
Ask HN: Who has started a business because they couldn't get hired for work? - ccajas
Many people start businesses for more financial independence, or simply want to be their own boss. How many of those started it out of a more dire need, from being unable to get hired anywhere and so needed to make money independently for themselves? Maybe from a pivot away from skills that are no longer in demand, or simply having trouble passing interviews due to a lack of a good network or bad soft skills.<p>It could be anyone from HN reading this, or just anybody else, who has shared their story somewhere about starting their business under these circumstances.<p>EDIT: I have years of experience as a software developer, but my inability to survive in the job market in the past three years has inspired me to make this topic. Either due to bad luck&#x2F;timing, or bad soft skills, I can&#x27;t get an offer anymore. So I&#x27;m considering other avenues to make a living.
======
jedberg
Be careful with your thinking here. If it really is bad soft skills that is
keeping you from getting/holding a job, then you'll have a tough go at your
own business. Running a business requires a lot more soft skills than getting
a job, because you live and die by your sales, no matter how good your product
is.

So just make sure that you have at least an idea of how you will get some
sales that involve minimal interaction with other people.

~~~
john_moscow
> Running a business requires a lot more soft skills than getting a job,
> because you live and die by your sales, no matter how good your product is.

Yes and no. The good thing about the internet is that you can get a decent
sales funnel without having to talk to a single person. Write interesting blog
posts on relevant topics, help others by showing how to solve their problem
with your product, etc. There's a lot to learn here for a techie nerd, but the
learning curve here is much easier for those who aren't naturally good at
dealing with people.

~~~
endorphone
Getting people into your sales funnel is only the first step, though.
Converting those people into sales, however, is an extraordinarily social,
soft-skills reliant activity.

I say this as someone who had no problem getting jobs, but social anxiety made
me desire the idealized notion of working in my home office and seldom
conferring with people -- just delivering great solutions with every waking
moment.

I started my own business and quickly discovered that about 80% of my time was
courting and talking to people. People _love_ talking. Getting someone to
commit to a sale is often just a brutal enterprise.

From a time perspective, the advice to write pertinent blog posts just isn't
really that lucrative anymore.

~~~
john_moscow
>I say this as someone who had no problem getting jobs, but social anxiety
made me desire the idealized notion of working in my home office and seldom
conferring with people -- just delivering great solutions with every waking
moment.

Same here.

>People love talking. Getting someone to commit to a sale is often just a
brutal enterprise.

You just need to distinguish the types. The type that just loves talking is
usually obsessed with self-importance and doesn't really care about the solved
problems. You can talk them into a sale if you schmooze them good enough, but
as a nerd you have a few chances. The type that appreciates great solutions
doesn't care about chit-chat more than you do, but they are harder to reach
because they are usually busy solving problems. There's a separate long story
why the first type is better at forming hierarchies and obtaining political
pull, but long story short, you need to focus your funnel on the second type.
If the central part of your site is your smiling picture and a phone number,
you'll attract the former. If it's a product trial, well-organized
documentation and tutorials, the latter will be your catch.

------
Mave83
Dude from Germany here. Without a proper school education I was unable to get
a apprenticeship in an IT profession, although I started profesional coding
with age of 11 and general IT with 6-7 years (~1989).

I ended up learning mechanics and after finishing my apprenticeship I founded
my first company (~2000).

After 18 hard working years of entrepreneurship I managed to start and exited
2 successfull companies with 8 figures volume.

I can only suggest to start your own business if you are dedicated. Don't
think it is easy, or that you will have a lot of spare time. But I won't miss
a day of my journey so far. And yes, I don't need to work anymore, but can't
stop!

~~~
S4M
> I started profesional coding with age of 11 and general IT with 6-7 years
> (~1989).

That's really interesting, can you provide more details about it? I'm really
curious how a kid could make money from coding in the early 90's.

~~~
Mave83
I learned borland turbo pascal by Siemens (thanks to my bigger sister). First
projects where in the company of my dad, optimizing their business tasks.

------
remyp
I’m reasonably certain I’ve interviewed you. Send me an email (in profile) and
I’ll be happy to give honest feedback/advice.

For that matter, I’m happy to provide advice to any programmers struggling to
find work. Feel free to reach out.

~~~
kinkora
Not OP and a hiring manager myself once but I will love to compare notes and
hear your thoughts on what are the common problems/mistakes you see when
interviewing developers or engineers and if you have any general advice.

Considering most of the HN population are technical folks, many will possibly
find your experience & knowledge useful or at the very least, contribute to a
worthwhile discussion on hiring technical people.

Edit - Added a list of problems/mistakes that I commonly see when I interview
people for technical positions:

• _Being borderline arrogant, argumentative and /or abrasive in conversation
even though they are brilliant_ \- Yes, I've interviewed people that are smart
and have a wealth of knowledge but the straight forward truth is this role
(and most developer/engineering roles for that matter) requires a person to
work with not only other people within the team but also with other technical
teams & departments so if you can't show that you are a team player, it
doesn't matter how good you are as a developer/engineer.

• _Lying straight up on certain details and not owning up to it_ \- one common
interview tactic I use is to ask what version of [technology] that the person
has worked on and what are their "battle scars" experiences with that
particular version or [technology]. I have had people tell me they work on
versions that don't exist (i.e. latest v5 and they claim v8) or claim they
have 5 years experience when said version of [technology] has only existed for
3 years. Also, I find that the true experienced people in [technology] can
passionately tell you about their problems using [technology] and what they
did to get around it rather than simply just evangelizing said [technology].

• _Talking bad about anything or anyone_ \- This might just be a personal
preference but a big turn off for me is when a candidate starts bad mouthing
their ex-bosses, colleagues or company. I might make exceptions for special
circumstances (i.e. sexual harassment, bullying, etc) but even then, I will
find it as a negative against their personality if that person keeps harping
on it and don't show at least signs that they are taking steps to move on.
Call me old school but I believe in never burning your bridges regardless of
what the circumstances are and even if you don't, the last thing you should do
is bring it up in an interview.

Note - these are my personal opinions, preferences and experiences on
interviewing and I do not claim my methods to be the best way on doing so.

~~~
lsc
>Talking bad about anything or anyone

Personally, I think this should be near the top, and I think arrogance[1]
should be near the bottom. And not just for interviews. If you are known for
giving credit where credit is due? that's going to get you more help at this
job; that's going to get you better contacts, more recommendations for your
next job. You will see your co-workers again. Generally, if you can say
something good and true about a co-worker, you should.

There are few times when as an individual contributor where it's in your
interest to say something bad about someone else. I mean, I'm not saying to
lie, just if you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut.

[1]Yes, yes, socially skilled people see arrogance as a different thing from
confidence, not just a matter of degree. But if you are that socially skilled,
you don't need these tips. Me? I see it as a sort of linear progression from
low self-esteem through confidence and then into arrogance. For the tech
industry, this is a good enough (though incorrect) model. I mean, you _can_ go
too far in one direction or the other, but at least for me it seems to be a
reasonably tunable thing, and I've seen far more people fail interviews due to
being too far on the shy/humble/lacks confidence end of that scale than the
other way around.

~~~
DataDisciple
This is really an exercise in speaking diplomatically. Often we leave jobs
because we can't be as productive in the current environment. That's usually
code word for other failures in the company. I think at the executive level it
can be helpful to have the discussion on what you would do differently. Most
adults in my experience will appreciate a candid discussion as long as you are
sharing your experiences in a humble and respectful manner.

------
khitchdee
Hi. I was in my 30s and holding a steady job as a programmer with big
corporate. Then I decided to take a small sabbatical. Before I knew it,
several years had passed and my savings were getting epleted. So I tried to
get bck in the job market again, landed a job, but couldn't clear their
probration then landed another job and also couldn't clear probation, then
spent almost year without success looking for job. That's when I decided to
start my own business. It's been almost a decade since then and I still
haven't made any money, but it sure beats being jobless or unwanted at a
steady job.

An engineer's career usually tapers off beyond a certain age. Risk taking
therefore has to be reduced as your career options get narrower with seniority
-- moral of the story.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
I respectfully disagree. I believe being risk averse makes you age faster and
helps you live up to the "old programmer" stereotype.

I'm 40, so one foot in the grave in the tech world, yet I have managed to keep
myself marketable by not being afraid to jump in and learn new things when
needed, just like a college kid, but with experience. Maybe I'm wasting my
time spending hours learning Vue or Kubernetes for the future but if I had
stayed "safe" developing WPF calendar apps and cursing the new stuff I'd be
dead in the water. And taking on new positions and companies puts me out of my
comfort zone and teaches me new things.

Everyone's mileage varies on this of course.

~~~
vincentmarle
I agree, I’m in my early 30’s but I have no problem hiring people above 40’s.
The key thing that I observe is indeed the ones who are still curious and
always tinkering with new things, especially _combined_ with their experience,
are extremely powerful. Wouldn’t trade them for any young kid in the world.
The instances where it doesn’t work out is when they have an inability to
adapt or to change.

------
nikivi
I didn’t start a business but instead made an open source website as no one
wanted to or still wants to hire me.

Funnily the website solves the problem of how to learn anything in the most
effective way.

Website: [https://learn-anything.xyz](https://learn-anything.xyz)

~~~
yagodragon
How is it possible no one wants to hire you? You seem way more competent than
many devs out there and you've created a 10k stars github project among
others.

~~~
monksy
The technical interviewing process. It's one of those things where it treats
everyone if they're lying about their experience.

~~~
izacus
That's because everyone is. For every rockstar CV you'll get an identical one
where the person can't even code a fizz buzz.

~~~
monksy
What will the ability to or not to code fizz buzz about their prior
experience?

------
dsign
I did, several years ago.

My soft skills are not top-notch, but they are not bad either, and my
qualifications are good enough to get hired at good places ... not just where
I currently live. Mostly a big adversarial blob of "cultural matters" ...
let's not dig onto that, but shortly put, locals feel uneasy around me.

Mind you, if I had tried hard enough, I could have gotten a dead-end-job with
low pay and no promotions. Or I could have moved and looked for greener
pastures. I decided instead to take my lemons and make lemonade, so to speak,
and I opened a business.

The cultural problems didn't go away, to this day some of our customers prefer
to talk to my sales guy, even when they know they would solve their problem
faster by just sending me an email directly. But I don't mind having more time
for the the ever growing technical team and technical customer-related work.

For brown guys in the north, jobs are overrated.

~~~
asenna
If you don't mind me asking for a tip. I'm actually in that position where I'm
hoping to have a sales team take my load off new leads and conversion. How did
you build / hire your sales team? Was it all on location full time hires or do
you take help of Upwork / other remote options?

------
mark212
Lawyer here. Opened my own practice after the 2008 collapse because no firms
were hiring. Best decision I was ever forced to make.

~~~
anoncoward111
Congrats :) Do you feel that law school is too expensive for nearly all
applicants besides those who are eventually hired by big firms to make 175k a
year?

~~~
wtvanhest
Not op, but obviously. If you have 200k in debt and dont even break 100k per
year... it isnt a positive thing.

~~~
henryfjordan
There are a lot more factors that makes this not "obvious". If you can make
40k as a paralegal and 80k as a lawyer, and you are 25 (30ish more working
years), investing 3 years and 200k in law school might make sense.

30 years * 40k/year = 1.2mil

((30 years - 3 years) * 80k/year) - 200k = ~2.3mil

This assumes you can pay that 200k all at once upon graduation and that salary
is stagnant, but even if you drop that first assumption take your whole career
to pay off your loans and end up paying 2-3x the principle you still come out
ahead with a law degree.

Don't choose education for money though, choose it because you want to be
educated.

~~~
wtvanhest
Paralegals often make more than lawyers who don't get to big law and those
jobs are not open to people who went to law school bc they are "over
qualified".

I agree with not choosing an education due to money, but money is a great
reason to NOT choose an education.

Law is a totally broken model where the 5% who get big law do great and the
other 95% get slaughtered.

~~~
mark212
I disagree completely. That's not at all my experience. There are far too many
lawyers who expect that when they get their bar cards, they're entitled to a
premium wage just for showing up. The real work starts when you pass the bar.

And professional education isn't really "an education." That's undergrad. Go
to law school because you enjoy the work and want to be a professional -- here
I'm using the definition by the estimable Dr. J: "being a professional means
doing what you love even on days when you don't feel like doing it."

~~~
wtvanhest
Hard work has nothing to do with the fact that the market is bifurcated
between haves and have nots. 30 years ago a law degree was relatively
affordable and you could make it work by hustling. Now, you are toast if you
don't get the big law job because your payments on $200k will be $2k/month.
That will wipe out your ability to start a practice and you are effectively
doomed.

Big law jobs only go to something like 5% of lawyers. (correct me if I am
wrong). The other 95% would be better off doing any other job.

------
whitepoplar
Brian Acton started WhatsApp with Jan Koum in part because Twitter and
Facebook rejected him for a job. Facebook later bought WhatsApp for $16
billion dollars.

~~~
Techonomicon
Being refused a job or two is different than not being able to get no job,
like a million times different.

~~~
whitepoplar
Yeah, you're 100% right, which is why I hesitated posting this, but it's too
juicy not to mention.

------
ProfessorLayton
Yes, kind of. I helped my aging father pivot from manual labor to running his
own contracting business. It was, and continues to be, a lot of work, but it
was the _only_ way my parents could continue to pay their bills (Especially
here in the Bay Area).

There was a lot of learning when getting started, but the business is roughly
a 10-person concern, and growing — all completely bootstrapped.

Edit:

More details on what it took to get started

\- Studying the materials one needed know to get a contractor's license

\- Actually getting licensed

\- Setting up an online presense

\- Acquiring our first customers

\- Earning a good reputation

\- Incorporating, hiring, worker's comp/various insurances ($$$$)

One of the biggest ongoing challenges is competing with unlicensed
contractors, and being able to hire enough skilled labor.

~~~
lgregg
Sorry, I ruined your 1337 karma. What do you use to stay organized? I have a
friend who was in the same position as you and they're around 15 people now.
Their problem is staying organized, everything is paper.

~~~
ProfessorLayton
Staying organized is a huge burden! One of the ways I've helped them organize,
is by moving to digital communication wherever I can:

\- Customer leads are almost 100% digital (Website, Google Ads, Yelp). This
means they can reply back and forth without having to call, so no paperwork is
necessary until they're customers. Everyone involved seems to appreciate this.

\- Estimates and invoices are delivered digitally, we currently use Waveapps,
which is good enough for the small business for now. This allows us to keep
track of who has/hasn't paid yet. This is a _huge_ help with staying on top of
things.

\- My parents aren't tech people, so after much trying with iCal/Gcal, their
best calendar to work with is actually an old fashioned paper one. Used to
keep track of estimates, and project scheduling.

\- Ultimately we've had to hire a 3rd party to help with tracking worker
hours, payroll, and taxes. Yes there's payroll software, but again because my
parents aren't tech people and they're currently at their wits just running
the business, it was best to hire outside help. I'd like to help with this,
but I work full-time, and screwing this up can result in extremely steep fines
to the business.

\- Really the only new paperwork we have to deal with on an ongoing basis is
storing copies of customer contracts.

------
ghostbrainalpha
If I'm being super honest, I never would have started my first company (A
Funded Startup, that had very significant revenue for 3-4 years) if I didn't
have IBS.

Once the company grew to the size that we needed a real office, my need to
exit was at least partially influenced by IBS as well.

I could have gotten a job in a lot of different places, but I couldn't handle
the workplace environment because I needed to use the restroom more than 10
times per day. I also had accidents where I would need to change my pants at
least once a week, and always carried spare clothes in my backpack. I still
keep that habit, even though I've largely conquered the disease. It's a weird
PSD I kind of have.

Even today, I'd probably accept a 20% pay reduction for if a company would
give me a private restroom connected to my office.

~~~
devilfish
did you hear about FODMAP?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP)

Did it help you?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
That's what did it for me, but I didn't know that's what it is called.

I discovered my Keto for weight loss and noticed a huge improvement in my IBS.
That led me to r/ZeroCarb eventually and after a year or two of healing, I am
now to the point I can have 1 high carb meal per week without a problem. I
just have to take big breaks in between carbs or my body starts breaking down
fast.

------
excitednumber
Not exactly what you are asking but, here's my story:

I graduated in 2009 from a masters with a focus on financial engineering. At
the time it was very hard to get a job doing what I want (let me emphasize
this point - I could get a job but just not in what I wanted).

Eventually, I took a job to afford living in a major US city. Due to my
frustration I began coding much more at home.

Fast forward to now, I have a few projects under my belt that are generating
more cash than my day job. Additionally, the skills I acquired working on my
personal projects absolutely helped me land my current job.

I have had my share of disappointments, successes and career frustrations
along the way, but I get the most satisfaction out of the work I do on my own.

~~~
whitepoplar
Any chance you can share what those projects are, either in public or in
private?

~~~
excitednumber
I apply the things I have learned in my degree, on the job, and reading
academic research.

The projects I focus on are related to investing - buying and selling
securities programmatically.

~~~
tinktank
Very cool. So are you doing the investment on your cash, others, or a
combination of both?

~~~
excitednumber
My cash for now. I work in asset management so my outside business activities
cannot also be in it.

Kind of a bummer but that's how it goes.

------
bane
I've known a few people who've done this. I've also recommended to a couple
people to do this when they're having a hard time finding work.

Here's the thing, most businesses don't make it and many people in this
position are trying to bootstrap something with virtually zero money. So you
can use these circumstances to your advantage -- use the business as an
investment vehicle to build you as a product so that you can sell yourself
later on.

What this means is that you should take the time between filling out
applications and wasting time in multi-day whiteboard interviews to start to
build up a portfolio of what you can do. Start a blog, on some topic you find
interesting, engage on twitter at least once a day. Write a couple simple but
good looking web apps using cheap/free tiers on hosting providers. Check some
code into public code repos. If you manage to launch something live, contact
the press email address on every major news site you can find -- a surprising
number will put a short article up about your app -- which you can then also
advertise on your site/blog/twitter feed.

All of this goes on your resume, except now you get to claim "Founder/CEO" on
your resume with stunning bullet points like:

\- Led social media marketing strategy

\- Designed web applications for <insert vertical>

Take screenshots of all this.

Use _this_ work as part of your resume. In an interview it's much better to
claim "I tried to start a company but I just couldn't get it cash-flow
positive, so now I'm back on the market." than to try to figure out how to
work around a large resume gap that implies you're unhireable.

This works because companies will see you as entrepreneurial and multifaceted,
capable of career growth and tackling many different kinds of problems at
various levels and making independent decisions. And the best part is that, as
you do this, it will become TRUE!

\- So the worst case is that you just build your resume for a while (instead
of it accumulating jobless gaps) -- most people I know who've done this end up
in better jobs than they expected after this exercise.

\- Best case, your company takes off and you just built yourself a career -- I
know 2 people who've managed to do this and ended up running pretty large
enterprises.

------
eruci
Me! It was 2016, I was nearly broke from being on the receiving end of a
copyright infringement lawsuit, and nobody would hire me. So, I hired myself
and started a new company which pays my salary today.
[https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/6249ac6f67](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/6249ac6f67)

------
mettamage
Interviewed for 3 jobs. 1 rejected me for being too broad, 1 rejected me for
not being reliable diring the interview (despite good track record and refs),
1 rejected me because they only wanted to hire cheap(ish) devs (2000 - 2500
euro per month).

It was my first round to see the world after graduation. Note: I worked on
serious jobs during my studies, no internships, actual jobs.

Will start my serious round soon. If no one wants me for what I think I am
worth/can offer, then I will start on my own too. I chose this profession
partially because of this ‘power’.

~~~
misterhtmlcss
Reliable? How does one measure that from a recent graduate during an
interview? What people get rejected for is astounding to me.

~~~
mettamage
On this case: coming 5 minutes late (it was tough to find), interviewing for
90 minutes and me being late for a meetup with a friend (I told them that).
And I looked like I wasn’t taking care of myself according to him (I was in
thesis mode, still am). I feel we have different standards about what it keans
to take care of yourself.

The first one I get under certain perspectives but it is only one data point.
The second one is my personal life and the interviewer made the assumption it
would apply to me professionally. Since he made the assumption in his mind, I
couldn’t tell him that this person has been late with me a lot of times and
that we are fine with it since we can both multitask and do some work on our
laptops at any given moment.

------
ConcernedCoder
It may not be bad luck/time or bad soft skills, in my experience, as soon as
you hit 50 in the United States, you're no longer a good "culture fit" in a
majority of software development roles. It's my understanding that in places
like China, the cut-off age is closer to 30-35 which sounds terrible if true.

------
justaaron
I'm rather tired of drone-like hiring practices involving flunkies trying to
stump you with questions about topics you might have written the book upon...
(not that I'm anywhere near Ken, but the general picture should suffice)
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_o...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/)

~~~
drewmate
Some context on the Ken Thompson article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1284524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1284524)

------
BartBoch
I am a self-taught developer and marketer.

I owned (no partners) a marketing business that grew to 85 contractors and
employees.

I have worked on dozens of huge development projects where I was a Senior
Developer or Project Lead.

I have worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies.

More than 10 years of experience in marketing and business.

Around 10 years of experience in development.

I am unemployable really.

Why?

No formal education (I have just Highschool diploma). NDA signed for 99% of my
projects (I can't even mention some of the companies I worked for). Got
trapped in the referral loop, where I get referred, take a job, sign an NDA
and so on. The only way for me to monetize my experience is to do contractor
jobs through referrals and sometimes through freelancing sites, where rules
are more relaxed.

Working on building my portfolio using side projects at the moment and
creating a blog to break that loop.

------
lfowles
Yep, left my job 8 months ago and had several promising interviews since but
nothing has come of them. Recently decided to take time to polish games I
prototyped during this period. To be quite honest I was also getting tired of
essentially "studying for finals" before each interview. Thankfully (but
probably also hurting my job search in general...) I'm in a low CoL area.

------
karlkatzke
I did. I had three years experience as a software developer (full stack, but
it was 2004, so it wasn’t a big stack) and leveraged an active consulting
business that I would do after hours into a full time thing where I made
enough to pay another employee and myself.

The problem is that I’m a shit manager. I’m a shit business manager, I’m a
shit sales manager, and I’m a shit engineering manager. So, the company didn’t
do well. But at least I learned that I shouldn’t be in charge of people!

------
Clubber
I've heard of several small businesses run by people who couldn't get a
meaningful job because of prior convictions; typically drugs.

~~~
dsnuh
Yeah, I think this is a more common occurrence in industry outside of tech. I
would imagine there are many stories that echo this amongst construction trade
and independent truck drivers, for example. I know of several folks in those
industries that started their own business because of priors.

~~~
misterhtmlcss
We don't want them to re-offend, but we won't give them meaningful work
either. Terrible cycle

~~~
dsnuh
I think a lot of Americans play lip service to "innocent until proven guilty"
and "repaid debts to society", but in reality, to many, an arrest is a
conviction, and if you are a felon, you are stained for life, even if you
served the terms of your conviction the law decreed necessary to atone for
your crimes.

~~~
Clubber
Not only that, the justice system in the US seems horribly broken. It's just
one of those things you have to put out of your mind, like the chances of
getting mangled in a car wreck driving to work every morning. I don't think
the US will change much in regards to the justice system the near future. We
seem to have full and unshakable faith in state and local police, prosecutors
and juries while at the same time, berating government workers for being
incompetent. It's completely illogical and bewildering.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-
convicti...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-convicting-
the-
innocent/2015/07/24/260fc3a2-1aae-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html?utm_term=.5de87e842287)

~~~
dsnuh
>The average time served for the 1,625 exonerated individuals in the registry
is more than nine years.

That's so depressing.

------
maerF0x0
Once upon a time I started doing consulting because I was tired of being laid
off. Had work in like 2 days because I was already part time on upwork . Nice
the former employer paid me like 2 months severance :D

------
wolfspider
Well I guess this fits under the same category...I’m currently rebooting my
family’s business. My father retired but has been minimally keeping alive the
LLC he founded when he lost his job. As a family we all sat down at a table,
argued a bunch, and agreed to help him start it. My sister and I were great
free labor as teens but unfortunately doing videography didn’t pay all the
bills so my father went back to work until retiring as a webmaster for our
local university. I studied business until I couldn’t afford it while working
IT jobs which turned into development and then project leader. The lack of
jobs here in NCFL made gov a nice fit eventually. Prior to that I worked in
game development, television broadcast, and fintech fields all with
concentration in dev. Companies I got to work with included CNN, Fox,
Univision, Epic Megagames, Psyonix, Wells Fargo and a whole lot more. I went
to my father asking if I could do something with that business he kept
registered- he wanted to hear a business plan surprisingly he was no push over
on this. It was difficult but he agreed so now off I go. The new pivot is
really in stealth mode I think I’ll just say this will now become a “media”
company. I don’t look like a typical developer I’m a pretty salt of the earth
guy- people in my town think I’m a laborer or delivery guy. That doesn’t help
get me hired. I’m also getting up there in years but gov provides the steady
income for me to get started and so far it’s been going great. Along the way
I’m open sourcing tools and getting a lot of support that way- if I can help
someone out we get some good R&D in return. So to summarize- lack of jobs in
the area and lack of formal CS education that would be my reason. I love my
dad he taught me everything it all started with a C64 we got at a garage sale.
I was 8 years old and have been programming ever since. Technically speaking
I’m a co-founder! So is my sister who moved to Paris to do IP law. It’s all
coming together now and feels great.

------
jschwartzi
Sometimes it's not you who has the bad soft skills. The last company I was
with versus the company I'm with now are like night and day in terms of how we
communicate. I work remotely and my boss actually reads what I write, comments
on it, and is able to tell me when I need to do something without belittling
me about not having it done already.

------
Alex3917
> from being unable to get hired anywhere and so needed to make money
> independently for themselves?

Lots of immigrants. There are tons of folks with Ph.D.s or who were doctors or
lawyers in your own country, but in the U.S. the best job they could get was
bagging groceries.

------
gregoriol
It's not that I couldn't get hired, more like I couldn't find the right thing
at that time, the kind of job I would want to invest myself into. I did talk
with many people back then, many people wanted to hire me, I even tried one of
them for some time, but left after a month.

So, from talks to ideas, I started 2 projects with a few people, and these are
working quite well now. It wasn't planned, it wasn't something I thought I
wanted. We tried, we built things, slowly, step by step, without a grand plan,
and... it works out very well!

I wouldn't advise to go alone though: talk to your former colleagues, friends,
... find some people to work with! Apart from that, go for it, try!

------
CamelCaseName
I didn't graduate because I couldn't bring myself to go to classes I had no
interest in.

No degree put me in a rough position. My resume claimed that I had graduated,
but I had not. While I did get offers, whenever I shared that I failed out of
fourth year, my offer was rescinded.

Not wanting to work for someone unethically, I went into business for myself
about 10 months ago and am doing quite well, more than I would have earned in
my first year of work at another company.

I would certainly have preferred the stability of a full time job while
moonlighting, but either way I feel like long term success is still on the
table. (Which wasn't the case 10 months ago)

If you're failing, get help. You are not alone.

~~~
catdog
> No degree put me in a rough position. My resume claimed that I had
> graduated, but I had not. While I did get offers, whenever I shared that I
> failed out of fourth year, my offer was rescinded.

Do I get this right, you servery lied on your resume and really are surprised
that you got rejected once it was revealed? What did you expect?

------
DataDisciple
I know a few who have, but its not ideal. I think if you already have
businesses that you are attracted to and the risk/reward for starting that
business becomes greater than the risk/reward of what your job prospects are
then it needs to be explored. The challenge is that most investors can easily
sniff out someone who is starting this biz because they can't get a job, and
that isn't a pattern they typically fund.

I think a good mix is to start working on the business while continuing to
look for a new job. Then if you get traction, you will likely have a better
story to sell. It also helps you minimize your risk on the business.

------
everdev
I was looking for a job in 2008, unfortunately right during the stock market
crash. I would go and interview for jobs and then get a call back saying that
hiring was freezing as the national financial markets continued to spiral
downwards.

Fortunately, companies still needed their websites maintained and I opened up
shop for myself below agency rates and above freelancing rates in the hopes of
building my own agency.

It worked and multiple clients signed on looking to save money and I was able
to build and grow a team as a result, eventually working up to market rates as
the economy improved.

------
davidhopper
As someone who runs a company coaching software engineers on landing
employment, I've worked with a number of engineers who have gone down the path
of running their own business or consultancy for sometime before deciding to
turn towards employment in a larger corporation. Personally, I've found many
of these engineers to have some of the most interesting and compelling stories
and projects to add to their resume and speak to while interviewing, and in
that sense believe that coming from having your own business can add greatly
to being successful in the job search. That said, I do not think that is the
only path towards landing a job, and in this case especially if you already
have experience as a software developer.

In my opinion reflection is key to understanding where roadblocks lie in terms
of why one is not finding employment, even more so as most companies almost
universally do not provide feedback (another topic...). In terms of "not
surviving" in the job market, I'd ask where are you running into roadblocks,
is it getting interviews, moving past recruiters, the technical screens,
onsites, and within those categories diving more into why those opportunities
did not materialize and what potential actions led to those outcomes. Would be
happy to connect (email is in profile) and learn more, and you can see a bit
of what we do at [http://outco.io](http://outco.io)

------
ahmetyas01
I came to the US to study and IT job opportunities in 2001. The IT market has
collapsed. I started my online business with $100 and turned to $50m in 5
years. Boom.

~~~
lgregg
Wow, congrats! What type of product?

------
pjmorris
I unintentionally backed my way into my own business. Back during the dot com
bust, the large consultancy I worked for went bust, and I went back to the
small consultancy I'd previously worked for. Then, after 9/11, they went bust.
The economy was in rough shape, and I was only getting interviews for junior
positions. Meanwhile, friends were calling to say 'Could you come do this gig
for a month or two?' Having plenty of free time, I read up on how to start and
run a business (Nolo Press is a great resource), set up an LLC, printed
business cards, worked hard at the gigs I got, and kept my ear to the ground
for new ones. I'd kept good relations with my previous bosses and co-workers,
and wound up working for five years running my own little consulting shop
(That might be my suggestion: keep up with your old bosses and co-workers, and
see if they're aware of any suitable opportunities).

Life circumstances changed, and it made sense to go back to work for somebody,
eventually, but I found the experience, and the confidence it built, to be
invaluable.

------
lgregg
I ended up out of school working in a field and role I wasn't happy with, so
after saving half of my salary for a year and a few months, then I resigned. I
started a marketing agency with two friends, we had the business model down
but two of us were not good at sales and the one that was had a life issue
occur and left. We were cash flow positive the whole time just not enough to
support my two friends as I wiped out my savings. We all learned a ton though.
Around a year after, I did a career switch to SWD and am currently retraining.

I would do it again if I had an idea that legitimately solved a problem. We
created a marketing agency knowing how to run things as ICs but not as owners.
I'm not sure I'd want to sell a consulting service again but maybe another
type of business. I've always been interested in WISPs and Real Estate, so
maybe something in those areas.

------
WarOnPrivacy
The org handling my scholarship & job placement were defunded just before I
graduated in 1996.

This job market here was already one that won't hire w/o a personal into. The
only way a coder w/o experience + buddies in HR was getting hired was thru
blackmail or ransom.

I knew how to do basic hardware & some networking so got a biz license & biz
cards and chatted up everyone I could find for 3 years. I went door to door to
every business in town. None of them hired me but there would be other people
around who thought it was novel that I was marketing like it was 1955. Those
people intro'd me to people they knew & that got me established.

The 2008 crash sinkholed my clients (car dealers). I started over with med
providers but by 2010 the ACA sinkholed my new clients.

I finally started writing some code 5 years ago to build blocklists for custom
firewalls.

------
bryanrasmussen
Me. Basically I have been programming long enough and perhaps with a varied
enough CV and varied enough skills and some major accomplishments mixed among
just normal stuff that I do not seem to get hired as an employee anymore but
people are very happy to hire me as a consultant (which I make more money at
mostly)

I remember there were several interviews where people suggested I would want
to do more than they wanted me to do, one example: that I would not be happy
just doing frontend development and they were worried I would go fix issues in
ElasticSearch, and I asked "well of course I will do what I'm hired to, but
why wouldn't you want me to go fix issues in ElasticSearch if I'm caught up on
my frontend tickets?"

That was probably not a good thing to say, because I didn't get that job.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Also noting - I've been consulting 2 years full-time at $100 an hour which is
a very good wage in my country (I'd have more but I'm subcontracting through
another company) at a company that I could never get even an interview at no
matter how many years I tried. I'm pretty sure I've tried dozens of times and
never a peep of interest, but hiring me as consultant at more than double the
amount I'd earn as an employee - oh yes that they're interested in.

------
rodolphoarruda
Yes, sales is important, but don't forget about marketing, which comes first.
I have lost my job in the 2008 crisis and couldn't get employed back. I
decided to start my own business with other folks who were laid off as well.
Marketing was key for us to open doors and put us in front of the prospective
customers. We ran the business for 5 years until we decided to get back to
regular jobs, have kids etc.

So if you are thinking on starting your own business, reserve some time to
discuss marketing fundamentals: what your product/service is; pricing options
and negotiation guidelines, target markets, customer profiles, niches;
advertising (which I think grew exponentially complex these days).

Sales will tend to flow well once you have marketing sorted out. It will be
the cherry on the top, the Showtime.

------
s3nnyy
I started [https://coderfit.com](https://coderfit.com), a tech recruitment
agency in Zurich, Switzerland while being employed as a coder. I just wasn't a
very good developer and saw that I won't perform in this job as good as other
people.

Tech recruitment was/is a domain with a small barrier to entry and where I
could use both my tech skills (knowing what programmers like/want) and "sales"
skills, helping companies and developers present themselves better to the
"counterparty". Now, I am building a jobboard
([https://jobs.coderfit.com](https://jobs.coderfit.com)) that complements my
tech recruitment agency activity.

------
mgbmtl
If you suspect that you have bad soft skills, try to find 2-3 people who are
comfortable with them. I find it easier to work with 2-3 clients than to deal
with teams. If your jurisdiction makes it easy, start by freelancing,
incorporate later, if you need it (I didn't need to finally, until I wanted to
work with a small team; Quebec/Canadian law is very freelance-friendly).

In the field I work, we mostly joke that we are a bunch of unemployable
people. We like being our own bosses, working in small teams. I formed a
worker's co-op with a few ex-colleagues and I'm happy with it. We also
federate loosely with other companies in our field (around the FOSS project
that we provide support for).

------
nickfromseattle
I did.

Despite loving to learn, and spending a lot of time self learning, I never
excelled in school. I skated by in High school, but my parents weren't pumped
about paying for me to fail through college.

I dropped out Junior year to teach English in Brazil.

After I got back I realized I'm a college dropout, with a work experience in
manual labor & restaurants, and I knew no one would hire me to do the things I
wanted to learn.

So I started a company on an idea I was passionate about.

I told myself from day 1, whether the venture was successful or not, I was
going to learn the skills and meet the people to do whatever I wanted to do
next.

The venture was not successful, and I did meet the people and learn the skills
to do whatever I wanted to do after, and it lead great places.

------
a_imho
Skills are overrated in interviews, you need to get lucky, it is increasingly
a numbers game.

------
Naomarik
This is almost me. I wouldn't be where I am if I got hired from specific
companies I applied to. I found it impossible to get a job I wanted before I
learned programming.

Triplebyte denied me in a phone screening and at that time I had just read all
Paul Graham's essays and would have sacrificed a lot to move back to USA and
work for a YC startup.

At this point I'm very happy things turned out the way they did. One thing I
will never miss is having my life controlled by an alarm clock.

------
_sdegutis
I’m kind of at this point right now.

~~~
raarts
From your resume you don't seem to be one who is having trouble being hired.

~~~
ccajas
Well he is self-employed, but if I called myself self-employed that would be
an understatement. I'm actually unemployed and wondering what I could to to
capitalize on my current skills that will also not be hampered by my weak soft
skills.

~~~
raarts
Why don't you put a link to your resume in your profile? Now you got people
reading...

------
leovander
Give Dave and Jamison a listen to on Soft Skills Engineering[0]. They are
great to listen to and their episodes are driven by their listener's
questions.

Most of their immediate responses are go get a new job if you are unhappy with
your current position, but that is more of them being entertaining, but I
guess a truthful answer in most of the scenarios they are presented with.

[0] [https://softskills.audio/](https://softskills.audio/)

------
j0hnnyF1ve
I'm interested in seeing where this discussion goes, I'm in a similar position
and will have to consider different options and paths beyond the normal job
path.

------
loudandskittish
I work on a freelance basis pretty much due to my inability to "play the
game." My poor "soft skills" don't seem to be bother my clients much.

------
jetai
I've ran into the issue of only being able to be hired by Startups, this is
both good because I like the environment and bad because there's never enough
need for my skills in business development, marketing, and professional-level
creative, legal, and business writing.

This means I eventually get replaced and scramble for another job. I'd like to
start my own thing but it doesn't feel viable sometimes, seeing as I'm not a
developer.

------
matchagaucho
First... people with bad _soft skills_ don't have the ability to self-reflect
and admit it, as you have. Give yourself some credit.

Second... the dire circumstance means any entrepreneurial venture will only be
successful if you have the humility to work on problems the clients don't want
to do.

I would suggest poking around on Upwork, Fiverr, or other gig economy sites
and experiment with some short-term engagements.

~~~
retsibsi
> First... people with bad _soft skills_ don't have the ability to self-
> reflect and admit it, as you have. Give yourself some credit.

This is a nice sentiment but I don't think it's true. 'Soft skills' is a
pretty broad category, and you can definitely be bad at some of them without
being arrogant or oblivious.

(I'm confident that this is more than just a technical possibility, because I
think it applies in my own case: I'm aware of and willing to admit many of my
flaws, but that doesn't always save me from awkwardness, underdeveloped social
instincts, etc. I can even manage to come across as arrogant, despite having
quite a low opinion of myself.)

------
tluyben2
I started two small software companies before uni because no one would hire
me; note that those were very different times (80s-early 90s); now people
would have hired me. Both companies still exist and both are still profitable.
I have never had ‘a job’ in my life, so you can say the experience was a
positive one.

------
joelrunyon
I graduated in 2009 and couldn't get a job due to the recession (and me having
a poor understanding that "graduating" was not all employers were looking
for).

I ended up doing what I now would call an "apprenticeship" and then eventually
turning that into a job and then my own business.

------
chad_strategic
This post is literary the story of my life...

After 20 years in the Marine Corps, I don't have the "polish" to work in
corporate world and need the intensity of a start up or my own business.

My frustrations, probably started here: [http://www.strategic-
options.com/insight/you-cant-have-more-...](http://www.strategic-
options.com/insight/you-cant-have-more-than-10-years-of-experience-on-rails/)

In that time, I have had numerous run ins with trying to find job in the
FinTech and Tech.

[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/how-do-you-get-a-
jo...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/how-do-you-get-a-job-in-
algorithmic-trading/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15551623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15551623)

[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-or-
worst-w...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-or-worst-way-to-
decline-a-technical-interview/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9107657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9107657)

[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/best-cover-
letter-e...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/best-cover-letter-ever-
or-worst-cover-letter-ever/)

With all that said... I think that I have finally come to terms with the fact
I'm not corporate guy and ageism seems to be running rampant in the tech
field. If I'm going survive over the long term, I'm going to have to carve out
a space for myself. About a month ago, recommitted myself to a strategy of
carving out a space for myself in the FinTech space or working in some form of
start up that I have a stake in, immediately I feel a "H E double hockey
sticks" better about my career future. Soon after I wrote this educational /
semi self promotional piece, I picked up some side work in the next week. Side
work in this case, is step in the right direction and eases the pain of my
minding numbing, over paid programming job. (but I'm grateful to have a job,
cause there are times I haven't and being unemployed is a horrible burden.)

[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-and-
worst-...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/the-best-and-worst-stock-
and-option-trading-apis/)

------
nijynot
Jack Ma.

------
Jemmeh
Thing is most businesses take time to build. If you're in "dire need", like
really about to starve, you probably would take a job you might even be
overqualified for.

------
jason_slack
I am considering starting a business right now to fill a gap in the insurance
industry. The company I worked for just wont step up so I put in 2 weeks
notice.

------
j45
Many immigrants become entrepreneurs because there is no place for them among
average joes.

------
fapjacks
I did, twice, and I'm about to go on a third run (though this time it's not
because of any particular run of back luck with the job market). I have a
weird-looking resume that doesn't look quite right at first blush, and most of
the hiring decisions that brought me on board I later found out were someone
"taking a chance" on me. I was in the Guard for many years, and deployed a lot
( _a lot_ ). Even though it's against the law, startups just don't have the
resources to give up a team member and save their spot while they deploy. I
actually completely grok this. But for most of my adult life, it looks like
I've jumped from job to job with weird breaks in between, which is a huge red
flag. I'm actually pretty good at what I do, if you'll pardon me for saying
so, and so I have a pretty good network to lean on _now_ , but throughout my
20s I didn't truly understand the power of one's network and so didn't
cultivate relationships that I should have. No problem, life lesson. We aren't
all jumping out of our mother's womb in full armor swinging a chain.

Anyway, I have had both success and failure when I started my own businesses.
The first time was a failure, but I saw it at the time as a success, because I
had to make rent, and it paid the rent. I literally sat there with a notepad
thinking of things I could do in less than 60 days to make rent. Incidentally,
I have always paid rent one month ahead of time. It's just something I started
doing by chance when I was 16, and it turned out to be the difference between
having a place to sleep and living in my car or out on the street.

Anyway, that paid the rent but wasn't sustainable. Everything was wrong with
it, since I thought I was smarter than everyone hah! But that was another life
lesson, that the world is full of way smarter people, and history even fuller.
The second time I started a business I was much older, late-20s, and by then
had worked at a bunch of startups and a network full of sensors (the army says
"every soldier is a sensor" and likewise your friends and professional network
are like your sensors) and also had been taking notes the entire time. I still
take notes every day on the things I learn, the decisions I make, or people
around me are making and why, if I can discern it, or if they'll tell me when
I ask (another life lesson about taking notes). That time I consider it a
success, because the people I started the business with are still running it
today, and I was able to sell out of my share of the business. I went back
into working at startups (because that's where the action is yolo), and now
I'm feeling the itch _really_ badly. This time around I've got solid business
partners / cofounders on board, and few "green leaderbooks" full of notes and
ideas (another army thing) and a couple servers full of prototyped side
projects. I've got enough saved to bootstrap whatever we do and most
importantly, as a lifelong transient with wanderlust, I feel that same
comfortable feeling of "going places and doing things and taking risks" that
won't let me put down roots in one place for too long. Sorry for all the text,
but that's my story.

------
anoncoward111
Sales engineer here. I tried to start a variety of businesses when I was laid
off from my last job, where I lasted for 4 years.

I tried to get clients for my life coaching biz (budget, brain, and brawns as
I called it). Got some traction at just 7 bux a month (I was living in Chile),
but not enough once I moved back to NY.

I also tried to test product market fit for a site i was developing (a curated
list of multi-month foreign apartment leases), but that was too expensive for
me to scale.

Ultimately, making a prototype and getting some users wasnt even the hardest
part. It was trying to grow past that base and make the unit economics work
that was impossible, maybe even with outside funding.

After one year of job hunting, I found another sales engineering position that
Im happy with :)

~~~
sahil-kang
If you don’t mind sharing, how did you go about testing the product-market fit
for your apartment website?

~~~
anoncoward111
Of course, my pleasure :) I'll send you an email too just to say hi.

So, in my case, I was living in Chile and I had booked tickets to Thailand and
Japan (Ironically I ended up moving back to the USA for a full time job that I
wasn't planning on landing!!)

In Chiang Mai Thailand, specifically, you can book a 1-3 month apartment for
about $150 a month USD cash. They speak english, there's no lease, no
craziness. And only a few guest houses offer these types of prices and terms,
so you really had to hear about it from a friend of a friend type situation.

So I wanted to build a site that was a "curated list" of these apartments. And
I didn't even have firm data, names and numbers of landlords, availability,
etc. I just wanted to make something that looked and felt like airbnb, but was
light-weight and mobile friendly (text, css, and basic js only. site load
files of just a few KB not MB!!!)

So, I mocked it up, and made some posts to some reddits and discords where I
was only sort of a contributing member. I basically said, "guys, all of us are
having a lot of problems finding legit landlords with good terms and prices
abroad. I have a list of a few that are good, but I want to scale it out and
make it available as like a public service to our channel. Is this something
you guys would read? aka, is it worth my time to do this for fun?"

And the response was overwhelming. "YES! I want to see this list!" and "Thank
you so much!!! I'm having no luck booking a room right now". and etc etc.
People I've never heard of messaging me for months, "Did you finish it yet?"

From a technical standpoint, the site was a success. It looked and felt like a
responsive airbnb that worked on any device. The problem was that it was
extremely, extremely difficult to collect data of any kind. Language barriers,
not network effects, nothing. These landlords are so hard to find, they're
like ghosts!!!

So the product fell dormant because of an inability to scale to the level of
service needed for it to be useful. But the demand is there, and the
grassroots method I used to discover that demand was really successful and
mostly by accident ;)

~~~
alfredallan1
I know the line of business you’re talking about - getting landlords to list
their properties. It is a gnarly problem, but one that’s solvable. The catch
is that it is truly hyper local.

You can’t do Thai from Chile. It needs to be done by being physically present
in different major Thai destinations that you want to list, going from door to
door to meet the landlords you already know about, and to discover other you
don’t know about. It is literally a pariah dog’s job while you’re getting
started (and you’ll graduate into a working dog’s job if you’re successful),
but once you have established basic rapport and have the contact numbers (not
just emails) of the landlords, you could very well just call from from a nice
Thai beach, as long as you maintain periodic physical contact. It is great
that the app is polished, but additionally (if you already havent) you’ll have
to make the technical side such that it is extremely easy to update - and the
owners can do it themselves. Convice the owners to do it themselves. Make a
few local friends who speak English, and are young and hungry, make them
commissioned agents. Take them along with you, assign each renter to an agent,
and be fair (and initially generous) with the agents. But be sure you the
“keys” are with only you.

If you do it right, and are able to be accepted into the culture (important to
behave as they do, be very humble, and give up the traditional
“confidence”/arrogance commonly espoused in western society), and be sociable
enough to blend in with the landlords, you might become a social phenomenon,
and get many more landlords through word of mouth. I strongly recommend you
give a serious go, physically, hyper-locally, town-to-town, house-to-house.
Not just make the app and expect that the supply side will come looking (the
demand side will, you’ve already figured that out). You have to go to them,
convince them, request them, implore to them, show them the money, and the
potential market (don’t expect them to understand the benefits straight off
the bat). You’ll also get into trouble when a renter trashes a place. When you
do, either sell to AirBnB or hire experienced people from that company. When
you pull it off, you’ll be like a mini/local airbnb, and worth a decent
fraction of what they’re worth.

Understand that this is a supply-demand business. Your demand will be off the
internet. Market it the way you know. The supply part is very different. Do
Thai landlords frequent Reddit in droves?

------
stealthmodeclan
One of my friends who is a successful entrepreneur (bootstrapped, high double
digit million yearly revenue) now recals that he never managed to find a job
because he looks arogant.

He also lacks apathy. (I think it's some medical condition and not something
sinster).

He is very honest and trustworthy but sometimes he ends up insulting us like
Linus. But he is also super talented, so we ignore his cons as limitations
beyond his control.

Currently, he is GP of our VC fund. He is lot better!

So he had no choice but to bootstrap his own company.

~~~
akanet
Did you mean empathy instead of apathy?

------
spidfire22
Elon musk did

~~~
whitepoplar
Did Elon get rejected or did he just say "Fuck it, I don't want a job"?

~~~
jamestimmins
I believe he couldn't get a job at Netscape, as he didn't have a formal CS
background. Unclear if he applied for other jobs or just this one.

~~~
dboreham
Not to contradict Elon, but: I worked at Netscape and did not have a "formal
CS background" nor did I ever ask interview candidates about their formal
background. recall we hired a guy who's previous job was mixing a Nine inch
Nails album. Fantastic coder..

In my experience the whole "must have formal background" began with Google,
some years later.

~~~
twilightcircus
Do you remember if it was Steve Duda, the guy who owns XFER Records? He was an
engineer for NIN in the late 90's.

