
Ask HN: About to quit my job and work full-time on my side business, advice? - theleap
I have a profitable side business I created over the last year while working full time. I&#x27;ve decided to make the leap and work on it full time.<p>The business profits are comparable to my full-time salary, so money isn&#x27;t really an issue. I&#x27;m based in the US. What advice would you give to someone in this situation (Taxes, incorporating, lifestyle, anything and everything welcome)?
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rogerkirkness
Keep your personal and business expenses separate. Make sure you have a proper
C Corp setup. If you ever intend to raise money, make it a Delaware C. Don't
underestimate the mental health impact of the uncertainty and sheer weirdness.
Don't be surprised if you level up skill wise faster. Don't be afraid to
invest personally if there is ROI, sometimes people under capitalize lifestyle
businesses and they could do better by rolling more money back in. About 5% of
customers will not hesitate to be abusive, pay extremely late or exploit the
fact that you're small. Learn what they feel like in the sales process. The
first time you'll be convinced it's you, and blow at least a month. Learn to
fire them during the sales process or insulate yourself with much worse terms
for them and stronger for you (paid up front, higher rate, easy out for you).
Dealing with abusive customers is one of the hardest "didn't expect that"
things I've experienced. Otherwise, enjoy.

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muzani
With abusive customers, it's usually best to set up an SOP to detect then
filter them out. I'm totally against the whole "customer is always right"
mindset because that's a beacon for abusive customers. Generally they hang
around the cheapest priced products.

I agree that tough terms are good at filtering them out. You might even have
to be a little aloof, but not outright rude. Things like pay up front, by a
certain date, is great for this.

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matt_the_bass
What is SOP?

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atsaloli
Standard Operating Procedure

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muzani
Read up the startup playbook if you haven't:
[https://playbook.samaltman.com/](https://playbook.samaltman.com/)

You should probably decide early on whether it's a lifestyle business (steady
$40k per month) or a VC backed business ($100M+ valuation). VCs won't back
lifestyle businesses, but they can be life-changing. On the other hand,
lifestyle businesses are actually harder, but in different ways, e.g. you can
get disrupted by Google or a VC backed company 20 years later.

Don't spend too much focus on incorporating and lawyers and all that. It's
probably worth paying well enough to trust someone to handle it. Some of my
biggest regrets are spending days handling my own accounting and logo design.
Even a mediocre lawyer probably knows better than you.

Try your hand at applying for accelerators. The good ones are easy to apply to
and the process forces you to analyze your company.

You should also get a cofounder if you don't already have one. This could be a
spouse or early employee. The standard is 4 year vested equity.

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jasonkester
You’ve already taken the best advice I have to give on the subject: don’t quit
your day job until you replace it’s income.

Beyond that, I personally made a point of ensuring that my product stuff runs
itself with no human input whatsoever. Even to the point of ensuring that
customer support tasks get automated after the second time I see the same
request.

The goal is to be able to really down tools and disappear for a month at a
time without the business falling apart. Chances are you will have had to do a
lot of this in order to run the thing while employed full time, but now that
the payoff will be true 100% downtime for you whenever you want it, it’s well
worth finishing the job.

Good luck!

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taf2
If it’s a software startup don’t be persuaded to raise money giving away what
you have created - software has like zero overhead compared to other industry.
LLC is perfect for getting started as it protects you and it’s tax favorable
to start. Get ready to work 24/7 or at least always have your phone with you,
depending on the service type you want to make sure you reduce the risk of
downtime. don’t be afraid to buy more servers/instances for redundancy. Always
be closing, always be coding, always be caring - remember your abc’s

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wasi0013
I think you should read this:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wkJ6Ruh2IiR-caT-
PS3n5Yt5...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wkJ6Ruh2IiR-caT-
PS3n5Yt5VKcmIsVhuQwjgqK7030/edit)

Take it with a grain of salt and use your intuition. Related thread on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214512)

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wrestlerman
I'm gonna say, don't be too hard on yourself. You may expect to be as
productive as on your previous job, but there is a big chance that you won't
be. It will take some time to adjust to the new setting (even if you worked in
your free time on the business).

Anyway, congrats, good luck.

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borplk
I'm wondering what's the topic of the business?

