21 ms·

Your own company? You can do it (2011)

701 points by oliv__ 9y ago

gameshot911 9y ago
Worth noting that the guy backed up all his passion with hard work. Just telling someone to "go for it" isn't worth much if they don't have the fire (or the potential for one) already within.
- uiri 9y ago
  A lot of people will say that they want to quit their job and start their own business. The people who will back up what they say with hard work actually do want to start their own company. The rest are all talk and when push comes to shove they'll fail. They don't actually want to start their own company. They want to keep working their job while dreaming about starting their own company. Articles like these are for the former group who will doubt themselves because of all the naysayers and the latter group of dreamers.
  - slig 9y ago
    Related: https://sivers.org/arv https://sivers.org/arv
  - UK-AL 9y ago
    Thats because a lot of people know people who have done that, and ended setting back their financial position back many years. Then had trouble finding a job afterwords. There are a lot more failures than successes, but you hear about the successful ones.
realPubkey 9y ago
Of you live in germany: don't do it, the bourecraty will kill you with a 360 no-scope.
- jnardiello 9y ago
  Or in Italy. As you start to go solo, expect to spend 30-50% of your time dealing with paperwork and kafkian bureaucracy
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Small business is a fist pumping cheer word for even our left here in the US - I remember being really surprised when I found out that it wasn't the same everywhere.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      It IS the same everywhere. Just that, everywhere, and in the US too, the cheer words don't match the reality.
      - hueving 9y ago
        What? A small business is very easy to run in the US from a government interaction perspective.
    - cylinder 9y ago
      Plenty of bureaucracy and disadvantage for small business in the US ... and really, this is the land of the megacorp. Most other countries have more palpable small business presence.
  - nannePOPI 9y ago
    I'm still paying taxes on money I didn't even earned.
- deleted 9y ago
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- uiri 9y ago
  The author is from the Netherlands. Is the bureaucracy really that much worse in Germany than it is there?
jandrewrogers 9y ago
This sounds astonishingly similar to how I got into the business. Great story. You can go a very long way as a scrapper with little to lose and a bit of talent.
- deleted 9y ago
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Tade0 9y ago
"When I was 17 and a high school drop-out I went to work for a bank." Last time this was possible it was the early 90's maybe.
- jpm_sd 9y ago
  Not to mention paying for a studio apartment on a highschool dropout hourly wage
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Depends what you consider a "studio apartment" to be. For most it's not some huge NY loft above Central Park or Soho, but an all-in-one, cramped, small space single room apartment that's usually the cheapest option, and is around 300-600sq feet.
    - theparanoid 9y ago
      Where I'm at that's about $1000/month plus health insurance. Minimum wage is $1700/month.
      - BenchRouter 9y ago
        In NY or SF a 300 sq. foot studio would be about $1800/month, at least. You could get cheaper, but you'd be far away from the actual city (at which point you might as well just live somewhere else).
        creepydata 9y ago
        What do you consider NYC? $1800 a month can get you a two bedroom in Brooklyn.
        nedwin 9y ago
        Wow, really? I had no idea it was so affordable. My rent is more than double in SF but figured it was a comparable CoL city to NYC/Brooklyn included.
theparanoid 9y ago
I freelance part-time and actually enjoy life. It's not difficult, with remote work, to make Silicon Valley wages and pay cheap housing.
- JajaMan 9y ago
  Can you go into more detail on this?
  - gk1 9y ago
    If you can get a remote contract or salaried position, then you can live in a low-cost area while still earning the same amount.
    - aurelianito 9y ago
      How do I get a part-time Silicon Valley salary for a part-time job remotely? I would love to. Please let me know who would be interested in hiring me in these conditions.
  - deleted 9y ago
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carsongross 9y ago
There's a lot of survival bias, self-marketing and old economy steve in this post. Statistically, you can't do it, and you'll waste a lot of time, money and prime earning years figuring that out. That's not to say you shouldn't try, but only to say you should be realistic about what you are likely sacrificing for that small chance of success.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  Statistically, you can't do it I'm not sure that's true. I mean, yeah, it's a given that "most new businesses fail", but that's ignoring the point that you can try again and again. Even if you "run out of money" and have to quit, you can go to work for The Man for a few years, rebuild savings and then try again. Lather, rinse, repeat. To be fair though, I'm assuming a situation where you don't have kids, a house payment, etc. and you'll waste a lot of time, money and prime earning years figuring that out. That's not to say you shouldn't try, but only to say you should be realistic about what you are likely sacrificing for that small chance of success. Is it really wasted time though? The way I look at it, if you try to start a business and fail, you still gained from the process, because you mostly likely learned a shit-ton from the process itself. Speaking from my own experience working on Fogbeam, even if we never make a penny, the process will have been invaluable to me, as I've learned, grown and extended myself in ways I never imagined I could.
  - carsongross 9y ago
    > To be fair though, I'm assuming a situation where you don't have kids, a house payment, etc. Exactly. "You" means different things. On average, even smart people (maybe especially smart people) aren't cut out for this shit, and that's not to denigrate them. > Is it really wasted time though? Again, it depends. People in the startup world can feel so much pressure that they end up offing themselves, as we saw during the last downturn. Due to survival bias, we rarely hear about the failures, fractured families, ruined savings, etc. There are guys who kept trying over and over and never made it. They usually don't write books or blog articles about it. There are even more guys who started something, limped it along for five or ten years and then watched it peter out, and absorbed all the psychological punishment that entails. I started a reasonably successful company. I'd be really careful about who I recommended it to.
thesagan 9y ago
This works if you're young (health insurance is expensive, working/traveling away from family), have resources (for those unexpected expenses, and the slow payers), and are able to take your work with you on vacation (important customers need service); but for the vast majority of professionals it's just not possible any more, without significant financial support starting out. You need a good chunk of capital to survive the first few years, before you even think about expanding. (Which, when it's time, you must do, or risk shrinking into oblivion. And not everybody is able and willing to expand forever. I wasn't.) Just sharing my own little caveat; otherwise I think starting your own firm/consultancy is fantastic.
- gk1 9y ago
  As long as we're talking about consulting, you shouldn't need a few years of living expenses saved up. If you aren't making a living within the first year then it's time to try something else or go back to a salaried job.
  - thesagan 9y ago
    Straight consulting... probably not that much, I suppose, but you still need enough to carry you through a couple rough quarters (at least) to retain and serve a steady pipeline of clientele, and be able to account for payment scheduling issues that arise from time-to-time. (Those small disruptions quickly compound.) I liked having a one-year nest egg stashed away when I was operating at full-steam. And, of course, smart players will have a little next egg AND have a pipeline partly-filled before leaving a day job. :)
- learc83 9y ago
  >health insurance is expensive ACA subsidies are based on income, not net worth. If you quit your job and you're in a state that expanded medicare, or if you can pay yourself a bit above the poverty line, you can take care of most of the cost with subsidies.
  - YPCrumble 9y ago
    Do the subsidized plans actually cover anything? I'm on an Obamacare plan that basically covers catastrophic health care and everything else I pay for. If it's a subsidized catastrophic plan that's not helpful. I'd be surprised if they subsidized one of the regular plans in full.
tomrod 9y ago
I want to do it. I'm just not sure what problem to solve, or how to broadcast my skillset. I welcome suggestions!
ryandrake 9y ago
So many "how I did my own thing" stories out there remind me of that old "How To Draw An Owl" meme[1]. It's always: 1. I quit my job one day and decided to [do a startup | independently contract] 2. Fast forward a few years and [I sold to Google! | I've got 5 contracts and I set my own schedule!] I mean, great work, and congratulations, but I think you skipped a few steps there. 1: http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/572/078/d6d.jpg http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/572/078/d6d...
- angersock 9y ago
  I mean, sometimes you just have to draw the fucking owl. People want a nice little checklist of how to start a business, but that isn't how it works.
  - tajen 9y ago
    I'd like to thank HN for that. HN gave me a bunch of information/reflex/frameworks to understand how to create a company and how to understand various signals, and my first solopreneurship has been successful for 4 years.
  - bjelkeman-again 9y ago
    Having started five-six new organisations by now, there is in fact a checklist I use these days. The first item is: do I have a salesperson I trust to work with onboard as collaborator? Without this I don't do anything. Viable ideas I am never short of. Then the rest of the checklist starts. But I am on mobile, and not able to easily elaborate right now.
- blhack 9y ago
  I think the point people are trying to get across with those stories is that quitting your job is by far the most important step.
  - ryanSrich 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's extremely well know. I still wouldn't advise ever quiting your job and starting a company. The risk to reward ratio is so far out of whack the math will never work out.
wincen 9y ago
What about health insurance for those of us in the USA?
- will_pseudonym 9y ago
  COBRA is a good stopgap if you're leaving a corporate job, and the health exchanges vary in quality.
  - koolba 9y ago
    COBRA is usually prohibitively expensive. Your best bet is having zero declared income and going on Medicaid.
graycat 9y ago
> "Your own company? You can do it" In general, of course. In some specific cases, maybe not. For you to have a job by being hired by an employer, someone else has to create that job. In the private sector, usually someone has to start and own a company, make it successful, and generate enough free cash to pay you. So, if you are looking for a job at all, you are essentially admitting that it's possible, reasonable, common, doable, etc. to start and own a company and make it successful. So, why not you? That is, if you want job, especially a good job, then consider creating that job for yourself.
encoderer 9y ago
My POV: 1) You can keep your job. Just always build things on the side. It keeps you coding for play and not just for work. 2) Try to sell the things you build. You don't need to be fully polished on day one. In fact, you shouldn't be and can't be because you need real customers to really understand their needs. 3) you can find the numbers online, but my saas project Cronitor had just $500mrr after seven months. You need patience and to adjust your work factor to match the available outputs. By letting it coast a bit while it picked up momentum we prevented burnout. When it started to grow faster we could pour some attention in and level up the product. 4) grow it while you work your day job. This is easy at first and grows harder. Having a partner is important here. Alternative: a business where a little downtime is not a big deal. 5) when it gets stressful, know your commitments. Your day job gets first bite and when you can't do that anymore you know it's time to move on and do it full time. Most importantly the tldr is: quit your job after you've replaced most of your salary. And before you quit enjoy the incremental income.
- fizixer 9y ago
  One thing I noticed while doing a 40 hour a week software job recently (I'm not working now) is that your ability to work in the evenings and weekends depends on how much cognitive load you go through during those 40 hours. I've had jobs where the load is moderate, but in this recent one, the employer wanted to extract work from every hour of the 40 hour perior. I was so exhausted, that I couldn't do anything in the evenings, would spend Saturday in a state of haze, and on Sunday finally be able to think straight. But then on Sunday you barely catch up with what you were doing last Sunday. So your progress practically comes to grinding halt.
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    This is the beginning of burnout. Soon, you'll stop being able to think straight even into Monday. Other things in your life will fall to the wayside or disappear out of neglect. Monday will turn into Tuesday, Tuesday into Wednesday. You'll wonder why you even bother to show up. Eventually, your employer will fire you for someone younger and cheaper, and you'll realize that you have no ability to maintain enough software development effort on your own to demonstrate to potential employers that you can do the work. And even if you could, it's a sham, because you can't. You'll find that you end up being able to work ten, maybe twenty hours a week if you're having an especially good week. Your work won't be any worse, for quality, you just simply won't be able to force yourself to do it any more than that. So, it's worth addressing that early. I'm not sure why the mantra of HN is that "You just have weekend and side projects and stay up till 3 am while still making that 9am meeting and everything is great". Sure, that works for a while, until you hit your limits and your life falls apart. There's no road back from there. Take it from me, you can truly excel, and nobody cares unless you can work 40, 50, or 60 hours a week. To PG's point from a while ago, "Nobody is willing to pay double for twice the work" - neither is anyone willing to pay half the rate for half the work.
myth_buster 9y ago
I agree with the sentiment and appreciate the motivation, but... > If a high school drop-out with nothing but a typing diploma could do it, so can you. Now go do it. this is not representative. From the reading you seem to be "smart" too apart from hard working. =D
Adam89 9y ago
You sir were not talented at all, but instead you were a very hard worker, kudos
- spraak 9y ago
  I agree they worked hard, but I don't think they aren't talented
accountyaccount 9y ago
also helps to have a big ol' safety net
LordHumungous 9y ago
Nice to see some positivity on this topic. Yes, starting a company is hard. No it's not for everyone. That doesn't mean it can't be done.
sqldba 9y ago
All I read was the article, "How I started my own company 30 years ago during the computer boom". I'm eagerly awaiting part 2 which is how this is even remotely relevant today when programming isn't a secret skill anymore.
- Joeri 9y ago
  Yes, the supply of programmers has increased, but the demand has increased even more, and the bar keeps getting raised as far as knowledge, so if you are a skilled programmer you are still pretty much guaranteed to have work.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    Not even remotely true. There are plenty of skilled programmers without work right now. Not everyone lives in the Valley. In the Valley what is considered a "skilled" programmer by the measure of interview practices is so out of sync with what skills are actually necessary as to not be a valid comparison.
    - Joeri 9y ago
      What countries have a surplus of programmers? I've never heard of a country where programmers aren't in high demand.
      - nickpsecurity 9y ago
        There's all kinds of people in the U.S. with programming skill who can't get a job due to discrimination (esp age). They're discarded in favor of less-experienced people out of college or those with H1-B visas since they'll be cheaper. Lots of people on the job sites with 20+ years experience in many skills talking about how they're "overqualified" for everything. In my area, I even saw job ads say "H1-B Visa Preferred" for basic, IT jobs. That's really giving the middle finger to U.S. citizens.
- bottled_poe 9y ago
  This is pretty much how I read it too.
taysic 9y ago
I agree with a lot of this though my journey has been really different. Running a business didn't interest me for a long time - then I realized I felt I was very skilled and I was just tired of working in the industry. So I came up with side projects on my free time. I think everyone has their own non-linear journey on how they get there. The biggest thing I have learned so far is it's really not about "hard work". Imo, its much more about how well you balance work and life. Are you on an unsustainable path or are you on a sustainable one? Are you enjoying what you are doing? This is critical. Are you genuinely eager to work on it and can you sustain that after one year? If so, you're highly likely to succeed in my opinion. If you believe in it, and love what you're working on, it's very likely there are other people out there who do too.
- rkunnamp 9y ago
  'Are you on an unsustainable path or are you on a sustainable one?' Well, that kept me thinking. Never did I ask this myself. Thank you for that thought.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  spot on. make also sure you're surrounded by positive people and more importantly not surrounded with toxic people. Because that drains so much energy that life becomes, as OP says, unsustainable.
deleted 9y ago
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necessity 9y ago
Not in Brazil no you can't. http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-business http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-b...
- owebmaster 9y ago
  Here in Brazil you can start a company literally in one minute, without any cost or taxes and you will pay only ~15 dollars/month, and part of it will go to your governmental pension as monthly contribution. You will have more bureaucracy to fill progressively, but most of the companies (and all startups except a couple) will probably not need it.
rkunnamp 9y ago
One thing that I want to remind everyone reading this, including myself is a thought from "Forrest Gump" "I don't know if we each have a destiny,............or if we're all just floating around......accidental-like on a breeze.........But I think,......maybe it's both" - Do we have defined destiny? or Can we influence the destiny with our actions? The answer is not black and white. Life is like that, it is part luck and part hard work/smart work. The context, the skill set etc is entirely different for every single individual. So you can't really learn much from patterns. On an ending note- "- Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you're gonna be? -Who I'm gonna be?............. Yeah. .................Aren't I going to be me? "
dharma1 9y ago
"My first ‘freelance’ job I got by accident. I was walking home one night in Amsterdam and two guys were lugging an Apple II from a car in to a house. Being of a curious nature I asked what they were doing (it looked rather suspicious!) and they said ‘building an eye tracker’. “What’s that?” I asked. “Come along and see”. Stuff like that happens in Amsterdam in the middle of the night." "“Ok, I’m going to send you on this course, it’s a 20,000 guilder expense on my side. If you let me down, you’re out and I never ever want to see you again, if you pass the examination at the end you’ve got a job as a junior programmer”." Stuff like this can make a world of difference to the trajectory a young person's life takes. Much respect to people who are open and inclusive like this
patryn20 9y ago
I've done my own thing since high school with the exception of two years in offices (one as W2 and one as part time 1099). I'm now 35 and experiencing health issues and discovering that unless you earn "f$&! you money" group health insurance in the US is worth at least $75k a year in income. At least. If you aren't in a country with proper healthcare and are not earning AT LEAST $300k USD a year (consistently), understand that all your years of work can be destroyed by one diagnosis. And plan accordingly. I love my life. I've had a charmed existence moving to wonderful locales and doing what I wanted when I wanted; but the genetic lottery cannot be outwitted. You can be healthy one day and in debt the next. Plan accordingly. Don't let youth and good health lull you into complacency. It's completely possible and attainable for software developers to be independent anywhere on the globe, but understand the potential financial implications and limitations of the social safety nets of your country of citizenship/residence. Plan accordingly.
- patryn20 9y ago
  This comment sharing more of my life than I'm strictly comfortable with and coming off as patronizingly preachy is my highest point earner. Go figure.
  - ironic_ali 9y ago
    Maybe(?) the comment is preachy, but the sentiment is borne of goodwill and of course, reality. It's a wake up and I personally need to get on to this.
    - patryn20 9y ago
      What I really want to get across is that young entrepreneurs need to plan for aging/medical emergencies. The reality of where you live and the potential for unexpected medical expenses can devastatingly impact your life and business if you don't properly plan for those outliers. I'd recommend you determine your acceptable level of financial exposure to disaster and get competent legal and financial advice to protect yourself and fully understand the potential ramifications of your self employment and/or startup decisions.
mshrewd 9y ago
I won a boilerplate (ycombinator copycat) competition last year and it's helped me a lot in some ways. It was also kinda stupid. I mean, my teammates all quit as soon as they realized how much hard work a startup requires... Life lesson! And, in actuality I haven't made much progress toward an actual company. but, I mean, this has been pretty great in some ways. Best part is my mentor was an expert in my field (automation, robots, etc.) and has really had a lot of fantastic input for me. My key takeaway from the competition? Don't try to build a start up on your own. You really MUST have a strong team backing you up. I'm probably going to crumple up this owl and start another one soon. Most importantly if you want to get good at drawing owls, you have to love drawing.
therealmarv 9y ago
I agree. But this were different times. Nowadays competition and requirements (especially looking at good companies in e.g. Germany) are much higher in IT. Beeing a lateral entrant is (and will always be) possible but it is much much harder.
hellofunk 9y ago
I must admit that I am getting a bit worse for wear from reading lots of self-congratulatory blog posts by software developers (and in other fields too), where they craft a very curated set of words to highlight the most attractive qualities of their life. Perhaps I am being bitter, but it just seems strange to me to have a personal website where you aggrandize yourself through the brief filter of a few paragraphs that I think ultimately exist to serve an ego.
Grustaf 9y ago
This is a very impressive and inspiring story, but I think the title is misleading. You're clearly much more talented and/or hard working than most readers, and you also had the advantage of being one of very few programmers in a time when the need was increasing rapidly.
IceDane 9y ago
I appreciate the sentiment of this article, but for the most part it kind of comes off as a bunch of stuff about him tooting his own horn(handwritten assembler, editor light years ahead of anything else, etc), and then a single paragraph about how he started a business. Not really useful advice.
raarts 9y ago
For comparison: same Amsterdam, about the same timeframe. No drive to start my own business (initially!), because didn't even know that was possible for regular people. Started out when I was eight, I got into electronics. Read all magazines, learned myself how to design electronic circuits from library books. Kept my own, hand written, library card system describing the specs of all transistors, ICs I could get my hands on. Designed/built and repaired devices for other people who paid me for the materials and for my trouble. I was 15. When I was 18 I went to university, switched majors multiple times. And then the Dutch electronics magazine published the Junior computer, based on the 6502. I spent all my money on it, and learned assembler by inputting hex numbers. After that came the MSX computer (I disassembled the BASIC interpreter to grok how it worked) and I started searching for programmers jobs. Found a job at KLM where I got out top of the class and entered a special called SMART. For special internal projects. All of us programmed in IBM S370 assembler, they tested C but it was too slow. I was 25 by then. The following years went downhill. In IT. I changed jobs multiple times, but the companies kept going out of business. I was flabbergasted at the amount of incompetence I saw in salespeople and at C-level. I had no idea, coming from a blue collar background. Side note: in 4 years I had 9 CEOs, 8 of which left their wife for their secretary in the time I worked there! I had a lot of respect for the 9th until I found out a couple of years later he'd done the same after I left. So I decided why not start my own business i was capable of going bust as well couldn't do worse as those guys. So I started the first commercial ISP in the NL. One thing led to another and many companies later I now pulled out of most and again starting as a founder and learning all the new hot technologies.
- it_learnses 9y ago
  Could you please give me some advice? i'm a full-time developer with 10 years experience. I would like to start my own and have a few ideas to try out. I have savings that could allow me to survive for a year. Would you recommend I quit my day job or just work on it on the side?
  - _d8fd 9y ago
    Here are my simple tips: - don't run out of cash - make something you enjoy working on - sell something people need - sell something for more than it costs to make - don't expect the people around you to be as excited as you are about your thing
linker3000 9y ago
Did it (in the UK). Started a sole consultancy, grew it into a training and courseware business employing around 10 people. Formalised what was previously an ad-hoc partnership with a US-based organisation into a franchise-type contract in exchange for a five-figure marketing kickstart from them, and tooled up (software and people) for a 'letter of intent' long-term joint contract with the US military in the UK for technical and personnel training, then found out that despite a written agreement, they were poaching our business in the UK. We started talking to them, they said we could forget the funding. We were small, they were corporate and basically told us to fuck off and sue if we had the cash to carry it through. Had to fold the business. Nearly lost my house and marriage. This was in the late 1990s. For every story, there's an equal and opposite one.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  > For every story, there's an equal and opposite one. It's not equal, for every success there are many more than one story similar to yours.
  - linker3000 9y ago
    Fair point.
- tristanperry 9y ago
  Sorry to hear about that :( And thanks for the honesty - it's always good to get the balancing stories.
lazyjones 9y ago
There's a huge difference between "your own company" (freelancing) and "your own company with employees" though. The former is very easy and pretty much for everyone who can run a single household in a developed, bureaucratic country, the latter is much more demanding and requires certain personality traits that need to be present (in yourself or a co-founder).
jt2190 9y ago
(2011)
apatters 9y ago
To anyone considering starting a business I would recommend reading a book called "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. It's 20 years old, but it discusses one point in particular which I think is particularly relevant for HN's audience. Many people who go into business fail because they operate the business with the mindset of a "technician" -- someone who is very good at a particular skill, and enjoys and prioritizes performing that skill. The abilities of a technician can be very valuable to a business, but especially as it begins to scale the owner/operator(s) need to adopt different mindsets in order to succeed. In short, if you don't like the idea of spending most of your time on business or marketing stuff, you should find someone who can handle those, or perhaps be a solo consultant/contractor. (I think this is a large part of why YC encourages cofounders so much.) Exceptions certainly exist--there was a time when tech was a magical world and you could do magic things just by being an expert engineer--but increasingly I feel they are getting rarer.
- adekok 9y ago
  I agree. I started out as a techie, and I now run my own business. The engineers half-serious mock me for continually talking about money, billing, etc. But they do know that's how their salaries get paid.
- superasn 9y ago
  Another amazing book that greatly compliments Gerber's book is Sam carpenters work the system. These are two really life changing books IMO
- shoo 9y ago
  the book has some good ideas in it, but 80% of it is filler / repetition / cross-sells to some of the author's related services. it's a bit crass. save time and read an online summary of the book to cover the ideas quickly.
  - azeirah 9y ago
    You don't need to read a book page-by-page, good readers recognize filler and repetition. I personally don't like reading summaries, they lack an element of "convincing" that immersing yourself into a real book does have.
stretchwithme 9y ago
Great story.
more_corn 9y ago
I just started my own company. I'm a bit worried that nobody will come. I'm offering contract Dev/Ops work. (I did DevOps at YouTube for 8 years, spent 2 years building AWS infrastructure for a startup) I'm certain companies could benefit immensely by contracting with someone to help improve their Ops game, but I'm that awkward stage where I'm not 100% sure anyone will request my services. Wish me luck!
axonic 9y ago
Seriously, go run an Eve Online player corporation. Try setting up a persistent chat server, wiki, etc. for the corp and securing it. Try managing players in fleets from several time zones and scheduling engagements and operations. This is analogous to setting up collaboration infrastructure for remote teams in development settings, as well as scheduling for international workers, wrangling cats, and you will be fully qualified to wrestle Mongolian Tigers. These players are volunteers, which is synonymous with the real meaning of "employee" held by some of the people you may work with. Loosely held by honor, perhaps loyal based on their relationship with the organization, some are hard workers and motivated, others require a leader or mentor be assigned to them. Once your eyes bleed and you wish for death every night for ever deciding to be in charge, try also making it profitable. Use your knowledge of business practices to balance the corp accounts, make good deals, and save money where you can to be able to pay dividends to members of the corp. If you really want to do a "dry run" to test your mettle, that is one way. I'm not saying this will make you CEO of Intel material but you'll at least have the confidence to proceed and have some idea of what the minefield really looks like so you don't jump on every one.
JokerDan 9y ago
I would love to start up my own business, I am extremely hard working and dedicated, even in my every-day 9-5 which I end up doing like 8-6 and working weekends. I enjoy working, as a software dev and at 23 years old I have a fair bit of time ahead of me. My biggest downside is I lack the confidence, I have a bunch of ideas but then I decide, "It won't go anywhere";"I can't do that";"As if people would even bother with this"... I see so many things that could be so much better every day. How do I get past these barriers? Do I just run with an idea and even if it fails, oh well, move on?
- deleted 9y ago
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701 points by oliv__ 9y ago

Worth noting that the guy backed up all his passion with hard work. Just telling someone to "go for it" isn't worth much if they don't have the fire (or the potential for one) already within.

uiri 9y ago
A lot of people will say that they want to quit their job and start their own business. The people who will back up what they say with hard work actually do want to start their own company. The rest are all talk and when push comes to shove they'll fail. They don't actually want to start their own company. They want to keep working their job while dreaming about starting their own company. Articles like these are for the former group who will doubt themselves because of all the naysayers and the latter group of dreamers.
- slig 9y ago
  Related: https://sivers.org/arv https://sivers.org/arv
- UK-AL 9y ago
  Thats because a lot of people know people who have done that, and ended setting back their financial position back many years. Then had trouble finding a job afterwords. There are a lot more failures than successes, but you hear about the successful ones.

realPubkey 9y ago

Of you live in germany: don't do it, the bourecraty will kill you with a 360 no-scope.

jnardiello 9y ago
Or in Italy. As you start to go solo, expect to spend 30-50% of your time dealing with paperwork and kafkian bureaucracy
- whatshisface 9y ago
  Small business is a fist pumping cheer word for even our left here in the US - I remember being really surprised when I found out that it wasn't the same everywhere.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    It IS the same everywhere. Just that, everywhere, and in the US too, the cheer words don't match the reality.
    - hueving 9y ago
      What? A small business is very easy to run in the US from a government interaction perspective.
  - cylinder 9y ago
    Plenty of bureaucracy and disadvantage for small business in the US ... and really, this is the land of the megacorp. Most other countries have more palpable small business presence.
- nannePOPI 9y ago
  I'm still paying taxes on money I didn't even earned.
deleted 9y ago
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uiri 9y ago
The author is from the Netherlands. Is the bureaucracy really that much worse in Germany than it is there?

jandrewrogers 9y ago

This sounds astonishingly similar to how I got into the business. Great story. You can go a very long way as a scrapper with little to lose and a bit of talent.

deleted 9y ago
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Tade0 9y ago

"When I was 17 and a high school drop-out I went to work for a bank." Last time this was possible it was the early 90's maybe.

jpm_sd 9y ago
Not to mention paying for a studio apartment on a highschool dropout hourly wage
- coldtea 9y ago
  Depends what you consider a "studio apartment" to be. For most it's not some huge NY loft above Central Park or Soho, but an all-in-one, cramped, small space single room apartment that's usually the cheapest option, and is around 300-600sq feet.
  - theparanoid 9y ago
    Where I'm at that's about $1000/month plus health insurance. Minimum wage is $1700/month.
    - BenchRouter 9y ago
      In NY or SF a 300 sq. foot studio would be about $1800/month, at least. You could get cheaper, but you'd be far away from the actual city (at which point you might as well just live somewhere else).
      - creepydata 9y ago
        What do you consider NYC? $1800 a month can get you a two bedroom in Brooklyn.
        nedwin 9y ago
        Wow, really? I had no idea it was so affordable. My rent is more than double in SF but figured it was a comparable CoL city to NYC/Brooklyn included.

theparanoid 9y ago

I freelance part-time and actually enjoy life. It's not difficult, with remote work, to make Silicon Valley wages and pay cheap housing.

JajaMan 9y ago
Can you go into more detail on this?
- gk1 9y ago
  If you can get a remote contract or salaried position, then you can live in a low-cost area while still earning the same amount.
  - aurelianito 9y ago
    How do I get a part-time Silicon Valley salary for a part-time job remotely? I would love to. Please let me know who would be interested in hiring me in these conditions.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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carsongross 9y ago

There's a lot of survival bias, self-marketing and old economy steve in this post. Statistically, you can't do it, and you'll waste a lot of time, money and prime earning years figuring that out. That's not to say you shouldn't try, but only to say you should be realistic about what you are likely sacrificing for that small chance of success.

mindcrime 9y ago
Statistically, you can't do it I'm not sure that's true. I mean, yeah, it's a given that "most new businesses fail", but that's ignoring the point that you can try again and again. Even if you "run out of money" and have to quit, you can go to work for The Man for a few years, rebuild savings and then try again. Lather, rinse, repeat. To be fair though, I'm assuming a situation where you don't have kids, a house payment, etc. and you'll waste a lot of time, money and prime earning years figuring that out. That's not to say you shouldn't try, but only to say you should be realistic about what you are likely sacrificing for that small chance of success. Is it really wasted time though? The way I look at it, if you try to start a business and fail, you still gained from the process, because you mostly likely learned a shit-ton from the process itself. Speaking from my own experience working on Fogbeam, even if we never make a penny, the process will have been invaluable to me, as I've learned, grown and extended myself in ways I never imagined I could.
- carsongross 9y ago
  > To be fair though, I'm assuming a situation where you don't have kids, a house payment, etc. Exactly. "You" means different things. On average, even smart people (maybe especially smart people) aren't cut out for this shit, and that's not to denigrate them. > Is it really wasted time though? Again, it depends. People in the startup world can feel so much pressure that they end up offing themselves, as we saw during the last downturn. Due to survival bias, we rarely hear about the failures, fractured families, ruined savings, etc. There are guys who kept trying over and over and never made it. They usually don't write books or blog articles about it. There are even more guys who started something, limped it along for five or ten years and then watched it peter out, and absorbed all the psychological punishment that entails. I started a reasonably successful company. I'd be really careful about who I recommended it to.

thesagan 9y ago

This works if you're young (health insurance is expensive, working/traveling away from family), have resources (for those unexpected expenses, and the slow payers), and are able to take your work with you on vacation (important customers need service); but for the vast majority of professionals it's just not possible any more, without significant financial support starting out. You need a good chunk of capital to survive the first few years, before you even think about expanding. (Which, when it's time, you must do, or risk shrinking into oblivion. And not everybody is able and willing to expand forever. I wasn't.) Just sharing my own little caveat; otherwise I think starting your own firm/consultancy is fantastic.

gk1 9y ago
As long as we're talking about consulting, you shouldn't need a few years of living expenses saved up. If you aren't making a living within the first year then it's time to try something else or go back to a salaried job.
- thesagan 9y ago
  Straight consulting... probably not that much, I suppose, but you still need enough to carry you through a couple rough quarters (at least) to retain and serve a steady pipeline of clientele, and be able to account for payment scheduling issues that arise from time-to-time. (Those small disruptions quickly compound.) I liked having a one-year nest egg stashed away when I was operating at full-steam. And, of course, smart players will have a little next egg AND have a pipeline partly-filled before leaving a day job. :)
learc83 9y ago
>health insurance is expensive ACA subsidies are based on income, not net worth. If you quit your job and you're in a state that expanded medicare, or if you can pay yourself a bit above the poverty line, you can take care of most of the cost with subsidies.
- YPCrumble 9y ago
  Do the subsidized plans actually cover anything? I'm on an Obamacare plan that basically covers catastrophic health care and everything else I pay for. If it's a subsidized catastrophic plan that's not helpful. I'd be surprised if they subsidized one of the regular plans in full.

tomrod 9y ago

I want to do it. I'm just not sure what problem to solve, or how to broadcast my skillset. I welcome suggestions!

ryandrake 9y ago

So many "how I did my own thing" stories out there remind me of that old "How To Draw An Owl" meme[1]. It's always: 1. I quit my job one day and decided to [do a startup | independently contract] 2. Fast forward a few years and [I sold to Google! | I've got 5 contracts and I set my own schedule!] I mean, great work, and congratulations, but I think you skipped a few steps there. 1: http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/572/078/d6d.jpg http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/572/078/d6d...

angersock 9y ago
I mean, sometimes you just have to draw the fucking owl. People want a nice little checklist of how to start a business, but that isn't how it works.
- tajen 9y ago
  I'd like to thank HN for that. HN gave me a bunch of information/reflex/frameworks to understand how to create a company and how to understand various signals, and my first solopreneurship has been successful for 4 years.
- bjelkeman-again 9y ago
  Having started five-six new organisations by now, there is in fact a checklist I use these days. The first item is: do I have a salesperson I trust to work with onboard as collaborator? Without this I don't do anything. Viable ideas I am never short of. Then the rest of the checklist starts. But I am on mobile, and not able to easily elaborate right now.
blhack 9y ago
I think the point people are trying to get across with those stories is that quitting your job is by far the most important step.
- ryanSrich 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's extremely well know. I still wouldn't advise ever quiting your job and starting a company. The risk to reward ratio is so far out of whack the math will never work out.

wincen 9y ago

What about health insurance for those of us in the USA?

will_pseudonym 9y ago
COBRA is a good stopgap if you're leaving a corporate job, and the health exchanges vary in quality.
- koolba 9y ago
  COBRA is usually prohibitively expensive. Your best bet is having zero declared income and going on Medicaid.

graycat 9y ago

> "Your own company? You can do it" In general, of course. In some specific cases, maybe not. For you to have a job by being hired by an employer, someone else has to create that job. In the private sector, usually someone has to start and own a company, make it successful, and generate enough free cash to pay you. So, if you are looking for a job at all, you are essentially admitting that it's possible, reasonable, common, doable, etc. to start and own a company and make it successful. So, why not you? That is, if you want job, especially a good job, then consider creating that job for yourself.

encoderer 9y ago

My POV: 1) You can keep your job. Just always build things on the side. It keeps you coding for play and not just for work. 2) Try to sell the things you build. You don't need to be fully polished on day one. In fact, you shouldn't be and can't be because you need real customers to really understand their needs. 3) you can find the numbers online, but my saas project Cronitor had just $500mrr after seven months. You need patience and to adjust your work factor to match the available outputs. By letting it coast a bit while it picked up momentum we prevented burnout. When it started to grow faster we could pour some attention in and level up the product. 4) grow it while you work your day job. This is easy at first and grows harder. Having a partner is important here. Alternative: a business where a little downtime is not a big deal. 5) when it gets stressful, know your commitments. Your day job gets first bite and when you can't do that anymore you know it's time to move on and do it full time. Most importantly the tldr is: quit your job after you've replaced most of your salary. And before you quit enjoy the incremental income.

fizixer 9y ago
One thing I noticed while doing a 40 hour a week software job recently (I'm not working now) is that your ability to work in the evenings and weekends depends on how much cognitive load you go through during those 40 hours. I've had jobs where the load is moderate, but in this recent one, the employer wanted to extract work from every hour of the 40 hour perior. I was so exhausted, that I couldn't do anything in the evenings, would spend Saturday in a state of haze, and on Sunday finally be able to think straight. But then on Sunday you barely catch up with what you were doing last Sunday. So your progress practically comes to grinding halt.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  This is the beginning of burnout. Soon, you'll stop being able to think straight even into Monday. Other things in your life will fall to the wayside or disappear out of neglect. Monday will turn into Tuesday, Tuesday into Wednesday. You'll wonder why you even bother to show up. Eventually, your employer will fire you for someone younger and cheaper, and you'll realize that you have no ability to maintain enough software development effort on your own to demonstrate to potential employers that you can do the work. And even if you could, it's a sham, because you can't. You'll find that you end up being able to work ten, maybe twenty hours a week if you're having an especially good week. Your work won't be any worse, for quality, you just simply won't be able to force yourself to do it any more than that. So, it's worth addressing that early. I'm not sure why the mantra of HN is that "You just have weekend and side projects and stay up till 3 am while still making that 9am meeting and everything is great". Sure, that works for a while, until you hit your limits and your life falls apart. There's no road back from there. Take it from me, you can truly excel, and nobody cares unless you can work 40, 50, or 60 hours a week. To PG's point from a while ago, "Nobody is willing to pay double for twice the work" - neither is anyone willing to pay half the rate for half the work.

myth_buster 9y ago

I agree with the sentiment and appreciate the motivation, but... > If a high school drop-out with nothing but a typing diploma could do it, so can you. Now go do it. this is not representative. From the reading you seem to be "smart" too apart from hard working. =D

Adam89 9y ago

You sir were not talented at all, but instead you were a very hard worker, kudos

spraak 9y ago
I agree they worked hard, but I don't think they aren't talented

accountyaccount 9y ago

also helps to have a big ol' safety net

LordHumungous 9y ago

Nice to see some positivity on this topic. Yes, starting a company is hard. No it's not for everyone. That doesn't mean it can't be done.

sqldba 9y ago

All I read was the article, "How I started my own company 30 years ago during the computer boom". I'm eagerly awaiting part 2 which is how this is even remotely relevant today when programming isn't a secret skill anymore.

Joeri 9y ago
Yes, the supply of programmers has increased, but the demand has increased even more, and the bar keeps getting raised as far as knowledge, so if you are a skilled programmer you are still pretty much guaranteed to have work.
- sidlls 9y ago
  Not even remotely true. There are plenty of skilled programmers without work right now. Not everyone lives in the Valley. In the Valley what is considered a "skilled" programmer by the measure of interview practices is so out of sync with what skills are actually necessary as to not be a valid comparison.
  - Joeri 9y ago
    What countries have a surplus of programmers? I've never heard of a country where programmers aren't in high demand.
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
      There's all kinds of people in the U.S. with programming skill who can't get a job due to discrimination (esp age). They're discarded in favor of less-experienced people out of college or those with H1-B visas since they'll be cheaper. Lots of people on the job sites with 20+ years experience in many skills talking about how they're "overqualified" for everything. In my area, I even saw job ads say "H1-B Visa Preferred" for basic, IT jobs. That's really giving the middle finger to U.S. citizens.
bottled_poe 9y ago
This is pretty much how I read it too.

taysic 9y ago

I agree with a lot of this though my journey has been really different. Running a business didn't interest me for a long time - then I realized I felt I was very skilled and I was just tired of working in the industry. So I came up with side projects on my free time. I think everyone has their own non-linear journey on how they get there. The biggest thing I have learned so far is it's really not about "hard work". Imo, its much more about how well you balance work and life. Are you on an unsustainable path or are you on a sustainable one? Are you enjoying what you are doing? This is critical. Are you genuinely eager to work on it and can you sustain that after one year? If so, you're highly likely to succeed in my opinion. If you believe in it, and love what you're working on, it's very likely there are other people out there who do too.

rkunnamp 9y ago
'Are you on an unsustainable path or are you on a sustainable one?' Well, that kept me thinking. Never did I ask this myself. Thank you for that thought.
wiz21c 9y ago
spot on. make also sure you're surrounded by positive people and more importantly not surrounded with toxic people. Because that drains so much energy that life becomes, as OP says, unsustainable.

deleted 9y ago

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necessity 9y ago

Not in Brazil no you can't. http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-business http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-b...

owebmaster 9y ago
Here in Brazil you can start a company literally in one minute, without any cost or taxes and you will pay only ~15 dollars/month, and part of it will go to your governmental pension as monthly contribution. You will have more bureaucracy to fill progressively, but most of the companies (and all startups except a couple) will probably not need it.

rkunnamp 9y ago

One thing that I want to remind everyone reading this, including myself is a thought from "Forrest Gump" "I don't know if we each have a destiny,............or if we're all just floating around......accidental-like on a breeze.........But I think,......maybe it's both" - Do we have defined destiny? or Can we influence the destiny with our actions? The answer is not black and white. Life is like that, it is part luck and part hard work/smart work. The context, the skill set etc is entirely different for every single individual. So you can't really learn much from patterns. On an ending note- "- Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you're gonna be? -Who I'm gonna be?............. Yeah. .................Aren't I going to be me? "

dharma1 9y ago

"My first ‘freelance’ job I got by accident. I was walking home one night in Amsterdam and two guys were lugging an Apple II from a car in to a house. Being of a curious nature I asked what they were doing (it looked rather suspicious!) and they said ‘building an eye tracker’. “What’s that?” I asked. “Come along and see”. Stuff like that happens in Amsterdam in the middle of the night." "“Ok, I’m going to send you on this course, it’s a 20,000 guilder expense on my side. If you let me down, you’re out and I never ever want to see you again, if you pass the examination at the end you’ve got a job as a junior programmer”." Stuff like this can make a world of difference to the trajectory a young person's life takes. Much respect to people who are open and inclusive like this

patryn20 9y ago

I've done my own thing since high school with the exception of two years in offices (one as W2 and one as part time 1099). I'm now 35 and experiencing health issues and discovering that unless you earn "f$&! you money" group health insurance in the US is worth at least $75k a year in income. At least. If you aren't in a country with proper healthcare and are not earning AT LEAST $300k USD a year (consistently), understand that all your years of work can be destroyed by one diagnosis. And plan accordingly. I love my life. I've had a charmed existence moving to wonderful locales and doing what I wanted when I wanted; but the genetic lottery cannot be outwitted. You can be healthy one day and in debt the next. Plan accordingly. Don't let youth and good health lull you into complacency. It's completely possible and attainable for software developers to be independent anywhere on the globe, but understand the potential financial implications and limitations of the social safety nets of your country of citizenship/residence. Plan accordingly.

patryn20 9y ago
This comment sharing more of my life than I'm strictly comfortable with and coming off as patronizingly preachy is my highest point earner. Go figure.
- ironic_ali 9y ago
  Maybe(?) the comment is preachy, but the sentiment is borne of goodwill and of course, reality. It's a wake up and I personally need to get on to this.
  - patryn20 9y ago
    What I really want to get across is that young entrepreneurs need to plan for aging/medical emergencies. The reality of where you live and the potential for unexpected medical expenses can devastatingly impact your life and business if you don't properly plan for those outliers. I'd recommend you determine your acceptable level of financial exposure to disaster and get competent legal and financial advice to protect yourself and fully understand the potential ramifications of your self employment and/or startup decisions.

mshrewd 9y ago

I won a boilerplate (ycombinator copycat) competition last year and it's helped me a lot in some ways. It was also kinda stupid. I mean, my teammates all quit as soon as they realized how much hard work a startup requires... Life lesson! And, in actuality I haven't made much progress toward an actual company. but, I mean, this has been pretty great in some ways. Best part is my mentor was an expert in my field (automation, robots, etc.) and has really had a lot of fantastic input for me. My key takeaway from the competition? Don't try to build a start up on your own. You really MUST have a strong team backing you up. I'm probably going to crumple up this owl and start another one soon. Most importantly if you want to get good at drawing owls, you have to love drawing.

therealmarv 9y ago

I agree. But this were different times. Nowadays competition and requirements (especially looking at good companies in e.g. Germany) are much higher in IT. Beeing a lateral entrant is (and will always be) possible but it is much much harder.

hellofunk 9y ago

I must admit that I am getting a bit worse for wear from reading lots of self-congratulatory blog posts by software developers (and in other fields too), where they craft a very curated set of words to highlight the most attractive qualities of their life. Perhaps I am being bitter, but it just seems strange to me to have a personal website where you aggrandize yourself through the brief filter of a few paragraphs that I think ultimately exist to serve an ego.

Grustaf 9y ago

This is a very impressive and inspiring story, but I think the title is misleading. You're clearly much more talented and/or hard working than most readers, and you also had the advantage of being one of very few programmers in a time when the need was increasing rapidly.

IceDane 9y ago

I appreciate the sentiment of this article, but for the most part it kind of comes off as a bunch of stuff about him tooting his own horn(handwritten assembler, editor light years ahead of anything else, etc), and then a single paragraph about how he started a business. Not really useful advice.

raarts 9y ago

For comparison: same Amsterdam, about the same timeframe. No drive to start my own business (initially!), because didn't even know that was possible for regular people. Started out when I was eight, I got into electronics. Read all magazines, learned myself how to design electronic circuits from library books. Kept my own, hand written, library card system describing the specs of all transistors, ICs I could get my hands on. Designed/built and repaired devices for other people who paid me for the materials and for my trouble. I was 15. When I was 18 I went to university, switched majors multiple times. And then the Dutch electronics magazine published the Junior computer, based on the 6502. I spent all my money on it, and learned assembler by inputting hex numbers. After that came the MSX computer (I disassembled the BASIC interpreter to grok how it worked) and I started searching for programmers jobs. Found a job at KLM where I got out top of the class and entered a special called SMART. For special internal projects. All of us programmed in IBM S370 assembler, they tested C but it was too slow. I was 25 by then. The following years went downhill. In IT. I changed jobs multiple times, but the companies kept going out of business. I was flabbergasted at the amount of incompetence I saw in salespeople and at C-level. I had no idea, coming from a blue collar background. Side note: in 4 years I had 9 CEOs, 8 of which left their wife for their secretary in the time I worked there! I had a lot of respect for the 9th until I found out a couple of years later he'd done the same after I left. So I decided why not start my own business i was capable of going bust as well couldn't do worse as those guys. So I started the first commercial ISP in the NL. One thing led to another and many companies later I now pulled out of most and again starting as a founder and learning all the new hot technologies.

it_learnses 9y ago
Could you please give me some advice? i'm a full-time developer with 10 years experience. I would like to start my own and have a few ideas to try out. I have savings that could allow me to survive for a year. Would you recommend I quit my day job or just work on it on the side?
- _d8fd 9y ago
  Here are my simple tips: - don't run out of cash - make something you enjoy working on - sell something people need - sell something for more than it costs to make - don't expect the people around you to be as excited as you are about your thing

linker3000 9y ago

Did it (in the UK). Started a sole consultancy, grew it into a training and courseware business employing around 10 people. Formalised what was previously an ad-hoc partnership with a US-based organisation into a franchise-type contract in exchange for a five-figure marketing kickstart from them, and tooled up (software and people) for a 'letter of intent' long-term joint contract with the US military in the UK for technical and personnel training, then found out that despite a written agreement, they were poaching our business in the UK. We started talking to them, they said we could forget the funding. We were small, they were corporate and basically told us to fuck off and sue if we had the cash to carry it through. Had to fold the business. Nearly lost my house and marriage. This was in the late 1990s. For every story, there's an equal and opposite one.

hellofunk 9y ago
> For every story, there's an equal and opposite one. It's not equal, for every success there are many more than one story similar to yours.
- linker3000 9y ago
  Fair point.
tristanperry 9y ago
Sorry to hear about that :( And thanks for the honesty - it's always good to get the balancing stories.

lazyjones 9y ago

There's a huge difference between "your own company" (freelancing) and "your own company with employees" though. The former is very easy and pretty much for everyone who can run a single household in a developed, bureaucratic country, the latter is much more demanding and requires certain personality traits that need to be present (in yourself or a co-founder).

jt2190 9y ago

(2011)

apatters 9y ago

To anyone considering starting a business I would recommend reading a book called "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. It's 20 years old, but it discusses one point in particular which I think is particularly relevant for HN's audience. Many people who go into business fail because they operate the business with the mindset of a "technician" -- someone who is very good at a particular skill, and enjoys and prioritizes performing that skill. The abilities of a technician can be very valuable to a business, but especially as it begins to scale the owner/operator(s) need to adopt different mindsets in order to succeed. In short, if you don't like the idea of spending most of your time on business or marketing stuff, you should find someone who can handle those, or perhaps be a solo consultant/contractor. (I think this is a large part of why YC encourages cofounders so much.) Exceptions certainly exist--there was a time when tech was a magical world and you could do magic things just by being an expert engineer--but increasingly I feel they are getting rarer.

adekok 9y ago
I agree. I started out as a techie, and I now run my own business. The engineers half-serious mock me for continually talking about money, billing, etc. But they do know that's how their salaries get paid.
superasn 9y ago
Another amazing book that greatly compliments Gerber's book is Sam carpenters work the system. These are two really life changing books IMO
shoo 9y ago
the book has some good ideas in it, but 80% of it is filler / repetition / cross-sells to some of the author's related services. it's a bit crass. save time and read an online summary of the book to cover the ideas quickly.
- azeirah 9y ago
  You don't need to read a book page-by-page, good readers recognize filler and repetition. I personally don't like reading summaries, they lack an element of "convincing" that immersing yourself into a real book does have.

stretchwithme 9y ago

Great story.

more_corn 9y ago

I just started my own company. I'm a bit worried that nobody will come. I'm offering contract Dev/Ops work. (I did DevOps at YouTube for 8 years, spent 2 years building AWS infrastructure for a startup) I'm certain companies could benefit immensely by contracting with someone to help improve their Ops game, but I'm that awkward stage where I'm not 100% sure anyone will request my services. Wish me luck!

axonic 9y ago

Seriously, go run an Eve Online player corporation. Try setting up a persistent chat server, wiki, etc. for the corp and securing it. Try managing players in fleets from several time zones and scheduling engagements and operations. This is analogous to setting up collaboration infrastructure for remote teams in development settings, as well as scheduling for international workers, wrangling cats, and you will be fully qualified to wrestle Mongolian Tigers. These players are volunteers, which is synonymous with the real meaning of "employee" held by some of the people you may work with. Loosely held by honor, perhaps loyal based on their relationship with the organization, some are hard workers and motivated, others require a leader or mentor be assigned to them. Once your eyes bleed and you wish for death every night for ever deciding to be in charge, try also making it profitable. Use your knowledge of business practices to balance the corp accounts, make good deals, and save money where you can to be able to pay dividends to members of the corp. If you really want to do a "dry run" to test your mettle, that is one way. I'm not saying this will make you CEO of Intel material but you'll at least have the confidence to proceed and have some idea of what the minefield really looks like so you don't jump on every one.

JokerDan 9y ago

I would love to start up my own business, I am extremely hard working and dedicated, even in my every-day 9-5 which I end up doing like 8-6 and working weekends. I enjoy working, as a software dev and at 23 years old I have a fair bit of time ahead of me. My biggest downside is I lack the confidence, I have a bunch of ideas but then I decide, "It won't go anywhere";"I can't do that";"As if people would even bother with this"... I see so many things that could be so much better every day. How do I get past these barriers? Do I just run with an idea and even if it fails, oh well, move on?

deleted 9y ago
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