
Ask HN: How Did You Escape 9 to 5? - vi1rus
Title says it all.<p>How did you escape your 9 to 5 job to start your own business?<p>I am curious about how you effectively spent your time while having a full time job and a side business and at what time did you decide to take the full plunge.
======
codegeek
My story. I worked my ass off for 10+ years, saved a little bit of extra cash
after paying off most loans and then bought an online business that I was
interested in.

I tried doing both for 2 months in parallel. One day I woke up and said "F*k
this. I am done. Gotta quit". I then went to my boss and gave him the notice.
I did calculate my risks as the business was just bringing in enough to keep
me floating (with 2 kids and a wife). However on Day 1, my income was down by
almost 75% (ouch, wifey was not quite happy but she supported)

Been 2 years since then and never been happier. It is tough, income is still
less than I what I made in my cushy job but I will not give it up for that 9-5
bullshit. No more traffic to deal with (I hardly drive during rush hours now),
no more commute (I work from where ever i want, mostly home office), I can
take time off if I want or I could work on weekends if I want. The business
runs 24-7 but I Don't have to.

Of course, not everyone is in a similar situation but we all have a path if
you really want to do it. Bottomline is that you have to really really want
this. It is almost like an addiction to do your own thing and not work in a
shitty (Even if highly paid) 9-5 job. My job was so easy barring the shit
commute. I could go in, talk to users all day, run projects, write some code
and at the end of the day, I will get a big fat paycheck. People loved me at
my job. I loved them back. Easy as hell. But I didn't want that anymore. I was
not up to it anymore. I wanted to quit my "cushy" job.

~~~
kentosi
"... and then bought an online business ..."

Where do you find businesses to buy? Is there a site for this or is it just a
word of mouth thing? I'm curious.

~~~
manuelflara
Feinternational.com has been recommended here often.

~~~
mbostleman
Also flippa.com

------
malux85
It was just brute force.

I worked every evening, every weekend, on the tube on the way to and from the
office. During my lunch hours. My coworkers knew not to interrupt me during
lunch, because I always took a sandwich to the same desk, put my headphones
on, and worked.

Have you seen that comic "You must burn", that's exactly it. It's painful,
there's moments of crippling self doubt, there's moments when you'd rather be
doing literally anything else, but you must burn through them.
[https://startupiceland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/you-
must-...](https://startupiceland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/you-must-
burn_1024x1024.jpg)

I had several failures. I launched an iPad app that failed. I launched several
webapps that failed. In total, 4 "product launches" that failed and crashed
and burnt, and countless more mini-projects that never finished or caught
traction.

It took me years to get my first B2B client, but once I got it, I didn't have
to work ever again, now I have 5 clients, and am concentrating on launching
new products and growing and partnering.

~~~
vi1rus
Is this the article you are referencing?

[http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/10/be-on-
fire.html](http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/10/be-on-fire.html)

Cause that picture is now my new wallpaper...

Also it sounds like you have a similar path to mine. Launch stuff, fail,
launch again stop mid way when no traction, launch, fail.

Mind if I ask what you are doing that having 5 clients is all you need to be
self-sufficient?

~~~
malux85
Yes that's the article! I love that picture too.

I am doing media monitoring, I collect vast amounts of data on social
networks, p2p, rss, webscraping ... then built reporting tools on top of it -
high level trend reporting, customer segmentation for acquisition and brand
targeting, planogram computing based on collaborative filtering, an entire
media and brand intelligence platform.

I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k a
year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and have an
insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;)

~~~
fspear
> I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k
> a year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and
> have an insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;)

Please teach me how to do this. I will pay you for your time.

~~~
malux85
I'm developing a Deep Learning platform that helps with rapid data ingestion
and model creation and training, all with a web GUI. It's intended to be an
"accelerator" to take all of the boring engineering out and allows you to
focus on the data science.

I'm about 1-2 weeks away from launching into beta, if you're interested I can
provide you with a machine, a license for the platform, and consulting on how
to search for profitable strategies.

My contact details are in my profile :)

------
adamcharnock
Put simply: Being in control of my own time, day rate, and outgoings.

I grew up in a very entrepreneurial environment, so after university I took a
full-time job for 12 months (as a junior dev) then went freelance. I started
cheap and upped my rate by £50 for every new project I took.

During the 10 years I've been freelancing I also came up with my quality of
life ratio, which is: How long does it take me to earn a month's rent? This
balances both increasing my day rate with reducing my outgoings. It currently
takes me 4 hours to earn a month's rent.

I currently work for around 3 months per year, which gives me cash to spare. I
also live in a communal warehouse. I had to build my own bedroom (which now
looks awesome), but rent + communal food + bills comes out at about 1/2 - 1/3
what most would pay.

I've also spent a few years running my own startups during this time. None
were what I would call successful, but neither did any afford me the quality
of life that freelancing does.

I loose around 50% - 75% of prospective work because I'm too expensive, but
that is fine and something I account for. I also have a number of more junior
developer friends I can field this work off to.

With my free time (and funds) I'm currently working on setting up a community
in rural Portugal.

~~~
orky56
Since you're only working 3 months per year & assuming those are consecutive,
how much time/effort do you need to queue up another 3 months of work after
being out of the game for 9 months? Having to keep your profile/reputation
fresh and letting existing/new clients know seems nearly impossible.

~~~
adamcharnock
I tend to take on one significant project per year, i.e. on that looks good on
the CV. Generally work comes along through word of mouth, but if I'm getting
itchy for work I'll start mentioning it to old clients/colleagues etc.

I generally also spend some time off working on my own open source projects
too. Reading HN helps me stay up-to-date too :-)

~~~
orky56
Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you have a very solid reputation and network.
Nice job!

------
ef4
After college I spent six years working at a good tech company. In addition to
a lot of great learning, it allowed me to build a big financial cushion. I
continued living on a graduate-student-like budget with a software engineer
salary, so I saved about half my after-tax income.

This generates one year of runway for every year worked. But my savings also
grew thanks to some solid investments, so after six years I had ten years of
runway.

Over the subsequent four years I spent down about 30% of my savings while
working on startups of my own (I made some revenue, I took some small angel
investment). Relationships and expertise that I built in the process allowed
me to pivot into running a lucrative consultancy.

Before somebody says "you can only do that if you're young and unattached", I
will add that I got married before I finished school, and our first child was
born the same year I quit my tech industry job.

~~~
pkd
That is highly impressive. I would like to be able to save 50% of my net
income, but I have found that I have very little control over spending and end
up saving only around 20%.

~~~
bigato
That means that for each five months working, you build up reserves enough to
last you one month without working. It's not a lot, but it's something. Now
make some effort to push it to a 33% savings rate, and for each three months
worked, you'll have one month of expenses saved. And so on. At some point, it
becomes a game of cutting expenses and raising income.

If you get to live on 20/25% of your income and invest the rest, in 5 to 6
years you should have enough invested to pay your expenses for the rest of
your life, assuming an yearly average return of 4% over inflation. This
formula was made popular by Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme
blog/book/forum/wiki:
[http://earlyretirementextreme.com](http://earlyretirementextreme.com)

------
rloc
I was employed by a big US tech company in France (8+ years). I left a few
months ago to grow my own startup.

I've been working on the side project for 3 years before that. It's a SaaS web
+ mobile app. I worked on this project in my spare time (nights and sometimes
during weekends). It was solving a problem that I was dealing with personally
and I bet I was not the only one. The great thing with a side project is that
you have no pressure and you can code features fast at the beginning. It was
still a lot of work though but you don't feel it when it's your baby.

When it started to get traction (feedback from users is critical at this
point) and some healthy revenue, I decided to take the plunge. France give you
the opportunity to continue to earn something like 70% of your previous
revenue (estimation, there are calculations rules) for 2 years in the case you
create a new business.

I believe I found the motivation because my daily job was project manager but
my side project was more of a developer job. Coding your own product without
all the pain that a PM needs to resolve was a breath of fresh air. Combining
the two competencies was also an advantage for learning to be an entrepreneur
(even though I was more of a newbie as a developer compared to the devs I was
working with in my previous company).

Now I'm enjoying it, I hired a few interns and joined an incubator in Paris.

~~~
tobz
Whoa whoa whoa, tell me more about the thing with France and collecting a
percentage of your previous salary. How does all of that work? Who pays for
it?

~~~
rloc
It's paid by the state while you look for another job (national employment
agency). If your plan is to create a new company instead of looking for a new
job you can get the aid as well. They'll usually leave you (almost) alone as
long as you prove that you created a company and that you're not getting any
salary of course.

It's great and something that doesn't make the news so much. It could be
viewed as a state funding program. The state will get back much more in taxes
and employment when and if the startup takes off.

~~~
tobz
Wow, that's neat. I'm assuming there are regulations around it, like being a
French national or something along those lines?

Either way, thanks for pointing this out. That's an incredible benefit.

------
marktangotango
Personlly, I have a family, mortgage, and full time job as a developer. I did
an hour a day of 'car coding' with my laptop tethered to my cell phone, an
hour here or there in the evenings and weekends. Took about 6 months to build
an MVP and launch. Still working 9-5 though, and tweaking the product and
message. I wrote up some details below.

[https://medium.com/@m.taylor/zero-to-mvp-thirty-minutes-
at-a...](https://medium.com/@m.taylor/zero-to-mvp-thirty-minutes-at-a-
time-d4661446e081)

------
ryandrake
Almost all of these replies involve growing a side project at home while
remaining employed. I was under the impression most employers (at least in
tech) do not allow this. Aren't you worried that your former employer will
come knocking when your successful, asserting ownership over what you built?
Where do you find companies that are cool with this? I've asked about
tolerance of side-projects during interviews and have always got very clear,
unambiguous "Work on only our company's stuff or GTFO" responses.

Also curious about how many of the "saved <double digit> percent of my salary
for years" stories happened in the Bay Area with its impossible cost of
living. And if so, did you do this with a family? How? I consider my lifestyle
extremely frugal, yet I couldn't imagine saving enough capital to start a
business in 10 or even 20 years.

~~~
pre
I've refused to sign employment contracts which push all "IP" into the
employers ownership saying things like "You don't get to own my graphic-novel
or my band's songs or whatever just coz you pay me to write some web-app"

I've never had them refuse to amend that clause in the face of that. Maybe
it's different outside the UK.

If they did refuse to amend, I'd continue the job hunt basically. I probably
don't wanna work for a company that inflexible anyway.

Also, contracting works well for owning your own IP. Contractor clients
appreciate you have other clients too and don't usually even try to demand
exclusive ownership of the product of your mind.

~~~
bitwize
I once had an employer try to get me to agree to let them use my name, voice,
and likeness for any purpose whatever (including _specifically_ for marketing
purposes). I told them I refuse to let them use those things for _any_ purpose
outside the company and I got an amended contract that same day.

------
giltleaf
I essentially used the 4 hour workweek script and am somewhere in the middle
of that timeline, setting up my business now. 1. Figured out how to get all of
my work done super fast 2. Started taking days off and working remotely using
my above efficiency skills to put more and more time into my side project
while still meeting all of my deadlines and obligations 3. Negotiated a remote
and part time contract that only has me in the office 3 days a week. 4. Grind.

I'm still in the setup phase of my business (a hydroponics farm/green wall
installations) but being able to devote entire days to getting going has been
immensely helpful.

I started working the new contract about a month and a half ago. It was hard
staying focused at first and I was a little too happy - go - lucky with my
newfound freedom (Overwatch). So, while I was getting everything done for my
9-5, I've been moving slowly on the farm. Things have been better these past
two weeks and I'm excited to get cranking in a serious way.

I should note that before I had even considered building a business or taking
this step, I'd been doing research for the past 4 or so years that started my
last semester in undergrad. I'd also done many small scale, non commercial
projects for different clients in the evenings/weekends before I made the
jump. Like another poster, to me, this is the equivalent to grad school. I
could spend a bunch of money on an MBA and learn some things, or I could start
this business, learn hands on, and potentially walk away with profit instead
of debt.

~~~
jventura
>> 1\. Figured out how to get all of my work done super fast

I always assumed that, as developers, we couldn't afford to automate writing
code (as Tim's proposition is originally to automate the income), and so you
do your work faster. Can you comment how you do that, how did you buy your
remote time from that, etc.?

~~~
giltleaf
I'm not a developer, I'm a researcher. However, a big take away from the book
for me that I'd imagine would apply to developers as well was not answering
emails or going to meetings. He get's into how to do this politely and
gradually, and it's definitely saved me time.

The gist of it is, generally, no matter how huffy the person at the other end
is, what they're sending you is probably not an emergency. That being said,
you can afford to batch your emails so you are only going through and
responding to them once or twice a day as opposed to constantly losing your
train of thought to reply to them or read them. This might not exactly apply
to you, but reading 4hww got me to consciously think what sorts of things I
might be able to cut. Actually taking the time to notice what those things are
could help anybody I'd guess.

I got my remote time from that because I've been working at the same org for 2
years and have kept track of my wins/successes. I've gotten a lot of those
because I've learned to be more efficient using ideas like the ones above.
Over those two years, I've also noticed that our org has a problem retaining
mid level employees and so I was able to leverage that when talking about
remote time as well.

So I'm not automating my income, but I am saving time by cutting unnecessary
tasks.

------
Orthanc
A viral video ([https://youtu.be/rNu8XDBSn10](https://youtu.be/rNu8XDBSn10))
that turned into a whole career.

~~~
pkd
Are you really CGP Grey? If you are, it is amazing that I run into you on HN.

~~~
Orthanc
Yup it's me. Not a frequent poster on HN, mostly a lurker.

------
jeffwilder
I left my cushy job two months ago. For years I tried to build various
products (SaaS) on the side to facilitate the move. I was never able to get
enough traction mostly because I wasn't able to devote enough time. I realized
that I'd be never really be free unless I took a leap.

I'm launching my first official product in Sept. and have been consulting to
pay the bills. The consulting has been good...perhaps a little too good as I
feel myself getting pulled away from the product as I'm still busy after
raising my rates a few times already.

~~~
grahamburger
Wow that sounds familiar. I'm consulting and trying to launch a product in
October, while realizing I've kind of stumbled in to my own little software
consultancy. I just had to hire a guy to keep up with the consulting load, and
I've raised my rates a few times.

~~~
jtrtoo
How's that (the hiring) going? Are you subcontracting?

------
csallen
I did remote contract front-end development for about 3 years. Working
contracts gave me a TON of flexibility to work on my own projects on the side.
I also tried to take high-paying contracts and save as much money as I could.
When my last contract ended, I had enough money in the bank to survive for ~18
months without another paycheck, even while paying rent in SF. Currently, I'm
about 9 months into that.

I've worked on several projects since then, one of which (TaskforceApp.com) is
making $500-$1500/mo. The other I just launched on HN about 3 weeks ago:
[http://www.IndieHackers.com](http://www.IndieHackers.com). It's gotten almost
300k pageviews since launch, and I've lined up some awesome sponsors who
combined are contributing about $1000/mo. My plan is to keep growing the site
by adding interviews, writing more blog posts, and adding forums/AMAs.

If you're interested in hearing lots of other stories similar to this (most of
which are more impressive), I recommend checking out Indie Hackers. I publish
average monthly revenue stats in addition to interviews with the founders
behind all these companies.

~~~
codegeek
I have been watching indiehackers since you shared on HN. It looks really good
and high quality stuff. Another bookmark for me as I obsess with the various
products being shared and their stories. The revenue transparency is an icing
on the cake :)

~~~
csallen
Sweet, I'd love to hear your feedback/ideas sometime! @csallen

------
blisterpeanuts
I didn't escape my 9-to-5 job to start my own business (hoping to, eventually)
but I did become full time work-from-home which is about 75% as good.

I pretty much set my own hours, start work between 8am and 9am and end between
5pm and 6pm.

Some days I really get nothing done -- right now we're in the midst of buying
a house, and I must confess I'm spending lots of time communicating with the
lender and broker, packing, etc.

Other days, I work until midnight to get stuff done. It feels a bit like being
self-employed, but of course you still take orders. But you also have the
backing and resources of a larger organization. Kind of a transition to self-
employment, you might say.

I do have a side business of playing music for weddings and other occasions,
but that's pocket change and will never turn into full time.

~~~
vi1rus
I can also work from home pretty much every day. I avoid it because I have 4
kids at home, and it's kind of a zoo.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Yeah, we have kind of a strict rule here that during business hours I'm not to
be disturbed. Luckily, my daughter's in school 8am-3pm now, and then she often
is ferried around to after-school activities, so the house is pretty quiet
during the school year. So you have something to look forward to, hopefully :)

------
kowdermeister
I'm just opting in the 9-5 :) Not everybody has what it takes to run a
business.

I'll do two things:

\- Build and MVP and try to find paying customers. Once the money is flowing
in, I might take a venture again into the startup world.

\- Use a few hours / day to build the thing and start to look for a business
co-founder.

~~~
blowski
Agreed - I actually _like_ 9-5. It's nice to have a break now and again, but I
like daily routine of going to an office, seeing colleagues, etc.

~~~
jackfrodo
Exactly. And I read earlier on here that for lots of companies, for each year
you've been at a company you can do a remote day a week. Sounds perfect to me.

------
djsumdog
I'm on my way out. I had a break in a few years back and lost everything. So I
sold what I had left, took my savings and went backpacking for a year:

[http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/](http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/)

I had dreams of getting into grad school, but that didn't work out and I ran
out of money ($20k NZD) so now I'm back in America working software. It's soul
draining.

I'm not an entrepreneur. I have no desire to start my own business. Right now
I'm saving until my lease expires. Then I plan on selling everything and doing
something crazy again.

I might look for writing residencies. I have a film I'm self-funding a demo
for in order to crowdfund the rest. I'm looking at fellowships. I'd like to
get the film started while still employed and quit work once it's funded and
I'm over 50% done with its development.

If all else fails, I'll buy a car and live of my savings, driving around
America for a year or so while perusing some of these things mentioned. The
2nd major option I'm thinking of is getting another Australian work visa and
taking another dev job or finding a writing residency there.

The thing is: I have no kids, family or debt. My parents came from poverty and
my father spent ever dime on making sure his kids had a debt free college
education. I feel like these things artificially limit others, but they
shouldn't.

If you're religious (I'm not), missionary work is something you can do with
your family. I also have a close friend teaching English in Germany and just
allows her college debt to grow (we'll have forgiveness eventually. Either
that or she'll eventually get her German citizenship and renounce the American
one).

------
jasonkester
I think the key is to have a Safety Net. If you're lucky, you get one for free
at birth. If not, you need to build it yourself during the first several years
of 9-5ing.

Once you know for a fact that you can coast along for an entire year if things
go south, life gets a lot better. You can start consulting and not have to
sweat the occasional dry spell. You can build income generating products after
work or during those blessed dry spells. You can do all that stuff remotely
while dialing up your leisure time activity of choice to whatever level feels
the most comfortable.

Better still, with a bit o' Safety Net, you'll be able to demonstrate to
yourself that you can quickly pick up contract and full-time gigs when you
need them. And you can emit artifacts that demonstrate to prospective
employers that they should grab on with both hands if you happen to signal
availability at any point. That helps a lot towards being able to bootstrap a
product business on the side.

Eventually, after much trial and error you'll find something that sticks. I
think for me it was something like Job Quittin' Side Project #6 that finally
started bringing in enough profit to replace the day job.

Finally, make sure you're having fun along the way. It's not supposed to be a
grueling heads down slog for however long it takes before you finally "win".
It's life. And it's most enjoyable if you actually take the time to enjoy it
while it's happening.

All the best! Let us know how it turns out.

------
hnjm0101
Curious why people here hate 9 - 5 so much. I can understand starting a
business if you have an idea you're passionate about and you're confident you
can make you more money than you can make working for someone else. But most
software development jobs actually allow you to have a lot of autonomy
(flexible hours, work remotely, etc), a place to socialize with people who are
likely going to have a lot in common with you and good pay with a nice safety
net. Venturing out on your own and starting your own business has none of
these things.. at least in the beginning, you are likely going to work more,
for less money, by yourself. I understand why the small subset of business
owners start their business for the reason I mentioned above, but I get the
impression a lot of people working 9 - 5 are just assuming the grass is
greener on the other side...

~~~
FilterSweep
Well here's why......

The benefits you listed, "flexible hours, work remotely, etc"

Are, indeed, nice, but they are actually _far_ more rare than you'd expect.
Many places still require 100% "facetime" _despite_ being able to commit &
deploy code and take calls remotely, and some that don't require "100%" still
will _hem and haw_ over days that you are not in the office.

Not everyone is sitting in an (over)funded startup with foosball tables, a
fridge full of beers, young & eclectic coworkers, and happy hours with the
coworkers every other day - where as long as you complete your projects
by/around deadline, you're happily well-employed.

And most are not in an area that complains over a "dearth of tech talent" and
have the liberty to hop from job to job without actively searching, taking the
time to interview several rounds, and locking in the second job before leaving
the first.

Labor Supply and Labor Demand have upmost influence on these factors, and with
thousands of _intelligent_ people finishing coding bootcamps every day, Supply
is far outpacing Demand.

The other key (and probably the biggest) benefit you're missing is
legitimately _coding for yourself_ with your own. You want to develop a
"Slither.IO" type game by yourself with PhoenixOnElixir as an un(der)employed
coder? Go for it. Because most of us aren't getting jobs at Blizzard or Riot.
You want to build a fitness app in a city with only financial/legal/logistic
coding jobs? Go for it! It's an unparalleled learning experience.

~~~
hnjm0101
Thanks for your response. I guess I've been coding long enough now that I just
view it as work and not fun (although I do enjoy other aspects of my job). I
do remember when I enjoyed coding just for fun so I can see the appeal of your
argument there.

I'm surprised to hear that supply is outpacing demand where you are. Where I
am (in Toronto), we always have a hard time hiring good people and it seems to
be getting more difficult.

~~~
FilterSweep
Thank you too. I agree that as I get more jaded, I consider it more "work"
than fun in C#, but at home when I get my webscraping/scripting jobs in Python
or even my front end styling working, I still get the thrill of achieving.
From what I've heard, even more jaded devs than myself enjoy it when the work
they produce is going to their own/their future employee's own benefit than
when they are working for someone else, underpaid.

Question for you: Is hiring good people refer to hiring good people, or hiring
people who pass your exams and interviews?

I'm still recently out of college, but when I first joined a company, our
interview questions were more along the lines of Palindrome/FizzBuzz and being
able to write good, simple SQL queries. We found out relatively quickly if you
were competent for the job, and if not, you were gone.

Now, even MVC/CRUD Apps are asking interviewees to complete Google coding
interview questions such as "Implement a Binary Search Tree" \- which most of
us even just a few years out, have not done for quite a while.

~~~
hnjm0101
Yeah I would never ask anything crazy like "implement a binary search tree" in
an interview. Our hiring is more like, look at someones resume, and if their
skills generally fit what we're hiring for and they actually know the things
on their resume and they don't seem extremely lazy/arrogant/(whatever
personality flaw that is hard to work with), then hire. A lot of the time we
bring them in to the interview and they don't actually know the things they
say they did on their resume. For example, if you claim to be experienced in
object oriented programming but have no clue what i'm talking about when I say
words like inheritance or polymorphism, you do not actually know object
oriented programming. You should also know how to do it in one of the
languages you say you know on your resume (I don't care if it is the language
we're hiring for, syntax can be learned quickly enough).

------
gk1
I was very interested in consulting after reading about it from Patrick
McKenzie and others. I especially loved the idea of having a choice of when,
how, on what, and with whom I work.

When my 9-to-5 job became unbearable (long hours, bad management, high stress,
etc), I finally decided to resign and give consulting a try. I didn't have a
specific plan, and I spent the next 3 months figuring things out while living
off my savings.

My backup plan was to return to 9-to-5 if I ever depleted all my savings
without getting any traction. Fortunately it never came to that (although it
got very close). Three years later I'm earning a very comfortable living
consulting and I get to work on super interesting projects with super
interesting companies.

I've written more about the experience here: [http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-
learned-to-get-consulting-le...](http://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-
get-consulting-leads/)

------
marpstar
I'm in the process of getting ready to make the plunge.

Right now doing 9-5 on top of part-time software consulting, mostly WordPress
sites with trendy front-end stuff, but with occasional custom-backend and
mobile app projects. I've partnered with a local design firm that outsources
development and they provide me a steady stream of projects generate a
majority of my side income). So far no marketing except for word-of-mouth
advertising from happy clients.

I'm on track to do over $50k this year, but I don't think I can scale this any
further without quitting my day job. My plan is to score another $XX,XXX
project in the near future, stock up on cash and health insurance for my
family, and finally take the leap.

My biggest concern is that we're dreaming of building a house in the next 3-5
years and how that'll affect my ability to secure a loan. We're planning on
having the land paid off before we begin construction, but I still need to
learn more.

Anyone have experience here?

------
the-dude
I was already doing some side-project while employed and my contract was not
renewed.

I took a 30% cut on my unemployment benefits so I had no obligation to find
work for 6 months. After unemployment benefits ended, I tried to find a bit of
investment and also did a KS. Both failed, so I started to eat a retirement
plan I still had.

Then I applied for another 3.5 months employment benefits ( was my right ),
and I simulated trying to find work.

Then it got really ugly and did some parttime barista work. Sold some
belongings.

Then the product got traction: [https://mecoffee.nl](https://mecoffee.nl)

------
dangravell
With the consent of my employer (another startup) I started in the mornings,
evenings and weekends with a very supportive partner.

The aforementioned employer then began to fail, and so I was extremely lucky
to be able to devote more and more time to my business as the aforementioned
startup started to ask people to work fewer hours.

Once I hit a revenue target agreed with my wife, I jumped ship:
[http://www.elstensoftware.com/blog/2011/01/21/going-
fulltime...](http://www.elstensoftware.com/blog/2011/01/21/going-fulltime/)

To lower the target required, I cut pretty much everything apart from the
mortgage and taxes.

In some ways I miss the constraint of working fewer hours - I think I had
better focus then; these days I do make a few mistakes with where I spend my
time.

------
eswat
Left my last full-time job in early 2014, jumping into freelancing with both
my old employer and past colleagues-turned-founders as my first clients.

The first year was insanely though - trying to find clients that would pay
what I desired - and I went through severe bouts of depression when Canadian
Winter hit. My close friends who knew about the situation told me to go back
to employment, I wasn’t cut out for this.

But I went through that trough of sorrow and hit many breaks in 2015 with
clients that valued me enough to more than make up the losses I had the
previous year. Fast-forward to today and I earn enough from consulting that I
spend more time on personal growth and working on my own projects than I need
to work with clients to sustain my living.

------
megalomanu
I work full-time on my website since 6 months, after two years of development
and growth when I was an employee. At first, it was only a little side-project
so I haven't done anything to prepare my exit to entrepreneurship. I've quit
my job when my partner and I we have felt a real potential for our website. I
guess it's less stressful in France than in other countries, because we have
in France the possibility to terminate the employment like a resignation, and
then receive comfortable unemployment benefits during two years. There is no
need to save money, and no pressure at the beginning of the startup.

Everyone has its own way to work on a side project. Personaly, I worked every
mornings, before work. Why ? Because my brain was fresher, my spirit less
crowded by external thoughts. I could go to work without frustration, with the
satisfaction of having worked on my own website. And at evening, I could hang
out with my girlfriend or friends without feeling guilty.

------
kohanz
I haven't fully done it yet, but am on my way. About 2.5 years ago I left my
9-5 career (about 8 years into it) to become a contractor/consultant,
basically continuing to do the same type of work, but for multiple clients,
with an hourly rate. This was at the same time that our first child was born.

It's probably the best decision I ever made. I'll make about 1.5x what I did
as a 9-5er this year while I probably worked less hours overall. I work from
home 80% of the time. No commute, so much less stress, I'm lucky to have great
long-term clients (who I wouldn't have been able to acquire without my
previous 9-5 time).

Eventually I want to bootstrap a startup - that's phase 2. I've built up
enough of a cushion, even though child #2 arrives in a month. I've got a side-
project going on that will hopefully turn into a business. I'm still figuring
out how to best transition, because right now the $ is good and difficult to
voluntarily turn down.

------
camhenlin
I woke up one day and realized that if I had to spend another day commuting
for nearly 2 hours a day to sit in an office that I hated, I would lose my
mind. So I quit and found a remote job. There are lots of remote companies out
there, find one

~~~
Calist0
Do you know if many remote companies offer part-time work?

------
throwaway2016a
I escaped my nine to five years ago... I'm now at a startup and I'm 6am to
10pm ;)

Mostly a joke.

~~~
karmajunkie
I had much the same comment, but less joke :)

------
marcoperaza
Not quite answering your question, but I quit my great tech job and decided to
burn my savings and go into debt by going to law school. At least consider
that maybe it's not the 9-5 that's the problem, but the line of work itself.
Being good at something doesn't mean you're passionate or motivated for it.
Depending on the kind of person you are, lack of passion/motivation can be an
insurmountable obstacle to being the best you can be, to being fulfilled by
your work.

~~~
vi1rus
I actually agree.

I have come to realize that 9 to 5 is not horrible, the key is self-
fulfillment and happiness. For most people they will be unhappy regardless of
the state of finances or work they do.

I realize that even if I have my own business it does not mean I won't have to
deal with things I don't like. What attracts me though is the financial
independence, having control of my future instead of someone else having
control of it.

~~~
cylinder
For me, it's control. I cannot stand idiot managers making decisions that have
such a significant impact on my life. Everything from major, broad issues down
to where my desk is located and the temperature of the office and when I have
to be in. You will still have to work everyday full-time, probably more, and
have different stresses, but I cannot fork over my autonomy to others in
exchange for a paycheck.

~~~
magic_beans
I am very similar. I recently started a cushy dev job at a big company, and
the micro-management, bureaucracy, and office politics drove me into a pretty
deep depression, to the point where I began to utterly dread coming into work.
I quit after two months and now I'm taking two months off to work on personal
projects...

I haven't truly escaped 9-5, but I'm finally excited to wake up in the morning
again.

------
tachibana
Diligent savings over many years combined with low-risk investments. The
stable income it generates now covers all living expenses for my family. I'm
still part of the 9-5 crowd by choice while I search for my next calling in
life. However, the main job is now more of a training ground and networking
center than a primary source of income.

~~~
shostack
Can you share what sort of investments drive the majority of your income?

~~~
tachibana
Mostly fixed income securities and fixed income-like assets (like real estate,
asset-backed loans, etc.). $10,000 invested at 4% brings in a little more than
$1/day.

Yes, the market value of the securities and assets may fluctuate day-to-day,
but the income doesn't. As long as the borrower is of sufficiently high
quality, then there really isn't any concern about the principal getting paid
back.

~~~
shostack
Thanks for sharing. Mind if I ask what your cost of living looks like? Seems
like it would take a large amount of capital to get a livable income off
conservative incoming-paying investments at 4%.

~~~
tachibana
My cost of living is about the same as the typical family with kids attending
good public schools along the SF Bay Area peninsula, but the approach should
be repeatable in most places. My expenses over the years has stabilized at
less than 50% of take-home salary (not including bonuses, equity grants, etc.)
for my main job, in line with a previous post of 30% of income. So the
absolute worst case scenario for a 4% return is 25 years.

In my particular case, I had saved all my bonuses (both cash and equity) and
most of the income from the aforementioned portfolio. I was also fortunate to
have held a consistent side job for most of my career.

------
paddi91
My 9-5 job got a bit boring after 5 years so I decided to work on an idea I
already had in mind for a few years. With the help of my co-founder (which I
met in the meantime) the business got serious and I noticed that I'm way to
busy with the 9-5 job. So I got the opportunity to work 24h/week at a local
startup which also shares our technology stack. I usually split the week in 3
days on the paid job and 3 days (w/ one day of every weekend) for our own
startup. Now we're one year later, still having 2 jobs as the income is not
sufficient enough to pay for life.

------
odonnellryan
I started my own software consultancy: we mostly focus on web applications,
and we've had awesome experiences helping many startups in the NYC area!

Lots of times startups have a good codebase, but they are having hard problems
with just a few parts of the product: they don't always have a lot of funding,
but it's fun to make connections and help them succeed.

Though, it isn't so much "escape from the 9 to 5" as it is "now you work all
the time."

Not that I always work more (some weeks are slow, others very busy) but I do
find myself having to be available more.

~~~
dstpierre
> Though, it isn't so much "escape from the 9 to 5" as it is "now you work all
> the time."

Hah, so true. Although I find working for my startup more rewarding than
trading hours for money.

My path is similar to yours, I quit my 9 to 5 job in 2007, started a software
consultancy than moved to building my own SaaS in 2009. Since than, that's the
only revenue for my family (2 daughters, wife, doing home school).

The stress and lower money at time for sure, but like others said, would not
trade this to return in enterprise job.

------
emdeha
I just decided I wasn't happy at my 9 to 5 job. What followed was a deduction
that unhappiness means there's an opportunity I'm missing. So I started
observing and found what I wanted at the moment--I started working part-time
at a small software organization doing systems integration. The transition was
flawless--I didn't need to stay at my corporate job.

Of course, such undertakings are a bit risky. After a few months I found my
money starting to melt as I wasn't receiving stable income from the new place
I enjoyed working in. Doing a bachelor's degree while teaching and working
quite prevented me from seeing how this money meltdown would shortly lead to
some uncanny situation of mine. So, with about 3 months delay I understood
that I'm in another unhappy situation and I should start observing for the new
opportunity I was missing.

Here comes a time for some background. For about 3 years I was living with a
close friend of mine who is involved with an organization called Camplight--a
digital cooperative working in the web outsourcing business. Things were quite
great in this company and it was a bunch of sustainable, playful and hard-
working people. I wanted to join them since I heard about it, but the lack of
experience prevented me from doing so. However, during the years I worked a
9-5 job and switched to doing systems integration, I got quite experienced.
Also, I loved to talk with my flatmate about Camplight and the challenges
around being a part of a cooperative. And it started to click that this was
the opportunity I was looking for.

And that's how I escaped a 9-5 job in about a year and am really happy about
it. I'm doing quality software, communicating with valuable people and helping
the cooperative grow.

------
anotheryou
Ask HN: How did you try, but fail to escape 9 to 5?

(to fight the survivors bias)

------
matell
I was working 9-5 for five years as web app developer which allowed me to
create financial buffer to live for several years without work if needed. I
live in a cheap country.

At the end I actually took one year off, and during that time I learned to
code mobile apps and then successfully joined Toptal and work as freelancer.
And since I am in Toptal I receive also many freelance job offers from other
sides, just because I mention I am their member in my linkedin profile. I was
surprised that they have such a good reputation.

Anyway, I credit my success at joining Toptal mostly to the amount of free
time I had during the hiring process (which took cca 1 month), so that I was
able to fully focus on it.

------
xchaotic
Rather than artificially avoid 9 to 5, I am now in a job where 9 to 5 makes a
lot of sense (for worldwide 24/7 coverage) I clock out at 5ish and I don't
worry about work until next day or after the weekend. No such thing with a
business.

------
garrickvanburen
For the first six years of my professional career I worked for a combination
of small design firms, web dev firms, startups. Averaging a year at each. All,
essentially, were client service companies. From that, I learned how to
pursue, land, deliver, and re-land projects across a bunch of different
industries. Then, I moved to a new city and found working out of my home
office more enjoyable than being hired. Once I realized I could land projects
& get paid w/o being an employee - I stopped interviewing for jobs and started
pursuing project I found personally interesting.

------
adamzerner
I worked for about a year and a half after college and then quit to do my own
thing (autodidacting -> startup). At each job I was frugal and saved over half
the money I earned. I also accumulated money by working small jobs in high
school and college, and some from my grandparents. It I'm frugal, the money I
saved should last at least 5 years or so.

While working my full time jobs I spent as much time as possible improving
myself, rather than succumbing to Sucker Culture. The same applies to high
school and college.

~~~
Bakary
What is Sucker Culture?

~~~
adamzerner
Sorry I was on my phone and couldn't link - [http://www.daedtech.com/the-
beggar-ceo-and-sucker-culture/](http://www.daedtech.com/the-beggar-ceo-and-
sucker-culture/).

In short it refers to letting others take advantage of you.

------
typetypetype
I did something like this early on in my working life. I got to the point
where my side business had repeat customers and enough of a portfolio where I
felt confident that I could bring on more customers. It wasn't a full jump,
but the side business became the focus and I took on different side gigs to
supplement income. I went back to a 9-5 after a few years, but during that
time I did see consistent growth in the business.

------
hkmurakami
Lived in parents house while working for a few years to save on rent. Kept
expenses vey low.

Saved enough for business school tuition. Hated business school and dropped
out. Was left with a wad of cash. Started business since I'd learn more from
starting a business than staying in school.

Best decision of my career by far.

~~~
vi1rus
Is your business profitable? If not how much longer can you sustain yourself?

------
k__
Started working remote.

Now people only look what I accomplished, not how long it took.

------
franze
Well, I started my own business. Now it's 24/7.

~~~
bbcbasic
Biologically impossible

~~~
martin_a
You must be fun with to hang around.

~~~
bbcbasic
I put the fun in endofunctor

------
swagv1
Who works 9-5 anymore? The factory jobs are all gone.

~~~
tommymachine
I actually just quit a factory job to start software dev. The conditions and
pay were terrible at my factory gig so I started learning to code in my spare
time. Probably few people on this forum would be connected with people who
recently have worked in factories. But those jobs do exist, and man do they
SUCK!

Especially when the people in software aren't developing products for you
because they have never met you, i.e. don't believe you exist. There are good
things and bad things about the homogeneity of SV culture, and outside
perspectives, especially from the working class, don't often make it past a
seed round.

~~~
milesvp
It's always interesting to hear another person talk about this. I've seen an
article or two talking about how under served the working class is in regards
to software.

Makes me wonder how much of it is economic, and how much of it is social.

------
xori
You mean 9 to 6

~~~
Jasamba
I'm in France, and doing 9-7

~~~
blackfede
italy, IT sector, 9-13;14-18 minimum

~~~
borplk
what?

~~~
anotheryou
9 to 6, unpaid 1h break. Been there just after school (but mainly to be able
to say I did stuff for BMW).

------
X41
by working from 10 to 6....

