes time for
midterms I have to sacrifice a few hours the night before each one to try and
get through the material I've missed and not fail.

At the end of the day I can't wait till I graduate so I can throw myself into
my startup 24x7. The one thing I've learned though is that during school you
normally spend more time worrying about what's coming up next than actually
working on it. So by pushing everything to the last minute I don't have a
choice but to work efficiently to get things done.

It is very frustrating to not be working on my startup all the time - funny I
never feel the same way about not putting 100% into school. I guess I know
what I want to do when I graduate in two months ;)

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nostrademons
I certainly couldn't handle it - I didn't finish any of my independent
projects until I got out of college. Like you said, I couldn't really give
them the concentration they required when I had to worry about classes,
homework, activities, eating, friends, parties, etc. Day was just too broken
up. And you can't code a startup on an hour here and an hour there.

Same problem occurs after you get a day job, but to a lesser extent. The nice
thing about employment is that once you go home at night, your time is yours
(or should be), so you don't have any homework or studying that you should be
doing. You're still limited to 2-3 hours/day of decent worktime, and that's
still not enough to really start a company, but at least you can concentrate
decently on it.

I'd recommend that you finish college, get a job at a software company for 1-2
years, and then do the startup. A job will let you see the sorts of problems
that people are willing to pay for (they're usually more difficult than you
imagine in college), and get you in the habit of writing code all day. And
it'll show you what the alternative is, for the rest of your life, if you
don't make the startup fly. You might even pick up some technical skills.

If you're really really passionate about computers - enough that you just
can't concentrate on class - then I'd suggest dropping out, going to work for
someone now, and starting a company a couple years down the line. I have a
couple friends that took that route and their careers don't seem to have
suffered for it at all; in fact, they seem to be doing better than others
their age (namely me ;-)) because they didn't waste 4 years on something they
weren't really into. But since you phrase it as "nearly impossible to work on
my startup on days that I've been in class" instead of "nearly impossible to
work in class on days that I've been working on my startup", I doubt this
applies to you.

Do try some smaller open-source projects though, stuff you can do in a
weekend. Or work on someone else's open-source codebase. That stuff looks
really good on a resume, and you'll pick up some really useful skills.

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tomjen
Steve have an article you might find useful.
<http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm>

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edw519
Nice reference. Thank you!

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dkokelley
This is an issue that I have to deal with as well. The worst part is, I have
some brain-dead classes that are simply required classes and I still can't
really do much with them.

The trick for me has been to stay on top of assignments so that they don't get
in the way. Ideally you could do all of your school on campus then head home
and get to work. Another option is to bring a laptop into class and pretend to
take notes while instead coding away.

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bbb
Don't ever believe the professor doesn't know what you are really up to when
you "take notes" with your laptop. At any given time, half of the laptop-using
class is probably on Facebook, Myspace, or plays Solitaire.

You can still do it, of course, but be prepared to miss out on some good will
on part of the instructor.

~~~
dkokelley
I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I had one class, Economic History
of America, with a professor who was most likely just out of school himself,
and we were bored to tears with his teaching style. He read his lectures 100%
off of notes and was visibly nervous.

A friend of mine and I brought our laptops in and talked during class via IM.
I used it to take notes too, if only to qualify bringing the laptop in. After
a few weeks, I noticed more and more people bringing their laptops in.

Anyways, I still got an A and I don't think I missed anything too vital.

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phaedrus
Oh, it's easy! I just let my classwork suffer. I stay up all night working on
our startup project, and sleep through six classes a week. I only take classes
with lenient professors who won't flunk me if I do this. But I go to a small
university where they let you in if your ACT score is >= 0 and computer
science has been relegated to a dejected corner of the business department, so
no one cares if I go to class or not.

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zaidf
Quit school.

I had severe attention issues with all my classes. I'd spend class after class
day dreaming about my hacks. But I still went to class, often without a laptop
weirdly. I think I realized it was a rare time I could be away from my laptop.
Suffice to say I had more db structures and site flows in my notebook than
class notes. It didn't make for pretty grades but heck.

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NoBSWebDesign
I agree that as an entrepreneur it's very beneficial to be able to change
"modes" constantly all the time.

I personally juggle school, a full-time co-op, a rock band currently recording
an EP, a consulting company, two startups (one is on its way out), and a few
hobbies.

How do I do it?

1\. I love everything I do.

2\. Multi-tasking is good. When we're in the recording studio just mixing, I'm
coding or answering customer emails. Same goes for boring classes.

3\. I sleep 3-5 hours a night, though I'm no stranger 5 hours in a particular
week.

4\. I exercise and workout to keep me on my toes.

5\. I try to stay single as much as possible ;)

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azsromej
In a couple years this issue may very well become switching between "work
mode" and "startup mode".

While it probably makes more sense to secure a degree than make sure you
immediately take a job after college, the pressure of a job being the default
thing to do (and perhaps the weight of your loans) make it likely that you'll
always have to deal with being divided.

That said, I don't have a solution. I've had more time to hack since
graduation but it's always a few hours here and there.

