4 ms·

First of all, congrats Nathan! Cheers bro :) At the same time, while all this sounds so promising, in my humble opinion, I would say this wouldn't apply to eve

by neya 14y ago

First of all, congrats Nathan! Cheers bro :) At the same time, while all this sounds so promising, in my humble opinion, I would say this wouldn't apply to everyone. Whether you know it or not, Nathan seems to have a solid plan - 'This is what I should do. This is how I should do it. And this is how much what I do might generate.' I see a lot of people quitting their jobs just because it's become more of a cool factor now and most importantly because they think they could become like Nathan easily or rather quickly (like it's some get-rich-quick scheme). You should understand that Nathan has put in some significant, rock-solid hardwork (like developing his own apps, writing some quality books, etc.) into all this. If you just quit your job dreaming of cash flowing in the very next minute, that might not happen. FYI - I quit my day job too. I wrote some apps too, dreaming of becoming someone like Nathan someday. Here I am, commenting here on Nathan's success story instead. Life ain't that easy dudes :D

tinco 14y ago
It's still interesting though, what did you make? What was your plan, what failed? Did you after a few months decide to go back to work for someone again?
- neya 14y ago
  >What did you make? Built a dozen Web Products for clients. I thought I could sustain developing Products for others. But unfortunately, payment was the biggest factor. If I charged someone $10,000 totally for a finished product, I would have been paid something like just $2-3k. Of course, I could revoke the license to my product or disable the product itself, but that didn't work out. Simply because my clients were confused. They would let the product stay alive for a couple of weeks, without marketing it, expect it to convert well and become rich overnight. And when that didn't happen, they would kill it. They would stop paying for the AWS boxes and Linodes. There went all my hardwork down the drain. And since it didn't work well, I would be paid just a fraction of the project's total cost. It was unfair, but it was a very valuable lesson. Right now, I charge 50% upfront and then proceed working on the project with well-defined milestones. >What was your Plan? My plan was only one thing. (Not joking). I wanted to buy a BMW 320d after building a dozen profitable web apps. The problem was, there were a lot of weak spots in my plan. (read below) >What failed? Working space - I live in an apartment. I assumed I could save couple of hundred dollars by working from my apartment instead of a posh office. I learnt that this is the last place where you should work. There is no motivation within an apartment. You eventually become lazy because everything is easily available to you - TV, BED, Dining, etc. So you lose focus much easily. When I was working in a company before, I was much productive. I would come home very late and still make some significant progress w.r.t to my Web apps (the ones I build for myself, not for clients). When I quit work, I thought I could use all this time for myself. I was wrong. My productivity went down. Drastically. Team - I am a very fair person. I never like to live my life abusing someone else's hardwork. Because that's why MNC's exist (most of them). I hired some interns, they were really talented, but in the end, I didn't want them to work with me because I didn't want them to develop a web app in return for a couple of hundred dollars. Because that would be unfair. I tried seeking co-founders too, but the problem was I didn't like the idea of getting close to someone with a pre-determined self-benefit in mind. Because that would be a 'fake' relationship. Of course I did have some valuable friends who could have become great co-founders. Unfortunately, I figured out that they wouldn't be able to add value to my company (because I can code and design myself; I'm primarily a designer) and I shouldn't add anyone into the company for fuck's sake. Burning the cash - I invested a LOT of money into buying domains. The problem with me is that I come up with some really really good ideas (and names) for startups. I would evaluate the idea's potential and quickly buy a domain name for it(simply because it would be available at that point). I invested over $1000-2000 in just domains. I didn't feel the pinch when I invested the first year. But the next year, especially when I was bootstrapping, it became a burden when these domains auto-renewed. If you are seeking for a great start-up name or a domain for it, please, please let me know! Investors - Initially, I wanted to seek funding. I even applied to YC (and got rejected) as a single founder. But later, I was able to conclude that some (many) ideas don't require funding and can be monetized from day one. Hence I avoided a lot of investor meet-ups, camps, etc. and sat home working on my product (which is what I'm doing currently too). Because of this attitude, I'm forced to bootstrap. Bootstrapping teaches a lot of valuable lessons, but, you will feel much restricted without some 'cushion' cash with you. For example, if you thought a particular stockphoto would make your web app beautiful, but it costs $100, you would have to wait till you get a new client (which means you need to work on his product first, which will take more time to complete yours). I wasted a lot of time arguing myself going with Play/Scala instead of ROR simply because it would scale well. Heck, I even learnt Scala simply for this reason and in the end, I realized it wasn't worth it, simply because ROR helps me (in my case) getting my idea up and running in no time (which is VERY important) rather than learning something complex and building my product with half-baked code. I realized I'd rather do it in ROR and have it re-written when I need to scale, because I would have the money to do it by then, obviously. I also invested a lot in software at a very early stage. For example, I bought the Adobe Creative Production Premium 5.5 suite just for photoshop and After effects. While it's a really good bargain, I found myself short of cash in the following months. Of course I feel proud to own a legit copy of these softwares, but the compromise was painful in the sense that I had to work a lot to take back the money I invested in these softwares. >Did you after a few months decide to go back to work for someone again? Once you taste this kind of freedom, I think it's difficult to go back. I got offers from very prominent people, investors, MNC's to work on their ideas/products. But I simply refused because of my current lifestyle. In life, one thing I realized is that you should be the negotiator for your own life and not someone else. You should decide what you should do and how you should do to achieve what you want, and not someone else. Despite these people giving me good offers (monetary-wise too) I decided not to work with them simply because they had their own rules. When I build something, I want to be a decision maker - I don't want to be following orders, simply because I'm getting paid. Currently, I'm working on my own product and also I am a freelance consultant for several start-ups helping them develop their MVP's and helping them choose what works best. I still have a couple of debts (=credit card), but I'm confident I'll clear them in no time. It's never about the money, it's always about the happiness. I would like to remind everyone here of a beautiful quote - 'If you don't build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.'
  - hnewser1 14y ago
    You don't much sound like you are happy. You are in debt, you are still working for someone else, you can't make solid business-technical wise decisions based on merit. You think you come up with really really good? ideas. Maybe you are just a dreamer.
    - neya 14y ago
      Your comment is a bit harsh. But, you are wrong. I just posted my experience, a brief of what has happened all these years. Now, I'm earning a decent amount, and my debts are diminishing drastically with each month. I am not focusing full time on developing products for others just because I will make a lot of money, because I'm building a product for myself. Hence I want to keep my burn rate really low. I take very very few number of projects with high budgets, just to help me sustain for 6 months or so. So, I will have some time to work for myself. And happiness - I am happy. I don't know what made you conclude otherwise. I am not working for someone else. I am offering a service, and people who are interested are paying for it. I still make the main decisions, including business and technical-wise. Because these are the kinds of clients I specifically want to deal with. In a company, things are different. You follow orders, no matter who you are (designer, developer, etc.) I have this freedom now. I am not just a dreamer. I am an avid dreamer. And I am proud of it. But most of my dreams have come to life too. Thank you for your comment.
      - tinco 14y ago
        Thanks a lot for your reply! It sounds despite not having as much success as nathan you are capable of making a good living for yourself and you have a better taste in cars too :P
        neya 14y ago
        >you have a better taste in cars too :P Haha! Thanks a lot Tinco, that makes me feel good :D
  - dotmanish 14y ago
nathanbarry 14y ago
When I quit my job last year I had a couple things going for me: 1. I had freelanced before in college, so that life wasn't totally new. 2. I had a lot of connections so finding work was never a problem. 3. I had almost $30,000 in savings to even out the slow months. 4. I had iPhone apps that I had built in my free time while I was employed that were making $2k+ a month. So quitting my job was not risky at all. In fact, I really dislike risk. All that said, I did come fairly close to running out of money this last August when I had put all my time into the first book and a consulting client didn't pay a rather large sum of money. Now had I not been working on the first book, I never would have used up my reserve cash.
- neya 14y ago
  These are some really key points that deserve some highlight. Thank you, Nathan. Cheers!
- sh_vipin 14y ago
  Salute to your efforts and I see a lot of commitment there. Would request you to add these posts in your post as well. Will help people directly coming over there. !! Once again congrats.
- pinaceae 14y ago
  point 2 is the most important one in the long term - once your initial sources run dry, you need to find new clients/customers. this breaks a lot of freelancing careers, have seen this time and time again in my circle of friends. going solo means you not only spend time on building/creating stuff but also devoting time on building up a pipeline of work - which is initially a lot of unpaid work. good luck to you nathan!
- toobulkeh 14y ago
  very good points. While I agree with your initial post's synopsis (stay away from consulting) I also heavily agree that you might NEED it for starters. Thanks for the tips!
- weef 14y ago
  Very impressive story Nathan - you'll go far for sure. I would be interested to know now that you're working for yourself if you think you'll develop more iPhone apps in the future or does that effort consume too much time for the return?
laaph 14y ago
I certainly didn't pull off $145k after quitting my job either. :( It's not that easy and for those of us who are trying, are there pointers? Make everything snazzy, yes, but some days I spend so much time on polish it seems like it is for nothing! (disclaimer: some things I've done are very nonpolished.)
- tspike 14y ago
  I think the number one takeaway is to focus on things that people want. If you don't have some real evidence that people want what you're providing, you're dead before you start.
dbecker 14y ago
Thanks to Nathan for writing this post, and thank you Neya for commenting and letting us know about your transition. I occasionally see posts on HN by people right as they are quitting their day-job (or dropping out of school). Those posts are filled with enthusiasm, and they frequently suggest that everyone else should follow their brilliant decision. Hearing the RESULTS of Nathan's first year was very powerful (moreso than hearing about his hopes or plans for his first year would have been). At the same time, your comment was valuable to remind me that Nathan's experience may not be representative. I hope to see more of these 1-year-after-my-decision reviews. Thanks for sharing your experience.
- neya 14y ago
  The pleasure is mine, dbecker :) Cheers!

by neya 14y ago

tinco 14y ago

It's still interesting though, what did you make? What was your plan, what failed? Did you after a few months decide to go back to work for someone again?

neya 14y ago
>What did you make? Built a dozen Web Products for clients. I thought I could sustain developing Products for others. But unfortunately, payment was the biggest factor. If I charged someone $10,000 totally for a finished product, I would have been paid something like just $2-3k. Of course, I could revoke the license to my product or disable the product itself, but that didn't work out. Simply because my clients were confused. They would let the product stay alive for a couple of weeks, without marketing it, expect it to convert well and become rich overnight. And when that didn't happen, they would kill it. They would stop paying for the AWS boxes and Linodes. There went all my hardwork down the drain. And since it didn't work well, I would be paid just a fraction of the project's total cost. It was unfair, but it was a very valuable lesson. Right now, I charge 50% upfront and then proceed working on the project with well-defined milestones. >What was your Plan? My plan was only one thing. (Not joking). I wanted to buy a BMW 320d after building a dozen profitable web apps. The problem was, there were a lot of weak spots in my plan. (read below) >What failed? Working space - I live in an apartment. I assumed I could save couple of hundred dollars by working from my apartment instead of a posh office. I learnt that this is the last place where you should work. There is no motivation within an apartment. You eventually become lazy because everything is easily available to you - TV, BED, Dining, etc. So you lose focus much easily. When I was working in a company before, I was much productive. I would come home very late and still make some significant progress w.r.t to my Web apps (the ones I build for myself, not for clients). When I quit work, I thought I could use all this time for myself. I was wrong. My productivity went down. Drastically. Team - I am a very fair person. I never like to live my life abusing someone else's hardwork. Because that's why MNC's exist (most of them). I hired some interns, they were really talented, but in the end, I didn't want them to work with me because I didn't want them to develop a web app in return for a couple of hundred dollars. Because that would be unfair. I tried seeking co-founders too, but the problem was I didn't like the idea of getting close to someone with a pre-determined self-benefit in mind. Because that would be a 'fake' relationship. Of course I did have some valuable friends who could have become great co-founders. Unfortunately, I figured out that they wouldn't be able to add value to my company (because I can code and design myself; I'm primarily a designer) and I shouldn't add anyone into the company for fuck's sake. Burning the cash - I invested a LOT of money into buying domains. The problem with me is that I come up with some really really good ideas (and names) for startups. I would evaluate the idea's potential and quickly buy a domain name for it(simply because it would be available at that point). I invested over $1000-2000 in just domains. I didn't feel the pinch when I invested the first year. But the next year, especially when I was bootstrapping, it became a burden when these domains auto-renewed. If you are seeking for a great start-up name or a domain for it, please, please let me know! Investors - Initially, I wanted to seek funding. I even applied to YC (and got rejected) as a single founder. But later, I was able to conclude that some (many) ideas don't require funding and can be monetized from day one. Hence I avoided a lot of investor meet-ups, camps, etc. and sat home working on my product (which is what I'm doing currently too). Because of this attitude, I'm forced to bootstrap. Bootstrapping teaches a lot of valuable lessons, but, you will feel much restricted without some 'cushion' cash with you. For example, if you thought a particular stockphoto would make your web app beautiful, but it costs $100, you would have to wait till you get a new client (which means you need to work on his product first, which will take more time to complete yours). I wasted a lot of time arguing myself going with Play/Scala instead of ROR simply because it would scale well. Heck, I even learnt Scala simply for this reason and in the end, I realized it wasn't worth it, simply because ROR helps me (in my case) getting my idea up and running in no time (which is VERY important) rather than learning something complex and building my product with half-baked code. I realized I'd rather do it in ROR and have it re-written when I need to scale, because I would have the money to do it by then, obviously. I also invested a lot in software at a very early stage. For example, I bought the Adobe Creative Production Premium 5.5 suite just for photoshop and After effects. While it's a really good bargain, I found myself short of cash in the following months. Of course I feel proud to own a legit copy of these softwares, but the compromise was painful in the sense that I had to work a lot to take back the money I invested in these softwares. >Did you after a few months decide to go back to work for someone again? Once you taste this kind of freedom, I think it's difficult to go back. I got offers from very prominent people, investors, MNC's to work on their ideas/products. But I simply refused because of my current lifestyle. In life, one thing I realized is that you should be the negotiator for your own life and not someone else. You should decide what you should do and how you should do to achieve what you want, and not someone else. Despite these people giving me good offers (monetary-wise too) I decided not to work with them simply because they had their own rules. When I build something, I want to be a decision maker - I don't want to be following orders, simply because I'm getting paid. Currently, I'm working on my own product and also I am a freelance consultant for several start-ups helping them develop their MVP's and helping them choose what works best. I still have a couple of debts (=credit card), but I'm confident I'll clear them in no time. It's never about the money, it's always about the happiness. I would like to remind everyone here of a beautiful quote - 'If you don't build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.'
- hnewser1 14y ago
  You don't much sound like you are happy. You are in debt, you are still working for someone else, you can't make solid business-technical wise decisions based on merit. You think you come up with really really good? ideas. Maybe you are just a dreamer.
  - neya 14y ago
    Your comment is a bit harsh. But, you are wrong. I just posted my experience, a brief of what has happened all these years. Now, I'm earning a decent amount, and my debts are diminishing drastically with each month. I am not focusing full time on developing products for others just because I will make a lot of money, because I'm building a product for myself. Hence I want to keep my burn rate really low. I take very very few number of projects with high budgets, just to help me sustain for 6 months or so. So, I will have some time to work for myself. And happiness - I am happy. I don't know what made you conclude otherwise. I am not working for someone else. I am offering a service, and people who are interested are paying for it. I still make the main decisions, including business and technical-wise. Because these are the kinds of clients I specifically want to deal with. In a company, things are different. You follow orders, no matter who you are (designer, developer, etc.) I have this freedom now. I am not just a dreamer. I am an avid dreamer. And I am proud of it. But most of my dreams have come to life too. Thank you for your comment.
    - tinco 14y ago
      Thanks a lot for your reply! It sounds despite not having as much success as nathan you are capable of making a good living for yourself and you have a better taste in cars too :P
      - neya 14y ago
        >you have a better taste in cars too :P Haha! Thanks a lot Tinco, that makes me feel good :D
- dotmanish 14y ago

nathanbarry 14y ago

When I quit my job last year I had a couple things going for me: 1. I had freelanced before in college, so that life wasn't totally new. 2. I had a lot of connections so finding work was never a problem. 3. I had almost $30,000 in savings to even out the slow months. 4. I had iPhone apps that I had built in my free time while I was employed that were making $2k+ a month. So quitting my job was not risky at all. In fact, I really dislike risk. All that said, I did come fairly close to running out of money this last August when I had put all my time into the first book and a consulting client didn't pay a rather large sum of money. Now had I not been working on the first book, I never would have used up my reserve cash.

neya 14y ago
These are some really key points that deserve some highlight. Thank you, Nathan. Cheers!
sh_vipin 14y ago
Salute to your efforts and I see a lot of commitment there. Would request you to add these posts in your post as well. Will help people directly coming over there. !! Once again congrats.
pinaceae 14y ago
point 2 is the most important one in the long term - once your initial sources run dry, you need to find new clients/customers. this breaks a lot of freelancing careers, have seen this time and time again in my circle of friends. going solo means you not only spend time on building/creating stuff but also devoting time on building up a pipeline of work - which is initially a lot of unpaid work. good luck to you nathan!
toobulkeh 14y ago
very good points. While I agree with your initial post's synopsis (stay away from consulting) I also heavily agree that you might NEED it for starters. Thanks for the tips!
weef 14y ago
Very impressive story Nathan - you'll go far for sure. I would be interested to know now that you're working for yourself if you think you'll develop more iPhone apps in the future or does that effort consume too much time for the return?

laaph 14y ago

I certainly didn't pull off $145k after quitting my job either. :( It's not that easy and for those of us who are trying, are there pointers? Make everything snazzy, yes, but some days I spend so much time on polish it seems like it is for nothing! (disclaimer: some things I've done are very nonpolished.)

tspike 14y ago
I think the number one takeaway is to focus on things that people want. If you don't have some real evidence that people want what you're providing, you're dead before you start.

dbecker 14y ago

Thanks to Nathan for writing this post, and thank you Neya for commenting and letting us know about your transition. I occasionally see posts on HN by people right as they are quitting their day-job (or dropping out of school). Those posts are filled with enthusiasm, and they frequently suggest that everyone else should follow their brilliant decision. Hearing the RESULTS of Nathan's first year was very powerful (moreso than hearing about his hopes or plans for his first year would have been). At the same time, your comment was valuable to remind me that Nathan's experience may not be representative. I hope to see more of these 1-year-after-my-decision reviews. Thanks for sharing your experience.

neya 14y ago
The pleasure is mine, dbecker :) Cheers!