

Tell HN: I'm freee - zhyder

I finally took the leap and quit my day job today (well, gave notice to be precise). Just wanted to thank the community here:<p>1. For teaching me about web-app design &#38; development, and inspiring me with your stories.<p>2. More specifically, for cheering on Dabbleboard. I had launched the beta on HN, and -for many months- your words were my greatest source of encouragement, since it took a while to build a user(fan)base.<p>I hope to someday be able to return the favors... And good luck to you too :)!
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Fuca
Some thoughts about being there (back on rat race as now):

\- You will feel better right away, what you said about being free its excatly
right, and you realize how depressing was being trap on a cubicule kissing
ass.

\- Money is much easier to get, you realize that a salary is peanuts compared
with how much you can do on your own if you make it.

\- Live like a cockroach, the thing about not knowing where or if my next
check will come make me realize I could live (and save money!) with half of
what I made with a weekly salary, and in the past I was under credit card debt
for going out meals and worthless stuff.

-You will find out that the urgency and strees to find an income will be a great motivation to make it. That is one of the biggest disadvantages in a job you do not have that feeling and that is probably what really makes the difference on the long run.

-Be honest to yourself and decide what you do ASAP, think it thru and once you decide give it all. Be quick on this on 2 things: to see if the field you choose have future and to move to try another thing fast, make sure you go into vocation whatever it may be.

-Dont fool yourself into laziness, have an area free of distractions and give it all. Family can suck all your time if you do not have clear boundaries and scheduale.

Little bit of my story:

\- I was lay off in march, decided to sell some products, realized my
bussiness model was not possible on the long run (I was not the owner of what
I sell, mostly like an employee), but it gave me half of what I used to make
on an office, and much better life, lots of free time.

If I had the same opportunity, I will have an "office" and scheduale, decide
on a bussiness for the long run, not just to make money fast, be honest on
doing what I liked even if took some time.

Good luck making it.

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yters
Has anyone kept track of the others who've posted about quitting their job to
do a startup in the past?

~~~
staunch
It's hard to track them. They usually lose their internet connections when
they're evicted :-)

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palish
For what it's worth, mine is still on. :) Us "dropouts" are just busy building
our respective products. (Also, congrats to zhyder. Enjoy being able to take a
nap whenever you want to.)

That said, I should probably start a blog about what I'm building. I want to
post daily reports about what I did that day. That would be both useful and
motivational, I think.

~~~
zhyder
Thanks! I'll also enjoy responding to customer emails whenever I want to
(=immediately), and actually being able to make sales calls.

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nickh
Good on you, mate. I just watched the Dabbleboard video, and was really
impressed with what you've created!

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raju
Great news. I, unfortunately did not see DabbleBoard prior to this post, but I
saw your demo, and was impressed. Great job! Here's wishing you luck, and
success.

Cheers!

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vaksel
Looking at your site, you absolutely must add pictionary functionality.
Shouldn't be that hard, since you already have the visual part + I believe the
chat, so all you need to do is make some keyword lists and bam.

Separate yourself from other pictionary sites by making more niche specific
keyword lists. And throw up a site-wide monthly league for users to compete
with each other

~~~
zhyder
The thing is: the Dabbleboard (vector-based) interface is not optimized for
that kind of drawing, which bitmap-based tools (like MS Paint) handle better.
Biggest feature "hole" would be the lack of a bitmap eraser.

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seshagiric
All the best with your start up. If you don't mind what is the business model
- your main source of revenue will be ads?

~~~
zhyder
Freemium. The premium version will have more business-friendly features.

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kleneway
Congrats - great idea, well executed. I can't wait to start using this.

Question to you or anyone else on this thread - are there any tools out there
that could convert a UI mockup for a webpage (like one created with
Dabbleboard or Basalmiq) into standards compliant html/css?

~~~
balsamiq
In the case of Balsamiq, I think it would be pretty simple. My files are saved
in BMML, which is just a simple XML dialect. I suspect someone with good
XSLT/HTML/CSS knowledge could write a little BMML->HTML+CSS script in a couple
of days.

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jncraton
I've played with Dabbleboard a bit in the past, and I think that it is a great
tool. I have to admit though, I haven't been following it that closely. How
are you planning to make a living off of it? I'm just curious. I'll understand
if you would rather not answer that.

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dustineichler
You're an inspiration, quiting my day job is the dream! "Starting up" is the
reality.

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APLonDrugs
Congrats! Best of luck, make it happen...stay positive and it will.

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hwijaya
Congratulations!! Good luck and keep post on HN on how it goes!

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zacharye
Excellent! Congrats to you! I first used dabbleboard a few months ago, linked
through HN, and have gone back many times since. Fantastic and well-executed
tool indeed.

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Angostura
Congratulations. I blooged about Dabbleboard a while ago, but blimey - with
the new tool set, I'm going to need to blog again.

Brilliant work

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kirubakaran
Congratulations. Wishing you the best.

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vaksel
Congrats, do you have any plans yet on what extra things to accomplish with
that free time?

~~~
zhyder
Yep, both on the product-development side as well as the other (dark) side.

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davidw
I hope you had a firm grasp on the next vine before you let go! Good luck:-)

~~~
zhyder
To be honest, it's not as firm as on the previous vine, but falling (together
with the rush of worrying about it) can be lotsa fun too :).

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aaronblohowiak
(^.^) Congrats!! GL&HF.

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chwolfe
Nice The Who ref.

