4 ms·

> I've been contracting as W2 through a pimp Haha, when I read that part I LOL'ed.

by orware 12y ago

orware 12y ago
Maybe my point was taken away because I didn't provide an insightful reply to the original comment? In that case, one of the reasons why I switched to a day job (after spending about the years in-between, during and after college working on small business ideas) was because I didn't have a strong enough business to sustain myself with the lifestyle I wanted to have. It was awesome at first, and I was able to direct my energies to really improving things here at my workplace, but in recent years, with the job morphing to such a degree that I'm no longer primarily a developer (more management at this point) the fun level is no longer as high as it used to be. I completely separated from having my LLC for the first few years after I started my day job, but then a few years ago I started a side business selling software on my website (under the sole proprietor model, due to the $800 minimum tax I didn't want to have to pay again for LLCs in California) and so far that small business has been semi-profitable and keeps the hosting bills paid. Recently though, with those changes I mentioned above with my day job no longer being quite as fun as it used to when I was more free to do development work, I've looked towards contacting local businesses via snail mail and seeing if they have any business problems they need solving (anything repetitive/time-consuming for their staff, which I feel would be ripe for some sort of software automation or process to be put in place) so that way I'll have some more interesting problems to solve and get some insight into what problems our local businesses have (the # of software developers in the area is close to nil). I'd like to eventually build up something significant where I could hire a few people and maybe earn enough to maybe switch to being a full-time entrepreneur, but at the moment the day job pay is just too good to leave (all of my savings goes to long-term accounts I can't tap, such as a 403b, life insurance savings account, and Roth IRA, so I don't save too much each month...plus there's the credit card debt and personal line of credit I'm still paying off). Now I feel lucky I was able to experiment much more (some with my money I earned through the business, but also with parental money, mainly my mom since she was awesome enough to believe in me and provide me that opportunity) while I was a late teen/early twenty-something and make mistakes I've learned from. Profitability is a big factor now whenever I'm trying something new.
- beat 12y ago
  People downvote for completely stupid reasons here. If you think that was bad, see what happens when you question the collective wisdom of a bunch of boys in San Francisco barely out of college who think they rule the world. Not that I'm bitter or anything... :) But back to your situation. There's a question I like to ask everyone, stolen directly from Babylon 5... "What do you want?" You need to be able to answer that for yourself, honestly, and then work toward that. Is what you do now working for you? Why or why not? I put in two decades in the software industry before I realized that what I want is total independence, by owning my own company, setting the direction, making sure it's as good as I want it to be. The enterprise is secure, and often challenging, but I'll never get rich and I'll never feel in control, not that way. On the other hand, after two decades of career gone, I don't have a bunch of spare rounds in the clip the way the average kid getting processed through a startup accelerator does. I wound up here backwards. I didn't start with "I want a startup" and then cast around looking for an idea (the problem with so many startups is mediocre, timid ideas). Instead, the idea came to me, and I realized that it would best be done through a startup. And a startup fits my sense of how to live a lot better than the enterprise work I've been doing. Luckily, the idea itself comes from those decades of experience in large-scale software development and its problems. Without all that real-world experience, I wouldn't even know of the existence of the problem I am trying to solve. So back to you. What do you want? What kind of life do you want to lead? What sort of impact do you want to have on the world? Answer that, and build toward that.

> I've been contracting as W2 through a pimp Haha, when I read that part I LOL'ed.

by orware 12y ago

> I've been contracting as W2 through a pimp Haha, when I read that part I LOL'ed.

Maybe my point was taken away because I didn't provide an insightful reply to the original comment? In that case, one of the reasons why I switched to a day job (after spending about the years in-between, during and after college working on small business ideas) was because I didn't have a strong enough business to sustain myself with the lifestyle I wanted to have. It was awesome at first, and I was able to direct my energies to really improving things here at my workplace, but in recent years, with the job morphing to such a degree that I'm no longer primarily a developer (more management at this point) the fun level is no longer as high as it used to be. I completely separated from having my LLC for the first few years after I started my day job, but then a few years ago I started a side business selling software on my website (under the sole proprietor model, due to the $800 minimum tax I didn't want to have to pay again for LLCs in California) and so far that small business has been semi-profitable and keeps the hosting bills paid. Recently though, with those changes I mentioned above with my day job no longer being quite as fun as it used to when I was more free to do development work, I've looked towards contacting local businesses via snail mail and seeing if they have any business problems they need solving (anything repetitive/time-consuming for their staff, which I feel would be ripe for some sort of software automation or process to be put in place) so that way I'll have some more interesting problems to solve and get some insight into what problems our local businesses have (the # of software developers in the area is close to nil). I'd like to eventually build up something significant where I could hire a few people and maybe earn enough to maybe switch to being a full-time entrepreneur, but at the moment the day job pay is just too good to leave (all of my savings goes to long-term accounts I can't tap, such as a 403b, life insurance savings account, and Roth IRA, so I don't save too much each month...plus there's the credit card debt and personal line of credit I'm still paying off). Now I feel lucky I was able to experiment much more (some with my money I earned through the business, but also with parental money, mainly my mom since she was awesome enough to believe in me and provide me that opportunity) while I was a late teen/early twenty-something and make mistakes I've learned from. Profitability is a big factor now whenever I'm trying something new.

beat 12y ago
People downvote for completely stupid reasons here. If you think that was bad, see what happens when you question the collective wisdom of a bunch of boys in San Francisco barely out of college who think they rule the world. Not that I'm bitter or anything... :) But back to your situation. There's a question I like to ask everyone, stolen directly from Babylon 5... "What do you want?" You need to be able to answer that for yourself, honestly, and then work toward that. Is what you do now working for you? Why or why not? I put in two decades in the software industry before I realized that what I want is total independence, by owning my own company, setting the direction, making sure it's as good as I want it to be. The enterprise is secure, and often challenging, but I'll never get rich and I'll never feel in control, not that way. On the other hand, after two decades of career gone, I don't have a bunch of spare rounds in the clip the way the average kid getting processed through a startup accelerator does. I wound up here backwards. I didn't start with "I want a startup" and then cast around looking for an idea (the problem with so many startups is mediocre, timid ideas). Instead, the idea came to me, and I realized that it would best be done through a startup. And a startup fits my sense of how to live a lot better than the enterprise work I've been doing. Luckily, the idea itself comes from those decades of experience in large-scale software development and its problems. Without all that real-world experience, I wouldn't even know of the existence of the problem I am trying to solve. So back to you. What do you want? What kind of life do you want to lead? What sort of impact do you want to have on the world? Answer that, and build toward that.