16 weeks pay on a $200k/yr salary (ie excluding equity acceleration) is $64k. That's a decent first check into a startup. I know people have families, visa issues, but if you're young and scrappy and already into startups, this is an amazing opportunity to build something new.
Yeah for people asking to elaborate, this is what we did to get a ton of investor meetings for our MVP:
1. DO NOT BUILD OR SHIP ANYTHING
2. Instead spend all your time desperately talking to customers about the problem you want to solve. If you don't have a problem, pick a segment of people who you can get a hold of, who are not using the most cutting edge technology or using shitty technology, and use the MOM Test to talk to them.
3. Watch the most recent YC video on how to talk to users and memorize every word they say.
Once you have talked to literally 40 people who have a similar problem, THEN make a demo and get feedback. Buy figma templates, buy frontends, do everything you can to make something presentable to show people. This should not take more than like a day or two.
THEN start building a product.
All too often technical people build before talking to people or do customer development.
I see. Thanks. It's really 30-40k because the 4 months' severance includes the regular pay during the 60 day exit window.
The potential is obvious: get something off the ground in 2 months. Do you know what someone mostly new to founding a startup should do to start?
I've got ideas, I've got potential cofounders, and I can prototype MVPs, but I don't understand the landscape beyond what I remember from How To Start a Startup. So I'm just probing for any pointers you might have cause I think I'm going to actually do this.
Just fyi, you can also bootstrap with that cash, you don't have to raise (and indeed in this macroeconomic climate, raising is harder than it has been). Check out the IndieHackers podcast (also a website/forum like Reddit but I found the podcast more useful) [0], YC Startup School on Youtube [1], read the Mom Test, Lean Startup, and so on.
