Build your project on the side and until it has enough revenue for you to live from; don't quit your day job. Startup life is overly romanticized. Dip your toes in by working your day job 40 hours and an extra 20 hours for your side hustle. Do this for a few months, and if you think you can keep the schedule up without a salary and it's worth it to feed your dream then hop in and good luck!
High-powered engineers often assume that building a startup's technology is the same as building a startup. In this world, product/market fit is the ONLY thing that matters. A bad, but functional implementation of a great idea is 100x better than a great implementation of a bad idea.
Build an MVP that can acquire actual paying customers, and the growth rate/ROI will end up making the decision for you.
If you still depend on a job for paying the bills (which means that you don't currently have access to lots of capital), then selling your product BEFORE you have built it is the only option I would personally consider going forward. And if those prospects are just entries on a waiting list. Our product was proven in a cheap 250€ ad test and requested by agencies before we all quit our jobs.
Missing product market fit is the top 1,2 and 3 reason for failing to build a startup.
I did a similar transition. I started doing projects on the side, many of which never worked out. Finally when I got something that got traction I left my job. Your first idea could be the one but most likely it is not. Experimenting first while on the job will reduce your risk considerably.
This can be difficult depending on the company. Mine has every dev sign a non-compete that boils down to "If you write any code that competes with us is any way, we own it".
They used to let us file requests to confirm whether or not it does compete. They stopped answering and now just say "use your best judgement", which is a nice way of saying "We'll sue you if we need to".
Unless you are competing directly with the company, or doing anything that they are actively working on, any such non-competes, or 'we own your rights to whatever' will not hold in a court of law.
While this is probably true, I work for a rather large cloud computing and online retail company who do everything. You can't name a field they aren't in.
does this apply to Washington as well? I've wanted to get my friend who's been working at Amazon for years to do some game jammin' with me sometime, but he says company policy is that HR needs to sign off on literally any code he writes outside of work
In other words, parent is asking you(OP) to validate.
If you have a problem which is itching you to solve by building something, Then it's probably the best way to get started without quitting your day job. If others are willing to pay for your solution for solving their problem, Then you might have a startup idea(which actually can work out).
P.S. In case you want to take a look at some problems which needs solution (or) to check if there are others who want your problem to be solved then I run a platform for that - https://needgap.com.
This. I am in this exact position right now. Love my job and my team and am in a very high paid position, but am trying to grow something on the side.
I am beginning to see some real traction with https://www.budgetsheet.net and it's currently at ~$500-800/mo, but I can see a clear future where I will likely have to make a choice to leave my day job before it is making anywhere near my FT salary. It's a bit difficult to know where the line is.
I'm in such a similar position! Contemplating exhausting the existing profits and/or adding some of my own funds to ramp up marketing for growth (also so I can concentrate on the tech side which I'm good at, and where there is still great market opportunity from unsupported platforms)
