5 ms·

Speaking as someone who played the Civilization 2-5 to the point of obsession, and one that quit a full time job at $megacorp to focus on a side project of mine

Speaking as someone who played the Civilization 2-5 to the point of obsession, and one that quit a full time job at $megacorp to focus on a side project of mine full time, this is so apt it's funny. One of the reasons people do side projects is that they want to be free of other concerns that govern larger projects, like being able to make money, existing code, design or frameworks, or simply, existing paths of thought. But after the 80% point, the project has already created its own ways of thinking about certain problems, and that means you'll have to solve some problems suboptimally just to retain the existing body of problems being solved optimally. Compromises. Boring-but-important bits, like designing, coding (HTML tables ahoy) and sending launch emails, which I did, the whole day yesterday. I think as a society we fundamentally underestimate how much the average person yearns for freedom, all day, every day. Selling that freedom has its benefits, but it's not a free lunch.

d357r0y3r 8y ago
Yeah, same. Left an awesome job to do my own thing after getting seed funding. For the first few months of doing that, I told myself that I could never go back to the 9-5 grind. I am now very excited to go back to the 9-5 grind.
- rolleiflex 8y ago
  One thing doing a project full time teaches you is that the problems with full-time tech work in a company aren't problems because you're working for somebody else, they're problems of working on anything for a long period of time, regardless of who owns it. Once you realise that, you also figure out that doing your own thing doesn't inherently buy you a seat in Valhalla by the virtue of being your own boss. You still have a boss, the fact that it is you helps with fewer things than one would think. At least you got funded. I'm still bootstrapped, spending my own money for the privilege. :)
  - avinium 8y ago
    > You still have a boss, the fact that it is you helps with fewer things than one would think. Worse yet, you now need to satisfy customers. Not that that's inherently bad. In hindsight, though, it certainly lets you appreciate the times when you had a boss and life was simpler.
    - rolleiflex 8y ago
      You trade one regular issue boss with the biggest, baddest boss there ever is, the Free Markets. It certainly lends credence to the saying that having to earn earn for a living is incremental indentured servitude, instead of buying your freedom outright, you pay for it in micro transactions and pay interest for the privilege. It doesn’t matter who your immediate counterparty is, whether be it your boss or the board or the stock exchange, the ultimate counterparty is the market itself. Having a business I think just makes the transaction a little simpler, a little more obvious.
  - herewego 8y ago
    > At least you got funded. I'm still bootstrapped, spending my own money for the privilege. :) The best move my founder and I ever made, by leaps and bounds, was to not take any outside investment. If you can manage your cash flow and not get over excited about rocket trajectory growth, bootstrapping has its benefits; for founders especially.
    - rolleiflex 8y ago
      I’m making $200 a month off of it, and I live in San Francisco. Needless to say, I’m practically fully funding it out of my savings. It’s this, anyway, it was on the front page a few weeks ago: https://getaether.net https://getaether.net Basically, a passion product, something I want to see exist. It has the chance to sustain me eventually, but I think I’ll run out of savings long before it comes there, unless, I don’t know, I make a business version and sell B2B...
      - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
        How do you make money off that? I always wonder what gives people confidence to make something new and untested vs picking an existing in demand product and improving it, sell b2b to people who actually pay for services.. don’t mean to downplay your project, just curious why you didn’t go b2b route?
        rolleiflex 8y ago
        The design and engineering challenge was interesting (I’m a product designer and an engineer) - and I had come out of a job I had not liked very much. Honestly, I think that explains a lot of the side/full time projects here. OTOH, if you’re looking for a ‘Slack, but for async discussion’ app for your startup, hit me up for the B2B pilot. I have not much time left on my savings, but I’m working towards launching a B2B version of the same app.
        anotheryou 8y ago
        Researching Slack-Alternatives I actually at least subscribed to some newsletter of yours which arrived a few days ago. I think to make money you need to focus on B2B, but it seems like a tough market right now. Anyways you'd have to focus your landing page on that. Privacy? meh. Compliance stuff and no US servers or any 3rd party servers you'd need to make contracts with? Yay! The 6 Month content limit feels off for B2B. How does it differ from slack usablility wise?
- jhowell 8y ago
  Curious to know if you'll repay the seed, or if seeds are refunded assuming it was a friends and family round.
  - d357r0y3r 8y ago
    It's more complicated than that. I'm not the only founder and funds were raised from small investors w/ a SAFE.
    - jhowell 8y ago
      Paying money back especially money collected from friends and family and not institutions and VCs is not "complicated." Their "investment" never had a chance to make money you projected and you went on to work on someone else's investment. Given these facts I am sure your investors would have preferred to invest in the company where you work now versus the one you left.
      - d357r0y3r 8y ago
        It's not family and friends, first of all. I haven't started working on anything else or for anyone else - I just no longer believe this venture is going to work out and thus have planned to exit. My co-founders don't agree with my assessment.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I left the 9-5 grind many years ago for freelancing then consulting and now hoping my side project takes off. I could never go back to a full time employee thing, nope!!
Alex3917 8y ago
> coding (HTML tables ahoy) and sending launch emails FWIW you should probably be using something like MJML rather than hand-coding HTML tables. (There are a few alternatives, that just happens to be the one we use.)
- rolleiflex 8y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I was using the ‘Salted’ template from Litmus as a base. MJML looks quite polished though. This is how it turned out with Salted: https://mailsend.app/sendy-airlabs/w/qP3rC892jhLqY763Z0DTBnYtqA/Js0oNAEgzNBMcWBM8926ZIyw/g763BvJkht1HZ1oBQpgENDNg https://mailsend.app/sendy-airlabs/w/qP3rC892jhLqY763Z0DTBnY... Not too bad for a first try, I think. If anyone needs help with Salted, happy to take a look.

d357r0y3r 8y ago

Yeah, same. Left an awesome job to do my own thing after getting seed funding. For the first few months of doing that, I told myself that I could never go back to the 9-5 grind. I am now very excited to go back to the 9-5 grind.

rolleiflex 8y ago
One thing doing a project full time teaches you is that the problems with full-time tech work in a company aren't problems because you're working for somebody else, they're problems of working on anything for a long period of time, regardless of who owns it. Once you realise that, you also figure out that doing your own thing doesn't inherently buy you a seat in Valhalla by the virtue of being your own boss. You still have a boss, the fact that it is you helps with fewer things than one would think. At least you got funded. I'm still bootstrapped, spending my own money for the privilege. :)
- avinium 8y ago
  > You still have a boss, the fact that it is you helps with fewer things than one would think. Worse yet, you now need to satisfy customers. Not that that's inherently bad. In hindsight, though, it certainly lets you appreciate the times when you had a boss and life was simpler.
  - rolleiflex 8y ago
    You trade one regular issue boss with the biggest, baddest boss there ever is, the Free Markets. It certainly lends credence to the saying that having to earn earn for a living is incremental indentured servitude, instead of buying your freedom outright, you pay for it in micro transactions and pay interest for the privilege. It doesn’t matter who your immediate counterparty is, whether be it your boss or the board or the stock exchange, the ultimate counterparty is the market itself. Having a business I think just makes the transaction a little simpler, a little more obvious.
- herewego 8y ago
  > At least you got funded. I'm still bootstrapped, spending my own money for the privilege. :) The best move my founder and I ever made, by leaps and bounds, was to not take any outside investment. If you can manage your cash flow and not get over excited about rocket trajectory growth, bootstrapping has its benefits; for founders especially.
  - rolleiflex 8y ago
    I’m making $200 a month off of it, and I live in San Francisco. Needless to say, I’m practically fully funding it out of my savings. It’s this, anyway, it was on the front page a few weeks ago: https://getaether.net https://getaether.net Basically, a passion product, something I want to see exist. It has the chance to sustain me eventually, but I think I’ll run out of savings long before it comes there, unless, I don’t know, I make a business version and sell B2B...
    - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
      How do you make money off that? I always wonder what gives people confidence to make something new and untested vs picking an existing in demand product and improving it, sell b2b to people who actually pay for services.. don’t mean to downplay your project, just curious why you didn’t go b2b route?
      - rolleiflex 8y ago
        The design and engineering challenge was interesting (I’m a product designer and an engineer) - and I had come out of a job I had not liked very much. Honestly, I think that explains a lot of the side/full time projects here. OTOH, if you’re looking for a ‘Slack, but for async discussion’ app for your startup, hit me up for the B2B pilot. I have not much time left on my savings, but I’m working towards launching a B2B version of the same app.
        anotheryou 8y ago
        Researching Slack-Alternatives I actually at least subscribed to some newsletter of yours which arrived a few days ago. I think to make money you need to focus on B2B, but it seems like a tough market right now. Anyways you'd have to focus your landing page on that. Privacy? meh. Compliance stuff and no US servers or any 3rd party servers you'd need to make contracts with? Yay! The 6 Month content limit feels off for B2B. How does it differ from slack usablility wise?
jhowell 8y ago
Curious to know if you'll repay the seed, or if seeds are refunded assuming it was a friends and family round.
- d357r0y3r 8y ago
  It's more complicated than that. I'm not the only founder and funds were raised from small investors w/ a SAFE.
  - jhowell 8y ago
    Paying money back especially money collected from friends and family and not institutions and VCs is not "complicated." Their "investment" never had a chance to make money you projected and you went on to work on someone else's investment. Given these facts I am sure your investors would have preferred to invest in the company where you work now versus the one you left.
    - d357r0y3r 8y ago
      It's not family and friends, first of all. I haven't started working on anything else or for anyone else - I just no longer believe this venture is going to work out and thus have planned to exit. My co-founders don't agree with my assessment.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
I left the 9-5 grind many years ago for freelancing then consulting and now hoping my side project takes off. I could never go back to a full time employee thing, nope!!

Alex3917 8y ago

> coding (HTML tables ahoy) and sending launch emails FWIW you should probably be using something like MJML rather than hand-coding HTML tables. (There are a few alternatives, that just happens to be the one we use.)

rolleiflex 8y ago
Thanks for the tip. I was using the ‘Salted’ template from Litmus as a base. MJML looks quite polished though. This is how it turned out with Salted: https://mailsend.app/sendy-airlabs/w/qP3rC892jhLqY763Z0DTBnYtqA/Js0oNAEgzNBMcWBM8926ZIyw/g763BvJkht1HZ1oBQpgENDNg https://mailsend.app/sendy-airlabs/w/qP3rC892jhLqY763Z0DTBnY... Not too bad for a first try, I think. If anyone needs help with Salted, happy to take a look.