

Moonlighting to Full-time venture. How successful have you been? - blizkreeg

This is probably something a lot of first-time entrepreneurs face. You have an idea. You start working on it, toiling away nights and weekends. But you realize you need to devote far more time and effort to really elevate your startup to a greater level. Execution is the key that unlocks the door. To execute you need to promote, listen to your customers, spend countless waking hours thinking and working on it, invest, pitch, hire, and much more.<p>Working a full-time gig gives you only so much time and mental bandwidth to do this - your odds of failing I suppose go up exponentially. Probably the worst and saddest outcome being your startup and energy just fizzling away.<p>I'm curious to know the experiences of some of who have started off moonlighting and successfully transitioned. If you haven't yet, what are your thoughts? What were your experiences? Did some of you quit your jobs to pursue the dream from day one?<p>If there has been an earlier discussion about this, I'd appreciate pointers.
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arohner
I'm currently in that boat. It's tough. I've been at it 1.5 years, and I'm
still optimistic.

One thing that made things significantly better was moving from full-time to
part-time on my day job. I did that about six months ago. It helped
significantly, but now I loathe even the 20 hours a week at the day job as a
distraction from my "real" job.

The main thing I'd recommend is stay connected to the "full time" entrepreneur
community. Network, have coffee with other entrepreneurs.

Also, remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Get into a pace that you
can comfortably keep up for years.

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blizkreeg
I've been at something for over an year and half now. It has been a stellar
learning experience. However, while I hate to say this, in a way it's always
been a half-hearted attempt. I'm now working on a new idea that seems quite
promising in an emerging market. I don't want to repeat the same mistakes
however. The fact that majority of my waking time is spent at a job is like
driving a nail into my own coffin.

The part-time suggestion is a good one.

