
I Quit My Job. Here’s How I Planned the Start as an Entrepreneur - mratiebatie
https://medium.com/@sjorsvandongen/i-quit-my-job-heres-how-i-planned-the-start-as-an-entrepreneur-7bc546631431
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hehsjsbb
If I understand the timeline:

\- July 2019 - start first full time job

\- early 2020 - 6 months unpaid leave

\- June 2020 - quit job to start company

\- August 2020 - blog post about how to quit your job

So someone with less than a year of full time experience who seemingly hasn't
actually built a business is giving me advice on how to successfully quit my
job? I guess that's the part they've succeeded at so far.

~~~
cheez
How to become an entrepreneur (from someone who has actually done it):

    
    
      - Get income from other people via job
      - Learn
      - Come up with idea
      - Test market in 2 weeks for < $100
      - Rinse and repeat until market test gives positive results you can't ignore
      - Quit job
      - Release version 1 in 2 weeks
      - Have income by 4 week mark
      - If no income by 4 week mark, u fucked up, get a job

~~~
skynica
How high should the income be though? A few existing clients of mine were
willing and did change to my platform, but how do you know if the business is
scalable/will be competitive against other large businesses?

~~~
stingraycharles
While helpful, I do believe these types of “rules” should not be followed as
if they’re set in stone. Adapt them to your own situation.

In my case I had success with a fairly complex big data platform, there would
be no way a version could be released in such short a time. This didn’t
matter, as I followed a slightly different strategy.

A different way of looking at things is thinking about what can do wrong, and
working back on trying to mitigate things. There’s a big, big difference in
strategy you need to take if you need, say, a thousand paying clients in order
to be “ramen profitable” vs one big client. I work in the latter space, and we
managed to find a way for our first customer to partially fund the development
of the platform, the money they would get back once the “monthly payments”
would otherwise be arriving.

Totally different approach, but it’s one hell of a validation of an idea
without taking on too much risk!

~~~
cheez
Well said. Yes of course those rules aren't set in stone but the idea is
remove as much risk as possible, as cheaply as possible.

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eloff
I would actually recommend not quitting your job to be an entrepreneur. I did
it, and as the money ran out I couldn't even focus anymore and made poor
decisions. It seriously affected my self esteem as a man. It might be
different if you're single and young and can get your expenses really low. But
I am married and was supporting my wife in her education.

I strongly advise getting a part time job and bootstrapping in peace knowing
you have the bills covered. The change of pace switching between tasks is not
unwelcome, and I feel like I can make better decisions without a gun to my
head. I don't feel like I'm losing any productivity.

I also have the resources to hire someone to do e.g. Some of the front-end
development that I'm not that good at anyway, if I chose to.

~~~
stingraycharles
I concur. It’s so stressful when the clock starts ticking: suddenly you are
racing against time, which may cause a certain kind of desperation, which
makes you make poor choices.

Most of the things the poster is doing, like figuring out “what type of
business do I want to start?”, are absolutely things you must find out before
you quit your job.

I would even go further and say that one should already validate the business
idea before quitting. Once you figure out what you want, you can perhaps start
slowly scaling down work (I know working 4 days a week is very common in .nl)
and use the extra day to validate the business.

All in all, I’d say that following the advice mentioned in the article is not
good for starting entrepreneurs.

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CommieBobDole
So he's spent a month of his six-month runway, and what he's accomplished so
far is writing a journal and rating a bunch of fields of business on how much
he might theoretically enjoy starting a company in one of them.

Starting a business is about getting things done. Thinking about what things
you might possibly want to get done in the future, or making charts about
things that you aren't getting done is a pleasant way to avoid getting things
done, but it doesn't really get you any closer to your goal.

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KennyLogins
This is almost comedic at the complete lack of self-awareness. Once it got the
to happiness rating of e-commerce and starting a podcast, I half expected the
next paragraph to be an MLM pitch.

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simonbarker87
This isn’t advice, this is marketing. Dudes been in the workforce for a year
and intended to spend half of this time travelling and has now quit.

I wish him all the best but this isn’t the way to do it if you really want to
make it on your own.

I ran a company for nearly a decade straight out of uni and can tell you it’s
horrendous to have no income and no fall back, I got through it with a lot of
luck and making some some funding decisions that ultimately killed the
business.

Start small, grow on the side, build something stable and then go full time -
or raise a boat load of VC and hope for the best.

------
skmurphy
I really like Derek Sivers "Change Careers Like Tarzan" model
[https://sive.rs/tarzan](https://sive.rs/tarzan)

"I get emails from many people who want to make a big change in their career.

Each one wants to quit their current career, and boldly leap into their new
venture or preferred lifestyle.

When they ask my advice, they think I’m going to say, “Yes! Quit! Go for it!”

But instead, they’re surprised at my suggestion:

Remember how Tarzan swings through the jungle? He doesn’t let go of the
previous vine until the next vine is supporting his weight.

So my advice is: Change careers like Tarzan.

Don’t let go of the old one until the new one is supporting you.

And make sure you don’t lose momentum."

~~~
peteradio
Its tough to take advice based on analogy to a fictional character.

~~~
skmurphy
Think of it as taking advice from a successful serial entrepreneur who is
using a metaphor.

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meritt
He quit his job at a consultancy to become a solo consultant. Groundbreaking.

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debarshri
Dutch government has lot of benefits and Grants for people who wish to create
their own company. I would recommend applying for them in worst case scenario

~~~
stingraycharles
WBSO and MIT come to mind. WBSO only works well if you already have some
source of income, though, which can be from a part time job.

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loriverkutya
With economy going down the drain and nobody sees the end of the tunnel, I'm
not sure, that leaving your job is the best decision, because as it was
mention in the article:

"The worst thing that can happen is that I don’t earn any money in the next 6
months and I’ll have to find a job again."

Not sure how the job market will look in February, but pretty sure, not as
nice as before Covid.

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skynica
Says “only action leads to results” then lists out 9 different things you
should plan out... lol

And don’t get me started on Tony Robbins

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devmunchies
It’s almost impossible to start a business by yourself.

Your first 5 years of your career are vital because you’re making connections
that you can leverage when starting a new venture.

But starting by yourself AND having almost no understanding of how the
industry works. No chance. This type of move kills career trajectories.

~~~
simonbarker87
If my business had failed in the first 4 years I’d have been toast. As it was
killing the business after 8 years was still hard enough to build a new career
from. Starting a business in your early 20s is fun, it can work out and you
will learn a lot but if it tanks you’ll have been better off starting in a
normal job 9 times out of 10

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kanobo
You'll probably want to validate the R in your ROI ratings with the people who
will be using your product as quickly as possible instead of making educated
guesses. There have been many times where my expectations of return were
completely wrong.

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zachshefska
I feel like this may be relevant: [https://shefska.com/blog/i-quit-my-
job](https://shefska.com/blog/i-quit-my-job)

I documented my decision making process leading up to leaving the firm I was
COO at. I was 24, and making $200k per year. I still knew entrepreneurship was
the right decision. So glad I made the leap!

