Switching between "school mode" and "startup mode"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=130405

by kingnothing • 18 years ago

12 19 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For those of you who are students as well as entrepreneurs, how do you manage to switch between going to class and taking care of your school obligations in addition to hacking away at your startup? I find it nearly impossible to work on my startup on days that I've been in class because I'm thinking too much about what I have going on with school. It takes me roughly a day to switch modes, so to speak, and I'm definitely not getting nearly enough done on my startup compared to what I'd like to accomplish.

How do you handle that?

dkokelley2• 18 years ago

This is an issue that I have to deal with as well. The worst part is, I have some brain-dead classes that are simply required classes and I still can't really do much with them.

The trick for me has been to stay on top of assignments so that they don't get in the way. Ideally you could do all of your school on campus then head home and get to work. Another option is to bring a laptop into class and pretend to take notes while instead coding away.

bbb• 18 years ago

Don't ever believe the professor doesn't know what you are really up to when you "take notes" with your laptop. At any given time, half of the laptop-using class is probably on Facebook, Myspace, or plays Solitaire.

You can still do it, of course, but be prepared to miss out on some good will on part of the instructor.

dkokelley2• 18 years ago

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I had one class, Economic History of America, with a professor who was most likely just out of school himself, and we were bored to tears with his teaching style. He read his lectures 100% off of notes and was visibly nervous.

A friend of mine and I brought our laptops in and talked during class via IM. I used it to take notes too, if only to qualify bringing the laptop in. After a few weeks, I noticed more and more people bringing their laptops in.

Anyways, I still got an A and I don't think I missed anything too vital.

yummyfajitas• 18 years ago

The professor probably knows, and probably doesn't care. Your prof is probably a guy much like you, who just wants to get back to his research (or his startup).

marcus• 18 years ago

Multitask in classes that are a waste of your time, I used to review contracts, write code, go over the finances of the biz and do homework in classes.

Condense your school work to a single day in the week or two consecutive days, I juggled my class schedule so all the courses I wanted to attend or had to attend were in a single day, I did all my homework assignment for the week the same evening and had the rest of the week free to work on my startup. It was an exhausting day but very rewarding and empowering.

Try to cast everything you learn in the context of your startup. This way your learning is more focused and powerful, it will improve your performance both in school and with your startup as it forces you to tackle the material head-on.

tomjen• 18 years ago

Steve have an article you might find useful. http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

edw5192• 18 years ago

Nice reference. Thank you!

PStamatiou• 18 years ago

With all of my other obligations and work I take 4 classes which works out okay because most of these are senior+ level project classes that take up a bunch of time anyways. (as opposed to taking 6 classes).

I definitely feel you on the "it takes a day to switch modes" thing. I only really get into the mood on the weekend . My big problem is that many of my assignments are group projects so I can't just get them out of my way at my own leisure. I can only multitask in class so much without losing what the prof is saying so I don't tend to get much other work done in class than taking notes.

zaidf• 18 years ago

Quit school.

I had severe attention issues with all my classes. I'd spend class after class day dreaming about my hacks. But I still went to class, often without a laptop weirdly. I think I realized it was a rare time I could be away from my laptop. Suffice to say I had more db structures and site flows in my notebook than class notes. It didn't make for pretty grades but heck.

bkrausz2• 18 years ago

And that right there is why I haven't been to any non-required classes in quite a while.

I really don't want to advocate my ways but it works pretty well for me: I don't go to class. All of my classes have notes online, I just attend the review sessions before exams. If you're interested in the topics covered you already know the basics, and if you're good at it (strong correlation to interest) you should be able to teach yourself the lessons via Wikipedia and the notes.

The reason I don't advocate this is because it's a pretty good way to get low B's, but makes A's very difficult. I feel that one of two things make this ok: 1) you're going straight into a startup out of college, where GPA doesn't matter 2) you already had a big-name internship, and potential employers won't even care about GPA (except Google, but that's a whole other debate)

I've found the second to be true from personal experience. It's a very dangerous path, but the free time payoff is huge.

I guess there is a huge advantage to finishing your general education requirements early...

curi• 18 years ago

if you're not going to learn anything, why bother with school?

bkrausz2• 18 years ago

I do learn a lot. The assignments and exams force me to learn thing that I otherwise wouldn't have learned. I do learn, but the value for me is in the lecture notes and assignments rather than the lectures.

nostrademons• 18 years ago

I certainly couldn't handle it - I didn't finish any of my independent projects until I got out of college. Like you said, I couldn't really give them the concentration they required when I had to worry about classes, homework, activities, eating, friends, parties, etc. Day was just too broken up. And you can't code a startup on an hour here and an hour there.

Same problem occurs after you get a day job, but to a lesser extent. The nice thing about employment is that once you go home at night, your time is yours (or should be), so you don't have any homework or studying that you should be doing. You're still limited to 2-3 hours/day of decent worktime, and that's still not enough to really start a company, but at least you can concentrate decently on it.

I'd recommend that you finish college, get a job at a software company for 1-2 years, and then do the startup. A job will let you see the sorts of problems that people are willing to pay for (they're usually more difficult than you imagine in college), and get you in the habit of writing code all day. And it'll show you what the alternative is, for the rest of your life, if you don't make the startup fly. You might even pick up some technical skills.

If you're really really passionate about computers - enough that you just can't concentrate on class - then I'd suggest dropping out, going to work for someone now, and starting a company a couple years down the line. I have a couple friends that took that route and their careers don't seem to have suffered for it at all; in fact, they seem to be doing better than others their age (namely me ;-)) because they didn't waste 4 years on something they weren't really into. But since you phrase it as "nearly impossible to work on my startup on days that I've been in class" instead of "nearly impossible to work in class on days that I've been working on my startup", I doubt this applies to you.

Do try some smaller open-source projects though, stuff you can do in a weekend. Or work on someone else's open-source codebase. That stuff looks really good on a resume, and you'll pick up some really useful skills.

edw5192• 18 years ago

"It takes me roughly a day to switch modes"

THAT is your problem.

You want to be an entrepreneur? You will have to switch modes 4,397 times per day (on good days). "Switching modes" should take seconds, not days.

Figure out how to do this and get back to work.

symptic• 18 years ago

Exactly. I'm currently in college and working on multiple startups. I've designed my schedule to where I start class at 2 or 3 PM every day, so i wake up at 6:50 and get on campus by 7:30 to work in one of the study areas on my projects.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by things. Just make sure you tackle them one at a time. Being an entrepreneur takes some hardcore dedication and passion. Switching from work mode to school should be easy for you-if it's not, you need to reassess whether you should be doing these particular projects or not. Passion is key.

azsromej• 18 years ago

In a couple years this issue may very well become switching between "work mode" and "startup mode".

While it probably makes more sense to secure a degree than make sure you immediately take a job after college, the pressure of a job being the default thing to do (and perhaps the weight of your loans) make it likely that you'll always have to deal with being divided.

That said, I don't have a solution. I've had more time to hack since graduation but it's always a few hours here and there.

omakase• 18 years ago

I never go to class. I work on my startup pretty much around the clock and then scramble right before a lab to get it done. When it comes time for midterms I have to sacrifice a few hours the night before each one to try and get through the material I've missed and not fail.

At the end of the day I can't wait till I graduate so I can throw myself into my startup 24x7. The one thing I've learned though is that during school you normally spend more time worrying about what's coming up next than actually working on it. So by pushing everything to the last minute I don't have a choice but to work efficiently to get things done.

It is very frustrating to not be working on my startup all the time - funny I never feel the same way about not putting 100% into school. I guess I know what I want to do when I graduate in two months ;)

NoBSWebDesign• 18 years ago

I agree that as an entrepreneur it's very beneficial to be able to change "modes" constantly all the time.

I personally juggle school, a full-time co-op, a rock band currently recording an EP, a consulting company, two startups (one is on its way out), and a few hobbies.

How do I do it?

1. I love everything I do.

2. Multi-tasking is good. When we're in the recording studio just mixing, I'm coding or answering customer emails. Same goes for boring classes.

3. I sleep 3-5 hours a night, though I'm no stranger 5 hours in a particular week.

4. I exercise and workout to keep me on my toes.

5. I try to stay single as much as possible ;)

phaedrus• 18 years ago

Oh, it's easy! I just let my classwork suffer. I stay up all night working on our startup project, and sleep through six classes a week. I only take classes with lenient professors who won't flunk me if I do this. But I go to a small university where they let you in if your ACT score is >= 0 and computer science has been relegated to a dejected corner of the business department, so no one cares if I go to class or not.

Switching between "school mode" and "startup mode"

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