5 ms·

Ask HN: Today I got laid off, tomorrow I want to hack

39 points by messel 16y ago

hack 4 hire My goal is to build a fantastic web business. Until I can construct a core concept and refined pitch I want nothing more than to bury myself in the web stack from top to bottom. If you or a friends startup is hiring shoot me an email at messel at gmail dot com. Or contact me if you think you can help me refine my pitch. If you'd care to see some humble projects I've worked: My github:http://github.com/victusfate (I've forked a few repos to learn from) my first rails app (collaborative project) http://imagebrowser.heroku.com same concept ported to sinatra/datamapper http://knowsinatra.heroku.com our startup homepage http://victusmedia.com other skills: 14 years simulations/modeling + algorithm development in c++, walk-a-holic, blog-aria, diehard dreamer.

Travis 16y ago
messel, Best of luck to you. Don't love your drive or passion just b/c of your recent layoff. That's more important than any paycheck. And I've found that working even in the best environments can strip that passion from you. Good luck. I hope you're the next success story I read about here on HN.
- messel 16y ago
  That makes 2 of us.
jasonjei 16y ago
Take some time off, collect unemployment, because you need to find a scratch to itch. I like the positive attitude from your layoff, and that's a very good start. Look for problems that you have, and then look at problems others have. I'll be looking forward to the products you make. Most importantly, you're on your own now--you control your destiny. It'll be a very important distinction because you will be the one who motivates yourself.
- messel 16y ago
  Will do. Appreciate the encouragement
- jeffclark 16y ago
  I was laid off 18-ish months ago from a GREAT job. Had about 5k saved and received about 5k in severance. Buddy and I were working on a wedding-themed startup and in the final interview stages with TechStars. What I SHOULD have done is collect unemployment and worked my ass off on this wedding project. What I did INSTEAD was accept another job 3 weeks later working for a music company and blew that 10k on a car to get there. Figured the insurance and paycheck stability was worth working again. Terrible idea. Not that our wedding-startup idea would have "taken off", but I should have tried harder than I did. The moral of the story: Let the government subsidize your startup as long as you can afford to (financially and mentally).
  - anamax 16y ago
    In the US you're legally obligated to look for suitable employment as a condition of collecting unemployment. The form even asks if you're looking for employment and if you've turned down paying-now work. Working on your startup doesn't qualify.
    - allwein 16y ago
      Not true. Your individual state determines your obligations for receiving unemployment benefits. For instance, I live in Pennsylvania, and the three questions they ask are: 1. Did you work? In Pennsylvania you can receive unemployment benefits while earning some small percentage of income 2. Were you able and available to work? Meaning you weren't on vacation at the beach all week 3. Did you turn down work when suitable work was offered to you? You're obligated to take another programming job if you're a programmer already, but wouldn't get in trouble if you were offered a job as a janitor So depending on his state, he may be okay working on his startup during unemployment as long as he doesn't go looking for a real job.
    - jeffclark 16y ago
      I expect anyone looking to follow the advice of an anonymous poster on a website to make sure they're following their own set of ethics and the laws that pertain to them.
    - 16y ago
jonpaul 16y ago
Wow, I just realized that your blog is on my RSS reader. Keep you head up high. You'll make it eventually.
- messel 16y ago
  Thanks for subscribing, that means a lot. My blog isn't founded on multi-million dollar exits, massive investment pools, or hacking bliss. Just one guys daily thoughts and experiences. The smallest success will bring credibility to what is now only words.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 16y ago
Check out the reddit is hiring thingy, nothing to lose. Also: http://jobs.github.com/positions http://jobs.github.com/positions Not exactly start-up stuff but it may help to make ends meet.
sp332 16y ago
The Hackety Hack project ("_why's masterpiece" as the current maintainer, steveklabnik put it), could use a hand. I just thought of it because Hackety Hack 1.0-pre was just released today. http://hackety-hack.com/posts/happy_whyday http://hackety-hack.com/posts/happy_whyday
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Hey, my Google Alerts just picked this up. I know it's three days late, I just wanted to say thanks for mentioning Hackety. :) It's much appreciated.
aresant 16y ago
Where are u based?
bconway 16y ago
It can't be said enough: regardless of whether your next step is to job search or to build a business, take a week off and let your brain unwind. Do it. You'll thank us later.
joshu 16y ago
you should add your location.
SingAlong 16y ago
"Hack 4 hire" sounds like a nice term. I think we should make #hack4hire as a Twitter hashtag. I'll be out of college in a few months. And all I had in my credit list was one small neat opensource library and 2 web apps (both unknown quantities) So in order to prettify my resume. I'm working on an android app and a web app and more as I think of ideas. I realized too late that the freelance work I was doing was not something I wanted to decorate my resume with. It was just Wordpress themes and plugins and some other php stuff. After this post I'm going to be tagging all my tweets announcing code or apps as #hack4hire Here is what I'm working on right now: 1.) Ruby gem to make html presentations. Coz I need it to give demo-like presentat ions when I teach html/css to my classmates. 2.) 2 android apps. One of them for github. 3.) Going to make tweet4invite. To allow startup to setup pages where they can serve invites to their app in return for a tweet about their startup. (criticism welcome) EDIT: I had 2 web app ideas. Just put one of them on top of another.
- messel 16y ago
  That's good stuff sing. My githubbing really on started late last year early this year when I had something I wanted to share. Now I could spend all day learning tricks, api formats, and standards implementation there. Brilliant startup idea by the founders.
  - SingAlong 16y ago
    If you are planning to work on something opensource mail me. My ideas might not be cool like yours. But you've found someone to collaborate. I'm ok with using any language (if I dont know it, I'll learn it quickly). Does anyone know a site where people have ideas for opensource projects but need collaborators? I just don't want to work on another web framework. Anything crazy is fine. If I have to define crazy... I have an idea to make a 90min stickman movie with Processing. I'm planning to start next month.
rayval 16y ago
If you want to hack tomorrow (literally), there is the iOS Dev Camp at EBay/Paypal HQ in San Jose starting tomorrow evening. This is an independent not-for-profit all-volunteer event around the iPhone/iPad platform, but there likely will be teams looking for devs that can do server-side programming (Ruby on Rails is a popular choice), some HTML5, graphics, etc. Cost is modest ($50) for an entire weekend of pizza and code. I am not one of the organizers, but have attended the past couple of events and had a great time, learned a lot, won some cool prizes. http://www.iosdevcamp.org/ http://www.iosdevcamp.org/
messel 16y ago
My location is Long Island, NY. Willing to relocate for the right opportunity.

39 points by messel 16y ago

Travis 16y ago

messel, Best of luck to you. Don't love your drive or passion just b/c of your recent layoff. That's more important than any paycheck. And I've found that working even in the best environments can strip that passion from you. Good luck. I hope you're the next success story I read about here on HN.

messel 16y ago
That makes 2 of us.

jasonjei 16y ago

Take some time off, collect unemployment, because you need to find a scratch to itch. I like the positive attitude from your layoff, and that's a very good start. Look for problems that you have, and then look at problems others have. I'll be looking forward to the products you make. Most importantly, you're on your own now--you control your destiny. It'll be a very important distinction because you will be the one who motivates yourself.

messel 16y ago
Will do. Appreciate the encouragement
jeffclark 16y ago
I was laid off 18-ish months ago from a GREAT job. Had about 5k saved and received about 5k in severance. Buddy and I were working on a wedding-themed startup and in the final interview stages with TechStars. What I SHOULD have done is collect unemployment and worked my ass off on this wedding project. What I did INSTEAD was accept another job 3 weeks later working for a music company and blew that 10k on a car to get there. Figured the insurance and paycheck stability was worth working again. Terrible idea. Not that our wedding-startup idea would have "taken off", but I should have tried harder than I did. The moral of the story: Let the government subsidize your startup as long as you can afford to (financially and mentally).
- anamax 16y ago
  In the US you're legally obligated to look for suitable employment as a condition of collecting unemployment. The form even asks if you're looking for employment and if you've turned down paying-now work. Working on your startup doesn't qualify.
  - allwein 16y ago
    Not true. Your individual state determines your obligations for receiving unemployment benefits. For instance, I live in Pennsylvania, and the three questions they ask are: 1. Did you work? In Pennsylvania you can receive unemployment benefits while earning some small percentage of income 2. Were you able and available to work? Meaning you weren't on vacation at the beach all week 3. Did you turn down work when suitable work was offered to you? You're obligated to take another programming job if you're a programmer already, but wouldn't get in trouble if you were offered a job as a janitor So depending on his state, he may be okay working on his startup during unemployment as long as he doesn't go looking for a real job.
  - jeffclark 16y ago
    I expect anyone looking to follow the advice of an anonymous poster on a website to make sure they're following their own set of ethics and the laws that pertain to them.
  - 16y ago

jonpaul 16y ago

Wow, I just realized that your blog is on my RSS reader. Keep you head up high. You'll make it eventually.

messel 16y ago
Thanks for subscribing, that means a lot. My blog isn't founded on multi-million dollar exits, massive investment pools, or hacking bliss. Just one guys daily thoughts and experiences. The smallest success will bring credibility to what is now only words.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 16y ago

Check out the reddit is hiring thingy, nothing to lose. Also: http://jobs.github.com/positions http://jobs.github.com/positions Not exactly start-up stuff but it may help to make ends meet.

sp332 16y ago

The Hackety Hack project ("_why's masterpiece" as the current maintainer, steveklabnik put it), could use a hand. I just thought of it because Hackety Hack 1.0-pre was just released today. http://hackety-hack.com/posts/happy_whyday http://hackety-hack.com/posts/happy_whyday

steveklabnik 16y ago
Hey, my Google Alerts just picked this up. I know it's three days late, I just wanted to say thanks for mentioning Hackety. :) It's much appreciated.

aresant 16y ago

Where are u based?

bconway 16y ago

It can't be said enough: regardless of whether your next step is to job search or to build a business, take a week off and let your brain unwind. Do it. You'll thank us later.

joshu 16y ago

you should add your location.

SingAlong 16y ago

"Hack 4 hire" sounds like a nice term. I think we should make #hack4hire as a Twitter hashtag. I'll be out of college in a few months. And all I had in my credit list was one small neat opensource library and 2 web apps (both unknown quantities) So in order to prettify my resume. I'm working on an android app and a web app and more as I think of ideas. I realized too late that the freelance work I was doing was not something I wanted to decorate my resume with. It was just Wordpress themes and plugins and some other php stuff. After this post I'm going to be tagging all my tweets announcing code or apps as #hack4hire Here is what I'm working on right now: 1.) Ruby gem to make html presentations. Coz I need it to give demo-like presentat ions when I teach html/css to my classmates. 2.) 2 android apps. One of them for github. 3.) Going to make tweet4invite. To allow startup to setup pages where they can serve invites to their app in return for a tweet about their startup. (criticism welcome) EDIT: I had 2 web app ideas. Just put one of them on top of another.

messel 16y ago
That's good stuff sing. My githubbing really on started late last year early this year when I had something I wanted to share. Now I could spend all day learning tricks, api formats, and standards implementation there. Brilliant startup idea by the founders.
- SingAlong 16y ago
  If you are planning to work on something opensource mail me. My ideas might not be cool like yours. But you've found someone to collaborate. I'm ok with using any language (if I dont know it, I'll learn it quickly). Does anyone know a site where people have ideas for opensource projects but need collaborators? I just don't want to work on another web framework. Anything crazy is fine. If I have to define crazy... I have an idea to make a 90min stickman movie with Processing. I'm planning to start next month.

rayval 16y ago

If you want to hack tomorrow (literally), there is the iOS Dev Camp at EBay/Paypal HQ in San Jose starting tomorrow evening. This is an independent not-for-profit all-volunteer event around the iPhone/iPad platform, but there likely will be teams looking for devs that can do server-side programming (Ruby on Rails is a popular choice), some HTML5, graphics, etc. Cost is modest ($50) for an entire weekend of pizza and code. I am not one of the organizers, but have attended the past couple of events and had a great time, learned a lot, won some cool prizes. http://www.iosdevcamp.org/ http://www.iosdevcamp.org/

messel 16y ago

My location is Long Island, NY. Willing to relocate for the right opportunity.