

Ask HN: You're a recent grad that's working full time on your startup. How? - rscott

I'm curious as to how the recent grad crowd works full-time on their startup. I've read multiple comments over the last few weeks from people that do this, so I have to be nosy and ask the obvious question - how do you do this? Personally, after graduation I will need to get a "real" job to pay for expenses, housing, food, etc. Ideally, of course your startup makes money, but it's obvious that comes with no guarantee or time frame. Are the bulk of these fresh grad full-timers somehow independently wealthy, do they just get by with part-time jobs, or am I missing something entirely?<p>Let me know, thanks.
======
nolanbrown23
Everyone's how is going to be different and probably not applicable to your
situation but here is what you can do...just make it fucking happen. This
small piece of advice may not seem that helpful but what I'm trying to say is
you're nuking it. You're over thinking. Jump in head first and see what
happens.

On that note, I don't recommend any plan that involves your parents, but
that's just my undying need for self-reliance.

If you really want to know what I do to survive, nothing special really. I cut
back my costs but don't eat only ramen and live in a box. I pick up some
consulting and freelance jobs and help out people with other stuff when I'm in
need (menial labor can be a good thing). The key is flexibility. I think about
my company 24/7, but there is no way I can work on it that much. There is more
than enough time in the day to make a living wage and work on your startup
full-time, just make it happen.

~~~
jdileo
Although I am new to HN I have tried to contribute in a positive way and have
not, until now, left a negative comment.

Being a founder is about getting things done, busting walls down and doing,
often, the unthinkable in terms of effort and brainpower to prove your thesis
correct.

Based on your question, you probably aren't ready.

------
cperciva
In my case it's a combination of (a) graduating with money in the bank due to
generous scholarships, and (b) having low expenses due to living in my
parents' basement.

YCers, of course, are given a theoretical 3 months of living expenses and then
usually get other investment at the end of the YC program -- so there's no
mystery there (at least for those people for whom $5k == 3 months of living
expenses).

~~~
mdolon
Bingo! I too live in my parents' basement - it has it's perks and a few
downfalls as well. Aside from saving money, I've found it easier to code at
all hours of the night and day while in the basement. There's also an added
sense of privacy which seems to give me some mental comfort as well. On the
downside, I've now become part of the super-nerd stereotype: jobless and
living in my parents' basement. =)

On a side note, I've also found it increasingly difficult to keep in touch
with old friends post-grad. The majority of my time is now devoted to my
projects rather than hanging out or attempting to reconnect.

~~~
azanar
_On the downside, I've now become part of the super-nerd stereotype: jobless
and living in my parents' basement. =)_

You're probably just being facetious, but you're not jobless; you just don't
have a job that involves working under contract for someone else. ;-)

~~~
nostrademons
My friends referred to it as "unemployed but busy", at one point. Many of them
were "unemployed and bored" at the time, since it was right around the time
when all my friends were thinking of dropping out of grad school.

~~~
frosty
When I was working on my product full-time, I always said I was "self-
unemployed."

------
nostrademons
The easiest way is just to move back in with parents. Most middle-class
families can afford to do this; I think the stats from my graduating class
(05, top private college) were that 50% of students were moving back home.

I took a slightly different path: I moved back in with the 'rents, but I also
took a job for a couple years and saved up money. _Then_ I went full-time on
my startup, funding it mostly out of savings (I was paying rent to my
parents). It's funny - now that I've moved out, my expenses are only about
$200/month more than they were when I was living at home, but the difference
is that now I'm paying a complete stranger's mortgage instead of my parents.

~~~
TorUsa
Is this in the U.S.? If I were a school administrator and half my graduating
students were moving back in with their parents after graduation, I would
consider my school to be failing terribly. I would expect even a community
college to be better than that.

Alternatively, by "top private" do you mean very expensive, so most of the
students were independently wealthy and were getting degrees in things not
intended/needed to provide jobs after graduation? I just can't fathom going to
/ sending my child to a school where that was normal.

~~~
nostrademons
Yes, this is in the U.S.

"Top private" as in #1 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. It's
academically selective (slightly under 20% acceptance rate), and yes, very
pricey for those not on financial aid. The demographics did skew toward
children of upper-middle-class parents who wanted degrees in useless subjects.
Liberal arts, after all.

BTW, this is not saying that 50% of graduates could not find jobs. There were
a couple in that situation (mostly English, history, and language majors), but
most people living back with their parents had jobs - in some cases, very good
ones. I worked at a financial software startup. I had a classmate at the State
Dept. Another friend was doing strategic analysis at MITRE (MIT Research and
Engineering). All of us chose to live with our parents, even though we were
making more than the median _household_ incomes for our respective areas. Then
there are more conventional live-with-parents stories, like the schoolteachers
and librarians and baristas and unemployed.

It's more that if a large enough critical mass (say, all the English majors)
chooses to live with their parents, it then becomes socially acceptable. And
then their friends do it (while banking the rest of their salary), partially
so as not to feel "different" from their less-successful classmates and
partially just because they can.

------
tokenadult
I see a common theme here in the first few submitted replies. What does an
ambitious young person do if the parents are

a) dead and gone,

b) sick and dying,

c) impoverished,

or

d) stingy?

(I ask as a parent of would-be start-up founders, trying my best not to fit
into those categories, but never knowing for sure when I might fit into
category a).

~~~
code_devil
I think it's ideal to have some sort of part time job. In my case, I have a
full time job and can't leave it for two reasons:

1) I am on H1b-Visa [More Important than #2, so didn't even think about
applying for YC this summer, though I would love to]

2) I need $$$ :-)

I typically try to wake up early(6am), hit the gym, put in my 8/9 hrs at work
so I am free by 5-6 pm. Now I have potentially 6 more hours till 12:00 am
during which I try to get some work done on my personal projects OR go to
silicon valley meetups etc Or just laze/party out completely some days.
[Potentially 30 hrs in 5 days]

So, time is not really a problem, it's more of a Time management and
Motivation that will carry you forward. I am still tweaking both :-)

PS: On another note, I will be up in the SF city for StartupWeekend. Still
looking for people to partner up ? Anyone Interested ??

~~~
aditya
you know that you can always switch to a part-time H1b to make more time,
right? Also, apply to YC if you are interested and ready to commit, the visa
thing is hard but not insurmountable (especially if you raise money). IIRC,
The buxfers did it!

It's very easy to go down the road of, oh no there are so many obstacles, but
if you're relentlessly resourceful, you can make it work :)

~~~
code_devil
I am a believer in "if you're relentlessly resourceful, you can make it work
:)". I honestly never considered/thought moving to a part time H1 especially
in this economy. It was always evenings/weekends in my mind. But now that you
mention about Part time, it seems a pretty descent option :)

BTW what/who are the "IIRC , The buxfers" ?

~~~
protohex
IIRC = If I Recall/Remember Correctly

Buxfers = <http://www.buxfer.com/about.php> (I think)

------
wheels
I've had two phases of my life where I went without income. The first was
getting established as an open source developer, the second was starting a
startup (both, interestingly, feel like they have a lot in common).

After college I worked full time for one year. I kept living with college
roomies and saved up about $10,000. I used that to work full time on open
source for 10 months, and move to Europe (where I stayed).

When I started Directed Edge 6 years later, I did something similar, but had
more saved. I got my living costs back down to college student levels to
ensure that we had a long runway.

It's easy to stretch money out if you get used to it and easy to save enough
money to live on for a year if you've got an IT job. The freedom of knowing
that you can survive for a year on $10k while living well, mind you, is pretty
awesome and it certainly gives you the flexibility to do something you think
is worthwhile.

~~~
beathan
I'd love to hear more about your move to Europe. Did you move for a job and
have an employer help out with the red tape, or did you work out another path?
Having spent about a year in Europe backpacking during my college days (on
$10k, no less), finding a means to make it a full-time experience would be
great.

EDIT: I assumed you are/were a citizen of the US and shouldn't have.

~~~
wheels
Yes, I am a US citizen. In a nutshell, I took all of my overtime and vacation
in that year of working full-time and went to Guatemala to study Spanish and
met a German girl ... that was September of 2001, so a pretty nutty time in
the US, and it seemed like a good excuse to try something different.

I had a job with a startup lined up, which fell through, and then ended up
getting hired by the SAP LinuxLab who sponsored my visa (roughly equivalent to
a H1-B), so I went back to the US for a couple weeks, packed up my stuff,
shipped it over and well, stayed. 6 years (and one job) later I got permanent
residence, which meant I was no longer bound to having a company sponsor my
visa, and a couple months later quit my job to found Directed Edge.

The convenient upshot of that is that now, at 28, I'm permitted to live and
work anywhere in the US or EU.

~~~
beathan
Thanks!

------
jlees
YC isn't the only program that allows Bright Young People(TM) to get off the
ground. For example, I'm on the EPIS programme in Scotland
(<http://www.epis.org.uk> \- shameless plug) which is effectively a year-long
YC, giving you a £10k loan to get started, free office space and a ton of
mentoring. (The reason I'm interested in YC is because Scottish mentors and
investors, for the most part, don't 'get' emerging technologies.)

There's also the Royal Society Enterprise Fellowships, also in Scotland, which
is an even cushier deal - you graduate straight from PhD to startup with a
year's salary from the university and some small seed investment.

For the most part universities want to commercialise your work, so if you're a
graduate with no money but a ton of great work you want to turn into a
business, there is support there - you just have to know where to look.

This applies more to postgraduate students, mind; some of the things that
supported me fresh out of my BA and looking to start some projects included a
part time job that paid well enough to cover my basic expenses, leaving me
free to tinker in the rest of the time, and doing a lot of freelance work
which pretty much came to the same end. Having money saved up from internships
and graduate stipends also helped, but I believe the system is a little
different in the US ;)

------
mcav
I graduate in May and plan to move to full-time. I'll be able to work on my
startup because my parents have [thankfully] agreed to help me out while I try
to bring it into the black. Since I've been working on it a lot during
college, I hope to start making a profit not too long after graduation. I'm
currently living with some college friends in a house and intend to live there
for now, unless (A) money runs out and I need to move home, or (B) I decide
it'd be better to move to the valley.

I'm in Iowa right now; it's a dead zone, but I have resources available to me
here (family, time, friends) that I wouldn't have if I just upped and moved to
SF right now. Not that the prospect isn't intriguing of course.

------
peterlai
WebNotes’ first founder worked part-time on WebNotes for about a year after
graduating before raising enough investor money to go full time. After going
full-time, he gave everyone else an ultimatum to jump ship as well, and now,
we’re a five person team.

So, in short, I’m lucky. The startup has been able to fund me from the start.

~~~
azanar
How concerned was the first founder that while he was getting money together,
another startup would develop a competing product and spend the year working
full-time while he was working part-time on his own? If such a competitor
appeared in the year's time, what would the first founder have done?

I ask because there seems to be some division amongst the comments and essays
I've read about how severe of a risk this is, and whether it is a greater risk
than jumping in without building up a sufficiently comfortable cushion
beforehand. The other half of this, that either hasn't be discussed as much,
or maybe I just haven't noticed discussions of, is what happens when a risk of
competition appears while the people involved are working at mitigating the
risk of inadequate savings/funding.

It seems that some would argue that going the route of the part-time job to
fund the project is reasonable path to follow and that things will work out;
others that would claim that it puts the startup at an acute risk of failing
or just never getting off the ground, and that never having enough money goes
with the territory.

As concrete examples of both viewpoints, the 37Signals guys would argue that
splitting one's time at first is fine, and is in a lot of ways more desirable
than diving straight in. On the other hand, pg has argued in his essays that
moonlighting is incredibly risky to a startup's success, due to both the time
commitment required by other obligation(s) and the placating effect of an
near-assured soft landing should things go bad.

It seems like this situation is precisely where discussions of risk trade-offs
come in. Hearing the thoughts behind how these trade-offs are balanced is
interesting and useful, both for the sake of curiosity and helping me and
others develop an intuition for where our own balance should lie.

~~~
petervandijck
The risk of going part-time isn't that a competitor will beat you, it's that
you won't make a good enough product. Don't worry about competitors, worry
about the product.

~~~
azanar
This strikes me as being worried about the same thing, especially in a market
ripe enough for you to have real competition. Presumably, in trying to best
your competition, you and/or they -- hopefully both if both are paying some
attention to the other -- will ultimately approach a product the customer
wants. Otherwise, you're both dead anyway. Past that, it's up to whoever has
the better product.

The only other thresholds to overcome is that you or your competition solve
enough of the customer's problem for them to be interested at all, and that
the price is something the customer would be willing to pay. Odds are, if you
are tooth-and-nail with one or more competitors, you'll pass both those
thresholds just trying to keep ahead of them.

There might be very niche markets were you won't have the threat of
competition to keep you honest about product quality, but I can't imagine of
any. I'd worry about any market where no one cares enough to make a competing
product.

------
trapper
I started my first company by getting supported by my partner, working all day
& night :). I had a deadline of 6 months to release which I met. We lived like
students (still in a student flat), and by no means had any disposable income.
It was exciting and daring, and paid off.

My advice, find a brainy girl/boy who believes in you (and can add value in
their own way) and talk it over :)

~~~
jlees
That's pretty impressive. The pressures of working 24/7 on a startup don't
always mesh with the ideal of a happy balanced relationship, especially if the
startup founder is relying entirely on the other to be the breadwinner. I've
not really been in that position myself, but I've heard a lot of stories about
how relationships nearly died because of someone getting obsessed with a
startup and neglecting their spouse. Any thoughts?

~~~
trapper
She's a special girl what can I say :) We have both been working on a mutual
startup products for a few years now. It has worked for us, probably because
we are both different (optimist/dreamer vs pessimist/realist) yet the same
(passionate, understand the same domain specific areas, work insane hours and
love it).

~~~
jlees
Well, kudos to both of you then! :)

------
eghanvat
I live in India, Pune. So the expense are really low as compared to US or
Europe. Plus, I really cut down on expenses and still manage to have decent
lifestyle. I have a cook coming in to cook food and a maid to clean the house.

I worked for a year and saved enough ($3000). This amount of money will go
long way (8 to 10 months) if I spend frugally. I am already 4 months into
developing the startup.

Another thing is, develop a knack for getting things cheaply. If you search
around, you can get same things far cheaper, than say from a Mall or Big shop.

------
monological
I just graduated and got a full time job. I leave work around 5ish, I hit up a
cafe and usually work until 8-10. I get home relax a bit, I go to the gym
around 11 and then bedtime for me. Lather, rinse, repeat...

I've learned what I need to do to not burn myself. I've fine tuned it to the
point where it's become sustainable, at least for a while. I try to exercise
four times a week, eat healthy, get at least 7+ hours of sleep and to, once in
a while, change things up dramatically to break routine, such as going to a
different city to work.

My job pays the bills, I don't have very many responsibilities and my goal is
to start a company which will provide a steady source of income and open up
other doors of opportunity.

Bottom line: You can have a full-time job and start a company.

------
marram
We are two cofounders. We both had full time jobs. We worked nights and
weekends for a year and got something out the door. Now that it is going well,
I made a deal with my employer to switch to part-time. I consolidated my fixed
costs (aka sold the car, got rid of cable) to be able to live on a part-time
salary. The other cofounder is on an H1-B, so he doesn't have the same
options.

We live in Cambridge, MA, so you can get by without a car. Food is cheap, and
rent is in the range of $700 a month with roommates. So one should be able to
live in Cambridge comfortable on about $1600 a month.

Once we get funding, we will both do it full-time.

------
buggy_code
Talk to your parents.

It's amazing what the response to

"I just recently graduated. Instead of going to Europe to get drunk for a
year, I'd like to go home for a year and write software for my startup."

can be.

------
timothychung
Am I the only person who would ask my parents to pay for my living and allow
me to startup?

I am planning to live on the provision from my parents to startup after June.
That is when my current job finishes. :-)

Well, of course, I have got my ideas and plans ready before starting. :-)

------
andrewfchen
I'd have to agree that in my case, I'm pursuing a full-time start up after
having worked for a few years, saving up a bit of cash that will hold me over
for the next few years. Along the way, gaining some experience from the
corporate sector to bring to the start-up.

------
lv_
Uh, I moved to the 3rd World. Forex swaps help for bread and butter income!

------
charlesju
My mommy loves me and is letting me bum it?

