
I quit my job, and I'm excited about a more independent life - basicallydan
http://danielhough.co.uk/blog/unhuddled/
======
ux-app
It's great that the author has taken the plunge and I hope things work out
well for him.

I'd caution others away from such a drastic move though. 6 Months is an
incredibly short amount of runway to go from 0 to paying your bills by
"starting, and finishing new projects".

My own experience was similar. I had a secure job with a good salary, but
something was missing (first world problems). I was looking for new challenges
and quitting my day job seemed like the best way to live the dream.

I'm risk averse, so instead of quitting, I talked to my boss and arranged 6
months leave without pay. It turned out to be the best decision I could have
made. Even though I had experience with building a couple of larger side
projects in the past, I drastically underestimated how long it would take to
finish my first project. The 80/20 rule is no joke (might even be closer to
90/10).

To top things off our hot water heater needed replacing and a roof leak led to
some emergency renovation work. By the end of my 6months leave I had a 90%
finished product (great!!) and a $10k credit card debt (not great).

It's been a year since I took leave, and even though development has slowed
down, I shudder to think how things would have turned out if I had quit.

~~~
moron4hire
Risk is recoverable. The (admittedly high) chance of failure is not a reason
to avoid the experience. I'd recommend anyone dissatisfied with their
work/life situation _do_ attempt this, even with the full knowledge that it
won't amount to a "job" or "business" or anything.

Because, the risk is not a real risk. If you have friends and family who care
about you, if you live in a 1st world country, you're not going to end up
starving on the street. No, that takes mental health issues and a government
that ignores the problem. Merely running out of cash on which to live when one
is perfectly capable of working does not wind one up in the chow line.

What is the worst that can happen? He has to move in with a friend for a few
months and get a "real" job. Basically, he'd be back to where he was before he
quit. That's not a "risk".

~~~
ux-app
> "I'd recommend anyone dissatisfied with their work/life situation _do_
> attempt this"

I agree wholeheartedly. Taking 6 months off to build a project was one of the
best things I've ever done.

My advice for others is simply to consider asking for leave instead of handing
in a resignation. If your boss accepts then great you've got your 6 months off
with the added security of a job to come back to, if they say no then that's
OK too because you were ready to hand in your resignation anyway.

Hedging your bets is never a bad thing.

> "What is the worst that can happen?"

speaking from personal experience, you can end up in a deep financial hole
very quickly. Some expenses just cant be postponed.

~~~
moron4hire
Heh, well, I guess I haven't ever really left places on the best of terms.
Usually, I'd get to a point that I was so depressed that I had no intention of
ever stepping foot back in that place. The pattern was simple and happened
frequently: work hard, do great work, see my work go unrewarded, slack off,
get in trouble for slacking off, redouble my efforts, do even better work, get
dinged for something petty, quit out of spite. Part of that was my own fault
for not picking better places to work and not managing my work-life balance
better. But part of that is that common management culture thrives on
exploiting people who have difficulty managing their work-life balance.

But a "deep financial hole" isn't the worst of problems. The _first_ time I
did an extended time of intentional unemployment, I made the huge mistake of
using credit cards. But after racking up my own 10k in credit card debt, my
net worth was still significantly better than when I graduated from college.

Our assessments of the dire nature of such things is all in our heads. What
was the worst that would happen? My car would get repossessed? That's bad, but
is it "I'm never going to recover" bad? I always thought I needed that car,
but it turns out that when it was finally taken from me (by a flood, not a
bill collector), it was the first step to my own, much longer-lasting
independence.

It felt awful at the time, but that was all in my head. Credit card debt is a
problem of spending, not a problem of income. Oh, so I had a 17% interest rate
that meant I was going to spend a lot more on the interest than I ever spent
on the original goods. I sucked it up and took my lumps. I eventually got
_out_ of it by making my income much, much less reliable (I got rid of direct
deposit and got lazy about depositing my paper checks). When bill-pay is
automated, you always think you have money. When it's manual and you know
you're unreliable, you _never_ think you have money. So then you don't spend
it on movies and bar tabs. You can actually force yourself into a healthier
lifestyle by making other aspects of your life much harder on yourself.

But that's a story for another day, I'm kind of getting off topic here.

------
xwowsersx
I'm always interested in reading about how people have managed to gain some
personal and financial independence. But I find it hard to relate to this
article. I guess if you have the runway to just sit around and discover what
it is you really want do, then cool. But there's no real plan here, just "oh
maybe I'll do freelancing too..yeah that sounds good." Maybe I've just been
fortunate, but I've always worked in jobs where I feel I'm getting paid to
learn skills that I know will be highly valuable whenever I decide to do
something on my own. And I try to work on my own stuff, putting in 10-15 hours
a week while still working a full-time job. I'd love to just leave my job, but
I don't see why setting aside some solid hours each week isn't enough to get
something off the ground. So, unless you're absolutely miserable in your job
you shouldn't just leave it unless there's actually some other "thing" you're
working on that actually requires your full-time attention. Again, maybe a lot
of this post just reflects a sort of path of personal discovery, but it's hard
for me to relate to. To me, the lesson is more about finding a job that is
fulfilling enough and still leaves you enough time to work on your other stuff
with the hopes that your other projects can eventually become self-sustaining
and lead you to greater personal and financial independence.

~~~
alabut
There's an entire book about why you're right and the OP's approach is
generally the wrong one, called _So Good They Can 't Ignore You_. The OP is
exhibiting the classic "passion mindset" \- you search your soul for your
passions and if you plumb deep enough, you'll magically unlock some cheat code
in the world and people will start paying you.

The book is a light intro into the field of Self-Determination Theory and it's
filled with examples of people following their passion for 6 months before
flaming out because no one will pay them for the thing they like to do.

Another way to put it is that making money takes practice just like playing
the piano does. You're probably not going to wake up one day and realize that
an empty calendar is exactly what you need to learn how people will pay you
for something that nobody told you to build.

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1985-making-money-takes-
pract...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1985-making-money-takes-practice-
like-playing-the-piano-takes-practice)

[http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-
busi...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-business-
advice-from-jason-fried.html)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sounds like a business school approach, and certainly valid. But to imagine
its the only workable approach is silly. Everybody entrepreneur quits the job
at some point to take the risk. This guy may (that's the important word)
succeed at his own idea, or join someone else's project, or find a group of
like-minded people and follow some idea to its conclusion. And sometimes this
works.

In fact, there are so many examples of this working. Its a mindset: a person
with non-entrepreneurial temperament can't imagine trying it, I get that. They
go so far as to project their non-risk-taking onto others and claim they're
making a mistake.

I think of it this way: entrepreneurs are swimming off the beach, splashing
and surfing and diving and sailing small boats. A cruise ship comes by, people
leaning over the rail and shouting "Get out of the water! You're getting all
wet! You'll drown! The tide might go out! There may be sharks and stingy
jellyfish!"

You can try to calm them, tell them "It's ok, I know how to swim, the water is
not that bad, come on in with us!" But its pointless; they will stay on their
cruise ship and shout and shake their heads. And that's ok.

------
enraged_camel
What makes me bitter is not having this type of freedom as an H1B worker. For
all intents and purposes, I'm a slave to my employer. Sure, I could quit at
any time, but that would mean having to go back to my home country, which I
have no intention of doing. The USA is just a better place for all sorts of
things.

Will I be able to maintain my sanity until I get my green card? I have no
idea. I've already become quite bitter and cynical about my job. I don't have
anyone to look up to, the work is not challenging and the company is grossly
mismanaged.

If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears...

~~~
auctiontheory
Start a company on the side. There's never been a better (easier) time.

Can you start a company while you are in the US on an H1B? (Obviously, many
people do.) There seem to be two schools of thought about whether this is
legal with the IRS - research it, and maybe talk to a street smart immigration
lawyer.

What if the company you start isn't actually incorporated, but is a side
project allowing you to expand the skills you will need as a startup CEO -
funded by the cash flow from your job? Or perhaps your company is incorporated
outside the US?

Also, for anyone dissatisfied at work, I highly recommend the test at
JOCRF.org. It's well worth the money.

Source: I've been in your shoes, and this is the advice I wish someone had
given to the younger me.

~~~
enraged_camel
I looked into this and it is illegal. Basically the law quite specifically
says that while you can start a company, you cannot work for it, because your
H1B explicitly prohibits income streams outside of the company that sponsored
your visa. So if you start a company, you can only be a completely passive
investor (meaning you would need a co-founder to act as managing partner/CEO).
At first I thought the "income" part is a potential loophole, but then I asked
around and was told that doing the work at no pay (under the guise of
"volunteering") is also not allowed.

Trust me, starting a company is my plan when I get my Green Card. Until then,
I'm trapped.

~~~
NhanH
How about starting a company, and than have that company sponsors your H1B?
There would be some grey -ish part during the transition from the old H1B (of
the old company) to the new one, and I think you would need a co-founder/
investor such that you can't have control of the company (ie. less than 50%).
Would it be feasible to do it that way?

~~~
enraged_camel
This is very, very difficult to pull off. You not only need to prove that your
company has the financial standing to reliably and consistently pay you a
full-time salary (which, for most startups, isn't always possible), but you
also cannot have any controlling interest in the company. This means two
things: either own less than 50% of it, or have a board of directors that has
the power to fire you.

In other words, a total pain in the ass.

------
steveridout
Congratulations!

I quit my job about 19 months ago and had the luck to get immediately re-hired
by my former employer as a freelancer for a few months on a much higher rate
([http://steveridout.com/2012/12/30/a-welcome-
delay.html](http://steveridout.com/2012/12/30/a-welcome-delay.html)). This,
combined with living in Madrid now instead of London, has given me enough
runway to live cheaply for another 2 years if needed.

I've been working on my current SAAS project
[http://readlang.com](http://readlang.com) for 11 months now and despite
showing a lot of promise it's still not even ramen profitable. I'm still
feeling very hopeful about it though and while it's looking promising have
every intention to follow through to see where it leads. May write a blog post
about this as it approaches it's 1st birthday.

I'd say your 6 months is on the short side for creating and selling a product
of your own, and would recommend you try to find consulting gigs to save up
some more money first if this is the road you're considering. If you just
meander and hop between a bunch of projects for a few months I fear that in 5
months time you'll be looking to take for a normal job again, perhaps running
back to your old company! (I've actually done this before - I took a year off
with no plan, didn't focus on a project, and ended up re-joining the same job
I'd left.)

Anyway, good luck, look forward to see what you can create!

~~~
vendakka
This is exactly what I was looking for! I recently moved to Germany and I'm
learning German and I'd love to do it through reading. I was about to sit down
and patch together an epub reader to do this, but now I don't have to.

Here's some feedback if you'd like it :)

I just subscribed to the $9.99 per year version. However, I was mentally
preparing myself to pay more, since it was very useful. I would have liked to
try it out for longer though. The most useful part of it were the multi-
word/phrase translations and I could only try out a very small number before
it popped up the "subscribe" notification.

So to sum up, I signed up because it was just $10 a year, but would have paid
more if I'd gotten to try it out for a short while longer.

All the best!

~~~
steveridout
Thanks, yes I'm always very happy to get feedback, especially from paying
customers :)

The current pricing is partly an experiment to see if people will pay, and it
turns out that 1 in 30 of those who sign up do at the moment. It's also to
ensure that if the site explodes in popularity I won't lose money through
Google Translate API costs. I plan to increase the price at some point (but
not for current subscribers) although not sure what it should be exactly. What
would you think of $4/month or $30/year options?

I'll think about increasing the 20/day phrase limit, I really need to dig into
my analytics a bit more to see what the usage patterns are on this. Roughly
how long did it take you to reach the limit and how much longer would you have
liked?

Thanks again!

~~~
vendakka
It took me about a minute before I was prompted to create an account and
another minute before I was prompted to sign up for a subscription. I'd gotten
through about 4 sentences in total (I clicked a fair bit since I'm still
learning the language).

I'd happily pay $4 a month / $30 a year. I really like the Chrome extension as
well. Here are some of the features I'd thought of adding to my (now
cancelled) project:

Being able to see the meaning and usages of a word with a hover of some sort.
I find it annoying to keep clicking on the right hand side to pull up the
definition. Additionally, a number of definitions are just not available.

Something I find myself doing a lot is selecting and trying to right click.
The 8 word limit on phrases means I'm stuck with typing stuff into Google
Translate. For longer sentences context gets lost and so the translations are
not accurate.

Being able to collect personal word lists. This is great for learning which is
my primary intended use.

Keep in mind that I'm a beginner and the requirements of someone at an
intermediate level might be very different.

Hope this helps and I'm looking forward to using it even more!

~~~
steveridout
Adding a hover pop up after selecting a word/phrase could be a nice feature.
It would be easier to implement if I had my own database of
definitions/translations instead of relying on external dictionaries in an
iframe like the current sidebar. Note that one of the reasons I've avoided
implementing important features on hover so far is to ensure that everything
works well on touch devices.

Not sure how to enable selecting text in a nice way given the current UI.
Would probably need a way to temporarily disable the current word selection
feature. Hmmm... actually one way would be to add a keyboard modifier to
temporarily enable native OS selecting for advanced users without cluttering
the UI for regular users.

Personal word lists: I've avoided tagging, folders or lists for organising
words so far because I don't think I'd personally use them, but it's certainly
something I'll consider for the future, especially if enough people request
it.

I'll keep your suggestions in mind, and if you want to encourage the
development of any specific feature please add or vote for it on the uservoice
page:
[https://readlang.uservoice.com/forums/192149-general/filters...](https://readlang.uservoice.com/forums/192149-general/filters/top)

Thanks again!

------
iblaine
>I wasn’t totally happy with the way my job was going.

This needs more clarification. Everyone, as in every single person on this
planet, has reservations from time to time about their job. That is normal.
What is not normal is quitting for fleeting reasons. And I think that's a
symptom of hipsters the days. More kids are growing up with helicopter parents
and told they are the best at everything they do. Those same kids get a mid
life crisis at 25. Quitting your job because I am not 'totally happy' with
your job sounds like an irresponsible decision.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
If they are responsible only to themselves, and have money in the bank, then
there is no 'irresponsibility' in the equation at all.

Some folks value 'safe' corporate jobs. Others make their own way. In America,
50% of us work for ourselves. Its not crazy or irresponsible; its normal here
to not have a corporate job.

~~~
cag_ii
> In America, 50% of us work for ourselves.

Do you have a citation for this? It sounds very high to me, and the most
recent info. I could find with the BLS[1] puts that number closer to 11%.

[1] PDF - 2009:
[http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2010/09/art2full.pdf](http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2010/09/art2full.pdf)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
You're right. Even in my state (Iowa) its only around 25% I guess things have
changed a lot since I last looked.

Sad in a way. Folks think now somebody has to 'create' a job for them. Used to
be, you bought a truck and a sign and some tools, put an ad in the yellow
pages, and you had a job.

------
MichaelTieso
That's awesome. I can relate to this story. I quit my job around 5 years ago
because I was unhappy with what I was doing. I took the planning very serious
and paid off all my debt and saved enough money to travel around the world for
a year while just working freelance and running various businesses I was
starting. After five years though I'm finding that I work way harder and much
longer hours than I was working at an office. It's almost impossible to ever
open my laptop and not work. I miss that when I got to work, I worked, and
when I went home, I didn't. I don't have that luxury anymore. But I have a ton
of other awesome perks. I can live anywhere in the world so I generally live
in places where the dollar goes a long way. It's been a pretty incredible
experience.

------
altero
I did this and it was great way to fuck myself. My wife was sick, so I have no
other option but to quit and bootstrapped my consultancy business from home.

\- most of my friends were in work, so I lost those

\- zero unemployment support + paying health insurance from your own pocket.
If you are bootstrapping and need some decent runway, this matters (especially
in EU)

\- Big hole in your CV

\- if you stay in metropolitan expensive area, your savings will run out
fast...

\- traveling while bootstrapping? you can pick only one

\- if you never worked from home, your productivity and working habits will
sink like a rock

I think better way is to gradually prepare yourself while working. Start some
open-source stuff. Learn new language at your work. Do standup comedy over
evenings, whatever.

Also try to bargain with (or blackmail) your boss. Workers who are actually
qualified, are rare and generally underpaid. Retention is HUGE problem. You
could start side project at work, with silent agreement from your boss. You
could get work from home (and build working habits for your startup). You
could even get location independence for reduced salary.

~~~
sebkomianos
\- You only socialised with your friends when at work?

\- I am sure you can have some, even minimal, support as an unemployed person
in the UK.

\- Big hole in his CV, one of the most exciting times in his real life?

\- True, but he knows what he wants to do so he 'll have to play with those
rules.

\- Maybe true.

\- You can't say, he might be more productive from home.

Hope your wife is okay now or getting better!

------
tnjm
I did precisely the same thing last month. I had a great job, challenging and
meaningful work, but there was something missing. Here's my experience six
weeks in.

I found enough freelance work pretty much immediately to pay my bills, and
didn't have to drop my rates. That said, my wife has a successful small
business, and I have over a year's runway, so there's much less pressure.

It forced me to become more 'social', and attend meetups (including HN London)
and other events. Although I'm getting some work through meetups, the major
benefit is in staving off the loneliness you may get from working remotely/at
home/from a coffee shop. Coming from working in a great team, my experience is
this hits you hard.

Meeting lots of new clients and potential clients has been seriously fun. I
wasn't expecting that. I even dipped my toe in Elance, which has been a
surprisingly positive experience so far.

I've never been busier or more motivated. I wake at 5.30am but now walk the
dog, make time for my wife and take time out to explicitly learn new things
when I like, not when a schedule dictates. That alone was worth quitting. My
advice, for whatever it's worth, is to be rigid about dedicating 'off' time.
(No mobile!) Even just half a day a week has safeguarded my mental health so
far, and it's very, very easy to skip it.

I've been able to work on my startup[0] a good three days a week, as well as
launching a couple of other smaller side projects already. If possible, I
strongly recommend having a big project so you feel like you've got an anchor,
and can make forward progress whenever you're at a loose end and you might
otherwise be checking HN.

Quitting full-time work has been the best decision I've ever made.

[0] [http://databasify.com](http://databasify.com)

------
josscrowcroft
Congrats on taking the leap, enjoyed the post a lot. I did this almost 2 years
ago, and never looked back - as soon as I fully committed myself to life
without a job, [https://openexchangerates.org](https://openexchangerates.org)
took on a life of its own and remains my primary focus.

FYI, it took about 8 months to start making money (could have been much
sooner, but I dragged my feet a lot) and another 6 months from first paying
customer to totally covering my lifestyle and making enough to reinvest.

If you'd be interested, we have some freelance engineering tasks coming up -
shoot me an email (josscrowcroft at gmail) and we can discuss further. I'm in
London for a few more weeks at least.

------
moron4hire
So, you're going to go through some changes. Be ready to forget what weekends
mean. You'll probably start getting frustrated with weekends, because you'll
wonder "where the hell did all of these people come from?".

I highly suggest adopting an alternate wake/sleep schedule. Or rather, I
highly suggest not resisting the change away from the "normal" 9-to-5 schedule
that everyone else accepts upon them. I personally went to bed at sunrise and
got up around noon. I also put work at the end of my day, rather than the
beginning, which allowed me to pay attention to my health in a way I've never
been able to accomplish otherwise. You have no reason to work their schedule,
yet you'll end up A) getting stuck in their lines and traffic, B) paying their
restaurant/bar/movie rates, and C) missing out on one of two amazing worlds:
extreme late night or extreme early morning. The people you will meet there
will be the most fascinatingly unconventional people in the world and they
will inspire you to do great things. The fact that you are on this journey
probably means you're one of them anyway. Go find your people. The people of
the night are a close-knit community and help each other out in ways you can't
imagine.

Now that I'm married, that doesn't work out too well, but I'm working on
getting her to eventually be able to take the night as well :P

You'll probably end up working _constantly_. Learn how to take a day off:
honest-to-goodness unproductive time (it takes you out of the fight-or-flight
mode and gives your body a chance to recover). You probably won't be able to
stand more than one day of it, as you'll get antsy and start feeling a need to
make something. But it's necessary to unwind. Play video games all day. Go to
the zoo. Watch movies. See your friends.

Don't think you can extend your runway with credit cards. You can't extend a
blanket by cutting off the tail and sewing it to the top.

Stay open to opportunities. Make sure you keep meeting people. People are
where the opportunities come from. Nobody is going to hunt you down and give
you a chance.

It's better to take part-time work that pays the bills than it is to take
full-time work that gives you lots of disposable income. Your time is far more
valuable than anything any employer will be willing to give you. That's kind
of the point, if your time were actually worth $80,000/yr, then they'd
probably only hire you at minimum wage. Keep your time for yourself. If you
live in a big city, you might be able to get by on bartending in a popular
place on weekends. It's better than sitting in a cubicle farm.

You probably won't make it. Unfortunately, 6 months just isn't that much time.
Oh, I think it's enough time to build just about anything, if the resolve is
there and the freedom to work however you want (work tends to fill the time
you give it, and most slowness in projects is the bureaucracy from which you
are now free). But you'll learn that there is a lot more to making a project
happen than the build phase. For example, if you haven't done any marketing
yet, before the product is complete, you're already very behind schedule.
You'll have to learn how to do all of those things that _aren 't_ programming,
because otherwise you won't know what to look for to hire an effective person
to do it for real.

That doesn't mean the time isn't worth while, but you need to know how to use
it wisely and not become despondent if/when you finally cave and get a "real
job." Use this time to learn as much as you can. Specifically, try to learn
about yourself, i.e. how to motivate yourself to work on a consistent and
regular schedule, how to get yourself out of ruts. You'll learn what you're
capable of pulling off, even when you weren't sure what to do at the
beginning.

And if you do "fail", pick up the pieces, dust yourself off, and get ready to
try again.

This experience will change you. Try to let it change you as much as possible.

~~~
basicallydan
Hey moron4hire. There's a lot of good comments in this thread but yours made
it to the top for good reason: thank you for your blunt, honest advice and
thoughts.

I am especially glad that we are agreed about "It's better to take part-time
work that pays the bills than it is to take full-time work that gives you lots
of disposable income. Your time is far more valuable than anything any
employer will be willing to give you."

As for failing: yeah, you're probably right. There is a high chance that I
will not be able to keep this up forever. Part-time work and freelancing may
sustain me for a while, possibly even extend my 6 month runway - but I need to
find something more stable and/or large in terms of amount-of-money-to-live-
on.

But I'm glad you also agree that even if I do go back to a 9-5 job, I will
find a lot in this lifestyle which I enjoy and can learn from. And maybe
if/when that happens, I will be excited about returning to that lifestyle I
formerly had. After all, there are many enjoyable lifestyles and the "9-5" can
be one of them.

I promise I won't rely on credit cards, and I promise I will stay open to
opportunities. The man who I mentioned in the post, Mike Rugnetta [1] told me
"Say yes to everything you can at first. Then, eventually, you will be able to
say no." \- I hope he is right.

Finally I love your suggestion about alternative sleep/work patterns.
Personally I think I'm likely to adopt an early-riser thing. I'm very into
bouldering, and the best time to go to the climbing wall is in the morning at
6:30am. I would _love_ to get to a point where I regularly get up at 5am, but
I'm not quite there yet. I guess we shall see where this takes me.

Thank you, moron4hire - I appreciate your honesty and your well-wishing :)

[1]: [http://twitter.com/mikerugnetta](http://twitter.com/mikerugnetta)

~~~
mcdougle
You know... I bet you could go indefinitely on freelancing in addition to
building your projects. I don't know what your lifestyle is like or what kind
of expenses you have, but I do know that if you're a software guy, there's a
demand for it out there. If you're focusing on your projects and just
freelancing enough to pay the bills, you might not have much expendable
income, and you might even have to scale back your expenses.... but if it
affords you freedom, is it not potentially worth it until you get your other
projects going?

That's my plan at least: replace my day job with a freelancing gig, which
should afford me enough time to build out the ideas I have. I actually wrote a
blog post about it recently [1] and I have high hopes for it! Hopefully I can
be like you some time next year and take the plunge!

[1] [http://blog.mcdougle.net/creating-acquiring-software-
assets/](http://blog.mcdougle.net/creating-acquiring-software-assets/)

~~~
moron4hire
Your wording suggests a subconscious viewpoint that is similar to how people
view "dieting". The common view is that the diet is a special case, a
difference from the norm. This ultimately sabotages the effort because it
makes it an _effort_ , a contrivance that must be maintained.

The successful diet--and the successful non-traditional career path--rests on
accepting the new lifestyle _as_ the norm, as natural, as default. That which
was the old way must become the exceptional case.

The journey through the wilderness requires many skills. You can't be thinking
about the river you crossed to get to the desert, and you can't be thinking
about the mountain you'll climb once through the desert. Be present in your
work.

I still have family members who think "this freelancing thing" is just a
temporary stop-gap until I find "a real job". They have no concept that the
freelancing could be an end unto itself. I don't want to be a freelancer for
the rest of my life. At some point, I'd prefer to get out of services and into
products. It might not even be software, I have been receiving more interest
in my artwork this year than I have ever in all previous years.

But that's down the road. Right now, I'm a freelancer.

Okay, flowery language aside: unfortunately, it's really easy to take on too
much freelancing. It's really easy to rationalize, "oh, the client needs the
extra effort right now, and at least they're paying, but we'll go back to
normal after this, because they're paying." Well, clients are as adverse to
change as everyone else is. It's easier for them to keep paying that extra
rate than to accept the lesser productivity.

Plus, as far as your body and your mental willpower is concerned, the work is
indistinguishable from your project you hope to pull off. You'll be working
hours for your clients be right back in the situation you're in working for
The Man: not enough energy to work on your side projects, beholden to someone
else's schedule.

That's why I suggested completely unrelated work for temporary sustenance.
Bartending, cooking, dog walking, what have you. They usually _lack_ the
ability for you to decide to work more. The very nature of the work prevents
you from sabotaging yourself.

Incidentally, that's why I'm pouring _more_ effort into the freelancing. I'll
turn the freelancing into B2B consulting. I've got a couple of subcontractors
working _for me_. I manage their work directly. My clients don't even talk to
them. They know about them, they know that they are paying me and I'm paying
someone else to do some of the work. But they also know that it's the only way
they're going to get more done on the project in less time. Right now, I
personally am the biggest chunk of what the client receives. If I can build
this large enough, then taking myself out of the coding, at least, shouldn't
have that big of an impact to the overall workflow.

So for now, I'm a freelancer.

~~~
mcdougle
That's a very interesting take on it.

I don't think I plan to do freelancing simply as a "stop-gap." We'll see how
my mindset changes as time goes on, but I do hope to actually build a business
out of it -- make a good living myself for a while, then hire teams, work on
bigger projects, etc. Like I say in my blog post, I will be just creating
another job, but it will hopefully be a job on my own terms, essentially.
There are the issues you mention -- easy to pick up more work, etc -- but I
can do it at my own pace and on my own time.

Building software products are, to me, like investing -- building a separate
source of income. I'd love to have many different sources of income, one of
them being freelancing. I assume once my "investments" can sustain me -- and,
as time goes on, I end up with more responsibilities (like a family) I may cut
back on the freelancing thing. But for now it sounds great.

My point for the OP was that I do think he can sustain himself indefinitely on
things like freelancing or part-time jobs that allow him more time to focus on
his projects. You do have a point though -- it might not be a bad idea for
someone in his position to pick up an unrelated job like bartending.

------
avalaunch
As many others mentioned, six months isn't a lot of time so my actionable
advice is to do everything you can to increase that runway while maintaining
the independence you crave. I suggest ranking your ideas based on three
criteria: how long they'll take to build, the likelihood that they'll produce
an income stream, and the amount of ongoing maintenance and effort it'll take
from you if the idea seems to be working. Find the one with the best ratio of
the 3 (easy to build and likely to make passive money) and build that first.

Also, I recommend you give yourself a hard deadline for launching each idea
you work on. It's incredibly hard to launch. It's much easier to push back the
launch date so that you can put in just one more killer feature, tweak the
look and feel just a little bit, and get that copy perfect. It's much better
however to just launch and improve as you go. It's a lot easier to determine
which features are actually the killer features when you introduce them one at
a time instead of all at once.

Once you set a date and time to launch, stick to it no matter what. You can
always improve on your idea and launch again. The generally held belief that
you only get 1 launch is a fallacy. If the first launch goes poorly, nobody
will realize you launched twice anyway.

Obviously how long you should give yourself to launch your idea varies on the
idea itself but I highly recommend something absurdly short - like this time
tomorrow. That's enough time to put together an minimally viable product. Plus
it would make for a catchy title when submitting to HN.

Good luck with your adventure!

------
jlees
I did exactly this in July. My colleagues and friends were surprised that I
didn't have something else lined up, but I needed to take a full break from
the 9-5 world. Funnily enough I had about 6 months of runway too.

Several comments in this thread have mentioned how it's hard to get a side
project to profitability in 6 months, but that's really not the only route to
a sustainable lifestyle. Freelancing, consulting and other income streams
(hurrah for busking!) are all perfectly good ways to try out new projects,
learn or improve skills, and bring in some cold hard cash.

I've personally found that far more doors are opening for me now I'm open-
minded, available, and willing to have conversations. When I was equated with
the tech company I worked for, people would not have approached me about the
things they do now, and I certainly wouldn't have considered some of the
things I'm considering! It's taken a few months but I'm happy with where
things are going, excited about the various projects I'm doing, perfectly
satisfied not to have a complete prototype of a fundable startup idea yet, and
definitely still overwhelmed at the sheer amount of branching futures ahead of
me.

Good luck!

~~~
basicallydan
Hey jlees, I totally agree about being open-minded and not being attached to a
company. It could (and already has) opened up doors for me which I didn't
realise were there, which is hugely exciting.

I think the mistake a few people in this thread are making (although I do
really appreciate the advice) is that I am trying ti build a business. I may
end up trying to do that, but that is not the goal in mind here :)

Thanks for the good luck!

------
benmorris
I left my job a good paying job a little over a year ago after building up
about a year of savings. The work environment had deteriorated a lot since
starting there and honestly I was to the point the money wasn't even worth it.
So probably worse off than the author says. A year later I can say I haven't
regretted it at all. Keeping up on freelancing has really been my key to
keeping a positive cash flow while working on my long term projects. I rarely
turn down any web/consulting work, unless it has serious red flags.

The thing is about a startup project is that it might take a while to get
going. Some things I launched a year ago have just now really shown the work I
put into them was worth it.

Balancing time where work stops and relaxing starts can be difficult when you
are on your own. There is always something to do hanging over your head. I've
had to be disciplined on this to avoid burning out. I spent a fair amount of
time doing accounting, projects bringing in money, clients paying, monthly
invoices, etc, it does consume a non trivial amount of time each week.

My one concern in the article though is quitting without a plan. I had a
pretty concrete plan which I'm still moving towards.

------
robbiea
Congratulations! I made a similar jump about 20 months ago.

My only advice to you is to keep doing the freelance gig thing on the side, as
I see you are doing based on your comments.

The things I've learned about surviving:

1) As one commenter said, 6 months is basically no time at all. It will FLY
by. Launching your side project to a state where you are comfortable with the
project or can at least try it out in the market will take about 6 months.

2) For Freelance gigs - People will only pay you for what you're good at and
you have experience in. It's no different than finding a real job. No one will
pay you for what you think you are good at, if you don't have proven
experience in it. This is good to know if you get in a money crunch. Always go
back to your real strengths and the money will follow.

3) Always plan for Plan B. Build your professional network weekly if not daily
in the industry where companies are willing to hire you if this venture
doesn't work out for you.

4) It will take you at least 3 months to find a job once you start looking,
assuming you have the right marketable skills. It shouldn't take that long,
but it does. Plan accordingly.

5) You will need help about 3 months from now. You'll be lost as you try to
find yourself. Don't be afraid to ask someone for guidance. You could be
asking someone you met in Austin or someone you met recently. You never know.

6) Start a personal / professional mailing list. Allow people to have an
insight into what you are doing. People like this kind of stuff. This allows
you to stay in touch with lots of people fairly easily.

7) You never know. Jason fried wrote an inc article I believe about how he
ended up writing for inc through a series of events & connections. Keep an
open mind as I think you are doing now, and keep your relationships up to
date.

------
dkokelley
I'm close to that point at my current job, too. I feel like I learned lots,
but that the learning and growth has plateaued for me, so it's time to move
on. I would love to just announce my leave and head out in uncertain waters,
but I have a rule that I always have to be moving _towards_ something I want,
rather than _away_ from something I dislike. Leaving because I am unhappy with
the work would break that rule (to my dismay).

From one Dan to another (Danny, actually), I wish you luck, and I hope you
succeed in finding what you want to move towards!

~~~
crixlet
> moving towards something I want, rather than away from something I dislike.

I loved this.

------
durkie
wow -- surprised at all the folks that just quit their jobs recently. We've
got quite an HN job-quitting support group.

i also just quit in june of this year and it's a big change. i've always been
motivated to work on projects on my own, but going to absolutely zero
supervision (and zero income) took a lot of getting used to. it's easy to get
paralyzed thinking that you need to work constantly and you end up not having
fun even though you're super free (for a little bit) and have a really
flexible schedule.

we're personally having our official launch at a trade show next week...it's
going to be a real moment of truth for us and i'm kind of terrified.

good luck!

------
ajiang
Congrats on making the leap! I've been waiting for the right time as well, and
it has been too easy to continue kicking the can with reasons why not.

I am curious on the 6 months of runway. Have you found how many months others
save up?

~~~
basicallydan
I did read a fair few other peoples' approaches. Some people said, "enough for
a year", others said, "enough for 6 months" and some people said "enough for 2
years".

To be honest, there's no one amount. I felt comfortable being riskier. My
family was very supportive of my decision since they've all done similarly
risky things in life. This made me feel comfortable going in knowing that if
it all completely went tits-up, I'd probably have a branch to cling to. But
this isn't something you should use as a motivator to chill out and be lazy.
You need to find ways to support yourself, one way or the other, otherwise
you've just moving from one dependence to another.

Freelancing is a good place to start because it doesn't require complete
dependence on somebody, and you can work on your own terms, and it helps to
have a bunch of stuff you can say, "I did this thing" in case the time comes
to get a job.

Good luck in figuring out the right time for you :)

------
known
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." \--George Bernard Shaw

------
stana
Good luck. It could be 6 months you will never forget regardless of what
happens in 6 months. Many work really hard chasing elusive goals and forget to
enjoy today.

------
vikp
Congratulations, man! I did this 2 years ago when I quit the US foreign
service (really stable job) and decided to learn programming. It worked out
really well for me, and I have done some incredible things that I never would
have had a chance to do otherwise.

It's not the easiest road, but you will have a great time, I am sure. Will
definitely watch your blog for updates, and let me know if I can help at all.

~~~
CuriousJack
Can you please elaborate on the programming from the scratch? Of course
Codecademy is a great start, but what and how exactly did YOU start?
Furthermore, what did you end up doing, where did you move from there and
where you currently are?

I quit my finance job few months back (hello to everyone) for non-tech related
start-up. Not that I have a better pay (almost the same), but I have more free
time and finished JS/Python courses on Codecademy. I just feel a little bit
lost now and would appreciate some advice or story from the fellow explorer.

~~~
vikp
Hey, good question.

I actually started out building stock prediction algorithms, then realized I
had no idea how to do that (~October 2011). I was mainly coding in C# and
Ruby, and picking it up from books.

I then found Kaggle, which has a lot of great machine learning competitions.
They will post something like "predict bond prices accurately", or "score
essays automatically", and lots of people get to compete to create the best
solution. The leaderboard format really motivated me, and I met some great
people and did very well. I learned a lot of the stuff I needed from online
books, Khan Academy, etc.

Concurrently with Kaggle, I started a consulting business, and got a lot of
clients through there.

After I spent a lot of time doing machine learning, I was found by edX
(edx.org), an online education company that was looking for people to develop
ways to grade essays at scale. I thought I knew how to program before, but I
actually didn't (I was coding mostly in R for Kaggle, and not using classes or
building resuable code, etc).

At edX, I actually learned how to test/deploy and develop properly. I also
ended up doing 99% web development, which is fine, as I learned that skill,
but got a bit bored due to not using machine learning at all. I learned
Python, Django (the main web framework), and a lot of server deployment and
other skills. I can't emphasize how invaluable working at a startup that did
things the right way was in terms of my learning.

I recently left edX to work on some of my own projects. Currently, I am
working on an android application, Happsee (www.happsee.com) that helps track,
visualize, and discover what makes us happy (and can do a lot of cool machine
learning with). I have also worked on an open source learning management
system, Movide (www.movide.com).

The key for me to learn programming is to de-emphasize the programming. I
don't actually care much about programming. I care about making things. I get
a similar joy from snapping legos together and making something and from
coding. So find a problem you want to solve, and start thinking of things you
could make to solve that problem.

For me, data is insanely cool, and I have done a lot of random explorations on
my blog. I just did an analysis of happiness
([http://vikparuchuri.com/blog/what-makes-people-
happy/](http://vikparuchuri.com/blog/what-makes-people-happy/)), but I have
also analyzed how much characters on the Simpsons like each other
([http://vikparuchuri.com/blog/how-do-simpsons-characters-
feel...](http://vikparuchuri.com/blog/how-do-simpsons-characters-feel-about-
each-other/)).

Small projects like that are a great way to learn, and can get you exposure
through presentations, blog, etc.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to help. vik at equirio dot com.

------
dsowers
Loved the post. I'm in the exact same position as you. Have 6 months of runway
and I've become an independent consultant. I'm also spending the time on my
own ideas, like my newly launched
[https://www.silvrback.com](https://www.silvrback.com)

I wish you the best of luck. Like you said, life is too short not to take
risks.

~~~
basicallydan
That's awesome! Good job with Silvrback, and thanks :)

------
wiradikusuma
"Now, here I am, sitting in a coffee shop in Islington with no fixed income,
no employer, and no startup which I’ve just received seed funding for: just
me, my laptop, and a bunch of ideas"

Where did you receive the seed funding from? I was hoping your post would be
some sort of roadmap, but I miss that part.

~~~
guynamedloren
I could be mistaken, but I believe he's saying he _doesn 't_ have a seed
funded startup.

~~~
wiradikusuma
You're right. I read too fast and I thought "I have roughly 6 months of runway
funds" means "I have seed funding for 6 months." Thanks for the correction.

~~~
basicallydan
Aw, crap. Word fail from me there. Thank you Loren.

------
pearjuice
So what if you don't have any ideas about a different life but hate 9 to 5?
When I would take off I would immediately miss the feeling of doing something
actually productive because I have nothing else but my job. Does this make me
stupid or just uninspired?

~~~
basicallydan
Neither, really - it just means you haven't tried doing other things with your
life. You might find that once you have that freedom you do all sorts of cool
and fun stuff with you time which you, ultimately, consider productive.

------
SideburnsOfDoom
On the one hand I feel a gut reaction "you fool!" for leaving a secure, stable
paying job with good people (Huddle are just around the corner from here, I
know some of them).

On the other hand, I hope you do something great with it!

------
pjbrunet
Be excited. Call me after 10 years of that ;-)

~~~
dualogy
Truth. One _does_ get used to this, once you got it working, fairly quickly.
Still wouldn't go back to a regular 9-5 but that's because they're 80% not
really more interesting than going it alone + some fair amount of travelling.

------
kamakazizuru
congratulations :) good luck with whatever comes next!

------
kimonos
Great! Life is about risk-taking and discovering the things you love to do.
When you follow your passion, then you become more inspired and more satisfied
in life..

------
davidsmith8900
\- I hope, pray and wish you the best.

~~~
basicallydan
Me too! Thanks David.

------
mtgx
Any chance we'll see Android support Go officially in the next 2-3 years?

~~~
dualogy
Wrong thread, huh?

------
eriksank
You have made a devastating OPSEC mistake. You have disclosed that you have
around 6 months left of money. You have probably also stored it in just one
bank account. If _some weird transactions_ end up siphoning off your balance,
you will have no money left to defend yourself. The secret service guys know
this. The freelance crook at the bank knows this too. Be careful or you will
be toast.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Tinfoil hat on a little tight this morning?

