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Much more worthy set of questions. I quit my job a year ago, learn to code a little, build some projects, and for 3 months I've been a full-time founder. But no
by soneca 13y ago
Much more worthy set of questions. I quit my job a year ago, learn to code a little, build some projects, and for 3 months I've been a full-time founder. But now I have to pay the bills (and still no traction), so I will start a day-job. But before that, I founded a startup while at my last day-job. It was kind of unique, as my boss didn't have any problem at all with it, even allowing me to work on it during work hours (as long as I did my job, reach my goals). Well, what I think:
- Talk as little as possible. Even if you have a very transparent, honest relationship with you boss. If your boss might find detrimental you to have a startup, don't talk at all.
- Never use the company's computer to any kind of work on your startup. For emergencies (and you must really have a high treshold for emergencies) use your smartphone. But try to do everything out of work hour (before, after and during lunch).
- If you have a day-job you won't have an ideal startup management. Accept it. So forget about mentors, you won't be the co-founder doing the fundraise with investors (if all the co-founders have day-job, there would be no fundraising at all). You will try to prove the concept, maybe some traction. Only when you quit you start fundraise (if you need it).
Meeting with clients, only on lunch. Meeting with co-founder, only in the evenings and weekends (if your co-founders can't do it, than you have a deeper problem here).
- Urgent emails only through smartphone. And be criterious about "urgency".
- If you are founding a startup with a day-job you must have already decided that, at the first time possible, you will quit your job to work full-time. There is no "consideration", it must be inherent to found a startup.
And about the criteria to do it, I think the best one is enough revenue or funding to pay your own salary. But set a reasonable goal for your salary, don't expect to make the same as your day-job, calculate your minimum life cost possible and that's it.
Funding is good, but if all co-founders have day-jobs, it will be just a illusion, so don't consider it.
If you start to manage better your risk-aversion, you may use the traction criteria. When you discover that you have a product people want, do some math with your reservers, calculate how many months you can go without income, if it is more than 6 months, go for it
- mooreds 13y agoGreat advice, but: "- Talk as little as possible. Even if you have a very transparent, honest relationship with you boss. If your boss might find detrimental you to have a startup, don't talk at all." I think it is better to talk about the possibility of a startup on your own time during the interview process. This has the side effect of filtering out jobs with controlling bosses. (You may not have this luxury, though.) Our tech agreement lets someone list a set of technologies they own that they are bringing with them, and explicitly renounces the company's ownership of them. It's also useful to understand and review any agreements you sign when accepting employment. I have a side project that I told my boss about when accepting employment. And I started another one while employed. I guess it depends on whether you think forgiveness is better than permission, and how your boss is, but as a manager I would rather know someone has a startup project. You shouldn't consider a startup on the side without reading and understanding this onstartups.com q&a: http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-st/20136#20136 http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-... One other important point: if your startup is orthogonal to your current work, everyone is probably going to be more comfortable. If not, I'd seriously consider postponing the startup, just to avoid a sticky situation where your employer is concerned you took domain knowledge/contacts from your day job to improve your startup. All the rest of this advice is fantastic. A clear separation of startup and day job is important.
- sailfast 13y agoAgreed on the communication side - on my end from an integrity perspective it was important to be completely up front about the situation. Also critical because of possible intellectual property concerns down the road. Note: This could cause problems including a "stop work" guideline from your employer, but I preferred to cause the problems up front so I could handle them effectively and keep things transparent.
- alok-g 13y ago>> Our tech agreement lets someone list a set of technologies they own that they are bringing with them, and explicitly renounces the company's ownership of them. It's also useful to understand and review any agreements you sign when accepting employment. Totally. One thing to keep in mind though is that the exclusion applies only for work done before joining the company [1]. Even if you list something there, if you continue working on it, you may still have an issue. Further, all IP agreements I have come across, put a legal requirement on you to disclose any new IP you generate while employed to the employer within the prescribed time-limit even if you think if belongs to you. [1] In all cases I have come across. IANAL.
- drakaal 13y agoCongrats, you managed to outline a scenario in which there will be no doubt that your day job will own your startup. Talk to a lawyer, you need transparency in 40 of 50 states so that you can document what IP of the startup isn't the company's.