My starting figure for freelancing was around $1000/day, as a designer. I've developer friends whose base rate is $300 and $500/hour. (I've also friends whose base rate is less.) You could probably go work as a CTO-in-residence with an incubator, overseeing technology for a stable of startups, just being a guiding hand. Or do freelance systems architecture design, partner up with a project manager, oversee complicated system integration contracts for companies without a lot of in-house skill and overworked IT departments.
But I think the real issue isn't changing jobs, it's changing you. Are you really going to go work somewhere else and magically not feel like you have to work an 80 hour week? Normally that's something we put on ourselves, and as a founder, it's not like there's anyone who will fire you if you don't overwork. (Practically, this probably means you don't know how to delegate; that's a skill you'd have to develop, too.)
If you're going to overdo it, in the end, no matter what, then you have to take the initiative to change that. You have to make it okay, starting with you, to not do that, and you can do that just as well in your current job as in a new job. There's a great lede in an old BW story about Best Buy's move to flexible work hours (since rescinded):
One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co. (BBY), shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee."
When I work as an in-house designer, I set parameters from day 1, not by asking permission, but through my behavior. I don't show up before 10am. I decline any meeting scheduled for the same day. I leave meetings where we're not getting anything done or there's no agenda. I leave the building for lunch and I take at least an hour. I am comfortable leaving after my last meeting if no-one's expecting anything from me, even if that's at 3 in the afternoon. I show up after lunch or leave early on days when I'm hosting meetups. I book multi-hour blocks in Outlook, and often also in meeting rooms, so I can focus, which means if you want my time, book me in Outlook, because I have work to do.
When I am working, I am working, and I make sure I am able to be productive, and the rest of the time, I may not even be in the office.
And for over six years, I get my work done, and no-one has ever cared that I took a three-hour lunch to see Iron Man again.
My starting figure for freelancing was around $1000/day, as a designer. I've developer friends whose base rate is $300 and $500/hour. (I've also friends whose base rate is less.) You could probably go work as a CTO-in-residence with an incubator, overseeing technology for a stable of startups, just being a guiding hand. Or do freelance systems architecture design, partner up with a project manager, oversee complicated system integration contracts for companies without a lot of in-house skill and overworked IT departments.
But I think the real issue isn't changing jobs, it's changing you. Are you really going to go work somewhere else and magically not feel like you have to work an 80 hour week? Normally that's something we put on ourselves, and as a founder, it's not like there's anyone who will fire you if you don't overwork. (Practically, this probably means you don't know how to delegate; that's a skill you'd have to develop, too.)
If you're going to overdo it, in the end, no matter what, then you have to take the initiative to change that. You have to make it okay, starting with you, to not do that, and you can do that just as well in your current job as in a new job. There's a great lede in an old BW story about Best Buy's move to flexible work hours (since rescinded):
One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co. (BBY), shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee."
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-12-10/smashing-the-... (they killed the program six years later)
When I work as an in-house designer, I set parameters from day 1, not by asking permission, but through my behavior. I don't show up before 10am. I decline any meeting scheduled for the same day. I leave meetings where we're not getting anything done or there's no agenda. I leave the building for lunch and I take at least an hour. I am comfortable leaving after my last meeting if no-one's expecting anything from me, even if that's at 3 in the afternoon. I show up after lunch or leave early on days when I'm hosting meetups. I book multi-hour blocks in Outlook, and often also in meeting rooms, so I can focus, which means if you want my time, book me in Outlook, because I have work to do.
When I am working, I am working, and I make sure I am able to be productive, and the rest of the time, I may not even be in the office.
And for over six years, I get my work done, and no-one has ever cared that I took a three-hour lunch to see Iron Man again.