
Ask HN: Considering leaving my job at a startup? What should I consider? - mynewtossaway
I have a solid job at a rapidly growing startup. I joined about 6 months ago. But its changed a lot since I joined (we&#x27;re doing well so the team is growing quickly). Everyday I feel like I want to leave to start something of my own. I&#x27;m in my early 20s and would be able to take the risk financially, as I&#x27;ve saved up quite a bit. I have several ideas, but I am always so exhausted after writing code for 8-9 hours a day that I definitely don&#x27;t want to come home after commuting for 45 minutes (plus I like having somewhat of a social life).<p>The projects that I have worked on lose steam eventually because I&#x27;ve been working on them for months and see little progress. Part of me feels like its a no brainer to leave. I have no responsibility, I can afford it, and I feel like I will enjoy it more. Plus, I feel I&#x27;m really only learning from myself at the startup.<p>The other half of me thinks it&#x27;s silly. I should stay for 6 more months and get my small amount of equity to see what it will be worth. Even at an absurd outcome &gt;1B the payout won&#x27;t affect my life all that much.<p>Any other things to consider? Any advice? I feel like other people have had similar thoughts or even experience leaving.
======
Feeble
Six months may feel like a long time right now, but it really is not. I would
stay at the current position, get the equity (not matter how small). Use this
time to prepare your startup, getting a startup making revenue is a lot more
than just coding. You can start to educate yourself about how to best set up a
company, talk to potential customers (email or phone). If you think this is
not very interesting to do then I suggest not starting a company at all.

If you still feel the same after this time then take the plunge.

Reference: Worked with a lot of startups.

------
BilalBudhani
I was in the same situation as yours 6 months back. I left my job and
persuaded my desire to startup. Turns out it takes more than being great at
coding to build a startup. I'd to learn Marketing, Pitching, Emailing etc.
skills in my journey which I never thought about before starting up whereas, I
thought building a good product would cover that part. So, I'm not scaring you
away from starting up but I'm just saying that you should consider these
points as well in your decision making process.

I've gathered few questions and important points which I would ask/tell myself
before starting up again. Here are they:

1) Do you have a co-founder which can leverage your skills?

2) Have you zero down on an idea and did your market research?

3) How confident are you about the target market?

4) Do you have a execution plan or Goto market strategy?

* Market first, product later

* Ideas are worthless unless they're executed really well.

Thanks,

~~~
byoung2
_Turns out it takes more than being great at coding to build a startup. I 'd
to learn Marketing, Pitching, Emailing etc. skills in my journey which I never
thought about before starting up whereas, I thought building a good product
would cover that part._

This reminds me of my days teaching test prep classes for Kaplan. At some
point in every Kaplan teachers career, there came a point when you'd do the
math and realize that Kaplan was charging students $100/hour but only paying
you $20. Inevitably a few of the best teachers would try to go out on their
own. They soon realized that getting students took a lot of work - putting
flyers up on campus, working your network looking for referrals, building a
word of mouth reputation. Most ended up failing and coming back or moving on
to something else. There were a few that made it big (e.g. Robin from
TestMasters) and it turns out that these were not necessarily the best
teachers, but they were definitely excellent marketers.

~~~
mynewtossaway
I agree 100%. I think marketing is the most important thing with almost any
business. My rationale is I'm not going to get better at it while writing
mindless code. The best way to get better at it is to market products, right?

~~~
michaelochurch
It sounds like you'd be happier in a product management role than as a
programmer.

Kick ass on the code for a couple years (you might find that you enjoy it if
you can get out of Java Hell and start doing functional programing) but, from
the sounds of it, you'd be happier as a PM. PMs get a bad reputation because
80% (or more) of them are idiots, but the other ~20% can be invaluable for
their ability to market technical work, internally and externally.

------
WoodenChair
There's a lot of fantastic advice here from people much more experienced than
me, but I will just say having done a couple startups myself and continuing to
be in the startup "industry" as well that they're all right... So to echo all
of them in summary:

1.) Stay for the equity and for the experience of watching a truly growing
startup grow - most startups never grow in any significant way, they just die

2.) If you're burned out now after 8 hour days, wait until you're doing 14
hour days to survive with your startup... if you can't find the energy to do
it at night (or your social life is more important to you), you're possibly
not cut out for running your own startup

3.) Startups are much much more than coding (unfortunately)

With all of that said I wish you the best of luck as I also left my first job
out of college (Edit: realized this is not necessarily your first job out of
college (or that you went to college) but leaving this here none the less)
after less than a year to pursue other things (in my case a masters program)
and I understand how the first job is not necessarily the right job.

~~~
cgag
Comparing the burn out of making someone elses dreams come true vs your own
seems ridiculous to me.

~~~
WoodenChair
It's true at first when you work on your own stuff you have this great level
of enthusiasm, but eventually like any other kind of work it becomes a grind.
It is my personal opinion that people who are not passionate enough to get
started at night when working a 9-5 job, are probably not passionate enough to
be self starters completely on their own. But again it's just MY opinion and
obviously I would need to know OP personally to make more than a grand
generalization.

------
websitescenes
If you lack the motivation to work on your project after work and you
typically lose steam after a few months, I think leaving a steady job would be
the worst thing you could do. The cited obstacles seem more like excuses than
things legitimately standing in your way. Get excited about something, then
take the plunge.

------
diafygi
Rather than advice, how about some tasks?

1) Make an investor pitch deck for your idea. What questions will investors
ask? Where is your idea strong? Where is it weak? What's the market size? Who
are your competitors? What are they doing wrong?

2) Make a business plan. What do you need to succeed and why? Who pays you and
why? What are the risks involved? What are your exits and pivots?

3) Make a one-page sales cutsheet. How can you convince someone to part with
their money by handing them a single page of paper? What will they like? What
won't they like?

------
bane
If you can do it, take some time off and see if you can take a small project
from inception to completion. It's harder than it seems, especially as a solo
person, but you'll learn a lot from it. Spend some time trying to get users to
learn about marketing and sales. Even if you don't succeed, those skills (full
product life-cycle, marketing and sales) become very marketable resume points.

I'm also of the opinion that it's good to spend some time in the trenches at a
big tech company to better appreciate the differences between small startups
and mega-corps (and if you can something in between). It's one thing to read
about it and get an idea, it's another thing to experience it and understand
better what the pros/cons of each environment are. If you end up at another
growing startup, this experience will better help you understand what's
happening to the organization as it grows. Too many founders end up with
growing organization and don't understand what a big shop looks like or how it
functions and end up dragging the potential of the company down around them.

Both of those experiences can become very valuable to any future career
direction you choose: small startup, on your own, big software house. If
you're missing one or two of those, it's hard to say you have a complete
picture.

Alternately, 6 months is really not a lot of time to learn and observe.
Startups always go through lots of rapid changes, but seeing some of those
through to completion (or stagnation) can be very informative. You're young
enough that another year or so there won't kill you and won't prevent you from
pursuing anything you want after that. Only you'll have more perspective and
experience to work off of.

------
meritt
If you leave the job, you should also leave the Bay Area and go somewhere you
can afford to live while trying out your own ideas, as you'll give yourself 2x
- 3x the runway.

~~~
byoung2
_you should also leave the Bay Area_

Did he say he was in the Bay Area?

~~~
bobbykjack
Did he say he was a 'he'?

~~~
WoodenChair
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender#English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender#English)

"Problems arise when selecting a personal pronoun to refer to someone of
unspecified or unknown gender (see also Mixed and indeterminate gender above).
Traditionally the masculine has been used as the "default" gender in English."

It's just proper English by traditional standards to use _he_ when you don't
know the gender of the person. People take it as some kind of an affront, but
those of us with English training were just taught that way in college.
Source: Minor in English.

~~~
bobbykjack
And many of us object to that male default. About the first thing I learnt at
any serious level of linguistics teaching is that language does not stand
still, it evolves. It would be trivial to say "did they say they were in the
bay area" in this instance.

~~~
byoung2
Using "they" would be grammatically incorrect since the subject is singular.
To be politically and grammatically correct I could have gone with "he/she" or
"the OP" but statistics and history are on my side with "he" knowing the
demographics on this site.

~~~
radq
"They" can be and is commonly used as a gender-neutral singular.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)

~~~
byoung2
In the acceptability section of that Wikipedia article, most style guides
reject singular they usage.

------
enjo
If you're really serious about starting something on your own, you can do
nothing better than stay exactly where you are. You are getting first-hand
experience with the challenges a growing company faces. You have a real
opportunity to learn how this process works, you should be thrilled at the
chance to see it through to the end.

Everything gets easier when you can point to a win on your resume. From
finding a great co-founder, getting yourself into the accelerator du-jour, or
luring early investors. More importantly you'll actually have a good jumping
off point for your future.

There is a big gulf between building a product and building a viable business.
If your goal is the latter you need to embrace the opportunity you have to
learn. It's an invaluable experience.

------
jqm
If you are making and saving a lot of money, I'd recommend to stay put (unless
you can do immediately better somewhere else).

You have a lifetime in front of you. The opportunity to make an unusually high
salary might not always be there. But a stack of cash might help in a lot of
ways later on.

Disregard this advice if you have groundbreaking idea and the capabilities to
carry it out. (Not to be nasty, but rather realistic), you probably don't. Sit
down and have a good honest heart to heart with yourself about this.

Don't go away from something. Go towards something.

~~~
Chronic30
This. Many people will think their iOS app will revolutionize some niche
market. Chances are, no it won't.

------
BillyParadise
The best time to take risks is when you don't have any responsibilities, so in
that sense, you're at the right time of your life to do this. On the other
hand, if you're good at starting things but not finishing them, then why not
make a pledge to yourself before you strike out on your own: Get an MVP
version of your new business up and going first.

If you don't try, you'll never have the possibility for success. But stack the
odds in your favour first.

------
christopherslee
Not sure if this is your first 6 months in the working world or not. I'm
guessing that it is. I'm not trying to discourage you from leaving, but I
wanted to offer some perspective.

If your startup is indeed rapidly growing, I think it is invaluable to see the
growth first hand. Only a fraction of startups really see true rapid growth.
Having that first hand experience will give you some perspective when
hopefully, one day, your startup experiences that growth. Additionally, when
interviewing at the "big hot startups", I think it's a major plus to have seen
that growth somewhere else. But be honest with yourself if it's real, rapid
growth, and not just some vanity metrics.

Secondly, I share some concerns that if you're burned out after your workday
now, that quitting to do your own thing is going to be better. However, I can
certainly empathize and understand that it is possible, but harder, to build a
product part time at night. To hedge your risk, you should find that idea that
you're really excited about, commit to getting an MVP and some traction to
prove to yourself that you have an idea, and then quit.

While doing so, keep your responsibilities and cost of living structure low.
Don't sign a new bigger apartment while you're getting a salary. Also, I'm not
sure if you've thought about how long you can live without a salary. Do you
need to supplement your ramen profitable startup with any extra income
(contracting or otherwise?) If that's necessary, you'll need to spend time
getting work and doing the work. I personally dislike contract/consulting
work. I could never mental hack my way into feeling ownership of it. I've
learned I'd rather work at a product company and work on something on the
side, than do a startup "full time" while part time consulting to cover bills.
Your preferences may be different.

Remember that startups are really hard. I've been through it to an acquihire,
and I've had friends that were acquired for tens of million of dollars. And
when I talk to them, I'm reminded that even though they're doing well, it's
really hard. I absolutely think it's worth it if you're willing to bet on
yourself.

Feeling like you've hit a ceiling at work and that you're only learning from
yourself, sometimes can be fixed. Talk to your manager. Let them know. Maybe
there's more responsibility for you. If you strike out on your own, guess who
you'll have to learn from. Just you again. While joining a large community of
people working on their own startup is fun, it's also lonely. No one cares
about your startup more than you.

------
zarriak
Based on what you have said, I think that you may want to try to change your
position at the company. If the company is growing quickly then there are
probably positions in the company that will exist soon or were just made that
can provide you with very useful skills and knowledge. You may be able to do
other things during the day instead of coding, which will probably reduce the
amount that your work is taxing you, allowing you to work on side projects
more. You may not want to move into a role with responsibilities that aren't
programming but as others have said the knowledge and experience you gain
during growth is crucial to success, which you will learn even if the company
doesn't execute well. It will also help you know what qualities you would like
in a co-founder,if you want one, or how you should approach starting something
of your own.

------
dataminer
One of my friend was in the similar situation, I managed to convince her not
to quit, so she got a developer to build the MVP and test the market. The idea
didn't workout but she had her job and got promoted to much better positions.

So hiring someone to develop the MVP is an option you might consider.

~~~
xur17
Any recommendations on where to find a competent developer for a MVP?

~~~
dataminer
She went to some local meetups, and got lucky to find a good developer.

So attend some meetups and ask around. If anyone is interested get work
samples and vet by giving him/her a short paid relevant assignment.

You can also find great remote developers, but vet them with short
communication and coding assignments. Github/Linkedin/Dribbble are good
resources to find someone remote.

Good luck and I hope you find someone well rounded with excellent
communication skills.

------
ilamont
If it's only six months, stick around for the equity and the opportunity to be
a part of the team as it scales up. That's invaluable experience. If you can
manage it, put the pieces in place to get your idea off the ground by the time
the summer rolls around.

Good luck!

------
ritwikt
Have been on similar boat and started my own ~7 mos back. Here are couple of
points: 1\. Be prepared for your savings to Last >1yr, unless you can get seed
funding now 2\. Is your gf/spouse ready for this 3\. A start-up will not eat
into your _somewhat_ of social life, unless you want it to. IMHO I would say
please hold on to it. You need that support. 4\. PG talks about the weekend
project thing .. didn't work for me coz they just loose steam 5\. For the
leaving NOW decision I would also consider if you have someone with somewhat
of complementary skills ready to jump ship, If not I will spend the next 6
months finding that person and then quit [together]

------
thepoet
I was in a similar position few months ago, getting bored doing the same thing
again and again. I could have changed jobs for a better pay and profile but it
would not have been a significant improvement in work quality. Also the job
was intense so I would end up thinking about the startup all the time with no
time left for personal projects. I have decided to take a break of couple of
years to learn new stuff I have already made a list of, experiment with some
personal projects I always wanted to create and figure out what I would like
to do later. Just ensure that you have a fair bit of runway so that if any of
your projects get serious you can pursue it to end.

------
aps-sids
I'm in a slightly similar situation. Just that I'm in my final semester
sitting for placements. But I don't really want to join a company or work for
someone else's startup right away.

I'm actively looking for good ideas and people to start up with. While I'm not
very experienced developer, I'm indeed capable of working on an MVP for
testing out an idea, and taking things from there, if it all works out fine.

I would love to hear from you and see if we can make something out of this.
You can support me a bit while MVP development, and if it looks promising, you
can quit your job and we can completely concentrate on this thing.

------
wasd
I was in your shoes just over a year ago and decided to go with starting my
own startup. I thought having started two startups prior with some success
would make it easy but I was wrong.

The reality is that the default of any state of any startup is failure. You
probably won't understand the magnitude of the problems you'll face until you
see them directly. At this point, your ideas are just ideas and you should
work on validating them.

There's a lot of ways to go about doing this and it'll really depend on the
market you're chasing. It's likely that a combination of customer interviews
and sales will let you gauge which of your ideas have promise and which won't.
Something that really helped me was thinking about questions VCs ask when
they're evaluating a startup. What's your unfair advantage? Why hasn't this
worked before and why will it work now? These questions are incredibly
important even if you're not interested in raising venture. There's a lot of
books and literature on the web so I won't get into this deeply.

You probably noticed that I didn't say writing code. Sometimes writing code is
how you should be validating your idea but most of the time it isn't. You
should get in that mindset. However, when you need to write code there's a few
ways to get over that commute drain:

1.) Wake up earlier and put some time in before you start your day.

2.) Live closer to your job. It'll alleviate a lot of the problems of coming
home and not wanting to do more more work.

3.) Write code on the weekends instead.

Also, whatever you do, don't do it alone. I did it alone for the first time
and it's awful. Your job is a great place to find future cofounders or
employees. Do hackathons with them on the weekends. Tell them your ideas. See
what they excited about.

A year later, I'm doing some consulting on the side to pay the bills and
getting into a pivot that's finally moving the needle. Even though most of
this year was a total failure, I couldn't be happier and I'm glad I did what I
did. Feel free to shoot me an email at jr.sunny at gmail dot com if you have
any questions or need any help.

------
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

------
ulisesrmzroche
If you're sick of it, find a new job. If you start something of your own, try
going freelance first. It's far easier to sell and you can cut your teeth
there. Definitely don't sink yourself into a startup that hasn't gotten any
traction. You have to seriously tell yourself this will be your life for the
next 10 years or so.

Unless right now one of your apps has like 400 followers/likes and not even an
alpha to test, don't do it. But once you do, go nuts!

------
alain94040
A job at a fast growing startup is worth a lot. It's an amazing way to take on
a lot of responsibility quickly. You _should_ be learning a lot.

My recommendation would be to keep daydreaming about doing your own startup,
but don't quit until:

\- you have the killer idea

\- you keep obsessing about your idea

\- you have talked to 10 people about your idea face to face

\- three of those 10 people told you to quit unequivocally

------
edoceo
Read Running Lean and other related books. They will help you create a project
that gets traction before you write any code. Customers before Code prevents
project burnout you describe.

Also, start networking. It can take 6-18months (or more) to find your
confounders.

While getting paid its a good time to ramp up CustDev and Lean skill sets

------
geoka9
Does it have to be a startup right away? Can't you take a timeout and use the
time to build something and see if there's traction? Maybe turn it into a
passive income source at first? Or a lifestyle job?

If it doesn't work out, you can get another job, save up some more and try
another idea?

~~~
mynewtossaway
What's the difference? Isn't that effectively what a startup is? I'm guessing
your definition of startup is raising money and hyper growth?

~~~
geoka9
[http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)

------
chrismcb
Personally I would stay a bit longer, especially if you are considering trying
to start your own. The amount of knowledge and experience you will pick up,
even in the next 6 months is worth it. You say it is solid, try to see it
through.

------
w1ntermute
This post, also currently on the HN front page, seems relevant:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8779799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8779799)

~~~
codingdave
That post is a thinly veiled ad from a recruiter offering terrible advice.

------
hnriot
you work only 8-9 hours a day and have just a 45 minute commute and you're
whining about it? For someone in their twenties that makes no sense to me. I'm
twice as old as you, work longer hours than you, have a longer commute and
manage to raise a daughter and contribute to my github projects when she's
asleep. I'm no better than anyone, my point is that you sound so whiny and
entitled. If you don't like your job then change it, but you definitely don't
sound like someone who would do very well going out alone.

------
michaelochurch
TL;DR: it doesn't sound like you should jump ship.

 _Everyday I feel like I want to leave to start something of my own._

This is a normal impulse, but until you're getting a solid signal that you
_can_ start something of your own, and without taking onerous financial risk,
don't take it too seriously. It's "freshman wants to drop out and write a
novel" syndrome. Everyone goes through it, and we survive. You'd be weird if
you didn't have this impulse on occasion.

Size up your current situation for whether you're getting the mentorship and
resources and connections that'll make you be able to be a founder for real,
and preferably without severe financial risk. If you are, great. (I'm guessing
that you're not there yet, but a good startup will put you on the path.) If
you're not, find a way to change your job as it currently is, in order to make
it so. This may mean befriending people in upper management (a skill worth
learning) or furtively re-focusing your efforts toward networking and career
growth (also a skill worth learning) or something else.

If you're considered to be a valued contributor, then see if the founders will
introduce you to investors on a casual, social basis. Yes, it's a political
risk to ask, but this kind of political risk is insignificant in comparison to
the risk involved in starting your own project.

 _I am always so exhausted after writing code for 8-9 hours a day that I
definitely don 't want to come home after commuting for 45 minutes (plus I
like having somewhat of a social life)._

If that 8-9 hours of work is advancing your career, it's not wasted. If it's
not, then start slacking a bit (once you've established a solid reputation
based on your first months, you can) and direct your focus toward building
contacts and advancing your technical knowledge-- that is, work hard on the
parts of the job (as you define it) that advance your career and slack on the
stupid shit that doesn't.

 _I feel like I will enjoy it more._

That's "grass is greener" syndrome. If you're a natural entrepreneur (and it's
OK if you're not; they're only ~1% of the population, and people who are not
that can still be great entrepreneurs) then you'd enjoy bootstrapping, even
though you'd have no money most of the time and most people (including almost
all of the VC-funded entrepreneurs) would find it exhausting and miserable,
and would rather give up some autonomy for a stable income. (The trait of the
natural entrepreneur is an outlier stance on the rich-versus-king spectrum.)
It's completely OK if you're not a natural entrepreneur; I'm certainly not.
That just means that you're going to want to work for someone else and learn
on their risk and dime, for at least 5-10 years, before you're confident
enough to go out on your own.

If you're not a natural entrepreneur, though, you're not going to start a
business unless you have funding already delivered (and, by the way, that's
probably the right strategy for most). If you're going to try to raise a seed
round with no connections, forget "enjoyment". The odds are against you, and
fundraising if you're not part of the in-crowd (and it sounds like you're not,
because that's 0.1% of the Valley, and it sounds like you're under 25, and
you're in an employee role at a startup) is _fucking miserable_. People have
been driven to suicide by the fundraising process. It is that fucking bad. Of
course, if you run into a business co-founder who comes with the resources in-
hand... that problem goes away. Then again, you're also likely to be #2 at
best. It depends on you whether that's OK.

 _Plus, I feel I 'm really only learning from myself at the startup._

You're ~22. Unless it's a shit-house, you're not the best and most experienced
programmer there. Find someone you can learn from and start asking for his or
her time, preferably in small amounts. See if he'll talk about his favorite
subject over lunch. Internal networking is as important a skill as external
networking. Take this opportunity to learn it. Mentors aren't "assigned" from
the top, and finding "a mentor" or "a rabbi" is really rare. It's more
sustainable and practical to learn a little bit from a larger number of
people.

This is a great opportunity to learn things (such as internal networking, and
how startups work) on someone else's risk and dime. But it's not going to be
handed to you on a silver platter.

 _I should stay for 6 more months and get my small amount of equity to see
what it will be worth. Even at an absurd outcome >1B the payout won't affect
my life all that much._

Employee equity is, except for executives, usually a fucking joke. It's good
that you learned that early on. Don't get bent out of shape about the fact.
It's just worth recognizing the equity is almost never worth making career
sacrifices over. If you have 20% of a business, you might favor the needs of
the business over your own career goals and reputation. At 0.05%? Pfft. Think
of it as a lottery ticket, and keep an eye on your own career objectives
because, unless you're lucky and become the protege of someone important, no
one else will.

That said... even if the equity isn't a reason to stay, your reputation is.
Six-month stints look like absolute shit on your CV, and if you leave a
"rapidly growing startup" to go out on your own but can't raise, it'll look
like you were fired. The job-hopper stigma is fucking shitty, but it's real.
Tech is more forgiving of job-hopping than, say, Wall Street or government,
but leaving at 6 months just looks really bad. I'd say that, unless the job is
horrible, that alone is a reason to tough it out for another year.

If it becomes clear that the startup is going to do nothing for your career,
then drop the focus on your assigned stuff and put time into building the
skills you want for your next gig ("powerslacking"). It's easier to act
productive and engaged when powerslacking (another skill you might as well
learn early on) then when just fucking around.

 _Any other things to consider? Any advice? I feel like other people have had
similar thoughts or even experience leaving._

Yes. The time to ditch a startup is when you're no longer growing with the
company. If you keep getting better projects and promotions, stick with it.
(It's too early to tell, because you've only been there for 6 months.) It's
when the company starts growing above you that you should bounce. Good
startups promote internally, but most startups are crappy and pull their
leadership from the outside (a social-climbing mentality) and when it gets
into the state that you know you'll never be promoted because externals are
going to get the best projects and roles, that's when you should jump. You're
not going to have a good sense of whether your startup is in that state, yet;
it'll be clearer in 6 months to a year, and that would be a good time to
reevaluate. Even at that point, I'd say that you'd do better to get another
job (external promotion) than try to wing it on your own... unless you can co-
found with someone who can deliver Sequoia and Y Combinator on an idea.

Good luck!

