A young person's guide to quitting your day job

http://arbor.posterous.com/i-quit-my-high-paying-job-what-now

by zmitri • 14 years ago

103 65 14 years ago

arbor.posterous.com

jcottrell• 14 years ago

sounds a bit like my own story (though you're a bit farther along!)

Gobitron• 14 years ago

I'm at step 1-5

xspectre• 14 years ago

Me too.

To the author: thanks for writing this blog post. It's always interesting to hear someone's perspective on the topic. I've been mulling over this for a while...

zmitri9• 14 years ago

Not a problem. Looking back, I admit it was nice to be able to get "instant" credibility, but if you know you are going to eventually pull the trigger, the sooner the better.

ry0ohki• 14 years ago

As someone on a work visa, how did you quit your job exactly? What's the grace period before you need to find someone else to sponsor your visa? (I'm assuming your startup can't afford to do so, but I may be wrong)

zmitri9• 14 years ago

Well, I thought about it for a while, and realized it wasn't worth it waiting N years to get a green card. I filed a petition to go from H1B status to B2 tourist and asked for 3 months to stay in the country to finish up my affairs. After that I left.

As a Canadian, I may enter the US for up to 6 months at a time without requiring a visa, but am I not allowed to work. So when I do visit, I make sure to only visit friends and I make sure not to do any work. I am currently in Toronto, but next month will be taking a vacation to the USA.

byoung22• 14 years ago

I wonder what is considered "work" and how could it be tracked. Whenever I travel abroad, I bring my laptop, and I always end up answering a few emails and writing code (which is what I do when I go to the office here in the US). If you have a company registered in Canada and you come to the US for 6 months, who is to stop you from sitting at a computer and typing away, as long as no money changes hands in the US?

jarek• 14 years ago

> I am currently in Toronto, but next month will be taking a vacation to the USA.

If you're not going to a common tourist destination for two weeks, have fun at the border.

iyulaev2• 14 years ago

Between working at a huge company with rigid structure and payscales (what the author seems to be describing) and being a founder, there is a spectrum of jobs, with different risk/responsibility tradeoffs. When companies go public, it's not just the 2-3 founders that make out well.

zmitri9• 14 years ago

I totally agree with you, which is why I tried to list out a bunch of things I noticed. There are lots of different approaches when your job starts to sour, but for me, it wasn't just about finding a new job.

By the way, I was actually describing an extremely successful 20-25 person company.

michaelochurch4• 14 years ago

I worked for 2.5 years at a startup that failed. The technical work that I did was excellent, but it didn't do much for my career in the end. In fact, in my job after that, I was treated as a junior developer even though I was substantially ahead of the level, in terms of capability, at which I was placed. In retrospect, I should have jumped back into the mainstream a year before. As you get older and better, junior-level positions become non-options, but you may not get the "right" experience for senior ones.

Working for yourself can work out very well, or it can leave you re-applying for your old job, 3 years older and 10 years smarter, and you know as well as I do that being 10 years smarter just makes institutionalized life harder.

You can stay corporate and not lose your edge entirely. Obviously, it'd be better to work for yourself and not have to serve 2 masters, but few people have the resources for that. To do it, you have to learn how to be insubordinate enough to keep your creativity, without getting fired. That's not actually hard, if you stay out of the politics. Old Me would react to a pernicious inefficiency by speaking up and loudly, unwittingly walking into a political minefield. ("This is damaging my productivity, you idiots!") New Me says, "This is mildly annoying and reducing my productivity, but that gives me time for Coursera."

iyulaev2• 14 years ago

By the way, I was actually describing an extremely successful 20-25 person company.

Not that I disagree with you, but even in companies of the same size, there is a huge range in strategies and outcomes for those involved. Small "family style" businesses operate under a very different model from VC-funded start-ups even though they are the same size.

At a company where I've worked, titles were completely 100% nominal and a few years in, what you were doing often had almost nothing to do with what you were hired for.

MikeKusold• 14 years ago

I stopped reading when you gave an example of moving somewhere better. Google is not inherently better than Yahoo. Both companies have very interesting projects going on. What makes one company better than another is the chance to work on projects that YOU find interesting.

zmitri9• 14 years ago

That's fair, but unfortunately that's probably the least important detail of the article. I'm still learning how to write blog posts so I'll take that into consideration in the future. I changed it to reflect the fact that many people, whether right or wrong, would currently assume it's a step up.

michaelochurch4• 14 years ago

He said that most people would perceive Google as a step up, and he's right, but his point is that the incessant climbing is pretty stupid, and I agree.

Adam Smith called early industrial Britain "a nation of shopkeepers". Corporate America (and VC-istan is just as bad) is "a nation of social climbers."

mogrim2• 14 years ago

> Corporate America (and VC-istan is just as bad) is "a nation of social climbers."

But (from what I see at least) it's still better than a lot of other countries. At least in the larger areas you can earn a decent wage, with a decent amount of seniority, while still being in a technical role.

This just doesn't happen here in Spain - after 7 or 8 years you've hit the ceiling, you're an architect or analyst or whatever you want to call it, but to get further (earn more, have more responsibility in your company...) you need to move into non-technical management.

blendergasket• 14 years ago

This was awesome. Thank you for writing this. I'm saving money to have a year's cash to live on while fleshing out my idea(s) and heading down the runway of making my way on my own. I'll be making the transition ("falling out of the bottom of the world" I lovingly call it) on June 1st.

My favorite line was this one: "...life isn't a competition to see how upper middle class you can get." This is so true. It blows my mind how much people internalize these milestones of success and how little questioning goes into them. It seems that basically the whole culture's on autopilot, and I guess the point of a culture is basically to build a structure for most people to sail through on auto-pilot but I am really starting to see a life of questioned assumptions as the only life not lived in slavery.

pnathan2• 14 years ago

"...life isn't a competition to see how upper middle class you can get."

That's been on my mind a lot for the last few years. While I'd like to put my (future) kids in a good starting point, there's more to life than rolling around in cash.

koko775• 14 years ago

Not until you have enough that you're not clawing just to stay afloat. Until that point, stress and paranoia about job security are a pretty big deal.

rayiner2• 14 years ago

Counterpoint: It's really hard to appreciate a day job for what it is until you're filling out HR forms to ensure your new baby has health insurance coverage from birth, and you let yourself appreciate the terror of not having that in a system that will do it's damndest to screw you over for any lapses. I have a friend who had a baby and had a gap between the 30 days during which the baby was covered by her health insurance, and the time he was covered by her husband's health insurance from his new job. The gap was the result, if I recall correctly, of her forgetting to timely fill out some paperwork. In that gap, the baby rolled off the changing table and hit his head. The baby seemed fine, but she faced the sickening choice between racking up a multi-thousand dollar hospital bill or just hoping the baby didn't have any internal injuries. Ultimately, they took the chance and luckily it worked out for them because the baby was fine.

These weren't poor people, by the way. They were students at an Ivy-league school who were in the transition period between graduation and six-figure jobs.

reinhardt• 14 years ago

The irony is that the "startup culture" and HN in particular glorifies "rolling around in cash" even more in the form of billion+ dollar acquisition lottery hits, while looking down on moderately profitable sustainable "lifestyle" busineses.

Crake3• 14 years ago

It's not really about seeing how long you can stomach being a starbucks barista with your $100,000 english degree either, haha.

I think there's a good medium between the two that most people fail to notice--it's good not to be too obsessed with money, but when I hear people say that "money doesn't matter!" I instantly suspect that they have always been rich enough to never have actually experienced living without it. It matters quite a bit when you are struggling to pay rent on your crap retail job, and routinely having to choose between gas in your car or food in your stomach.

sethrin• 14 years ago

So, this time last year I was in a kind of a bad fix. I was completely broke, homeless, and living in a country where I didn't share a language with the majority of inhabitants. Also, at the time that I became unemployed and homeless I had managed to contract a (relatively mild) case of MRSA.

This all was somewhat stressful. However, it's important to be mindful that things can always get worse, and that your happiness is not actually dependent on having a job, place to live, or food. Although the last one does tend to occupy your mind, most people would not actually be harmed by skipping a meal or six.

You can let money, or the lack of it, determine your happiness. You can let your health, or lack of it, determine your happiness. You can let whether your favorite sports or political team determine your happiness. Or, you can have a sense of perspective, trust in yourself, and let happiness be a goal to reach no matter what fate has in store for you.

I can't help but recall the lines of "Invictus" here, but I'll refrain from quotation.

hkmurakami2• 14 years ago

>"...life isn't a competition to see how upper middle class you can get."

This was the most powerful phrase of the article for me as well. These days I wonder if something like a "Freedom maximization framework" or a "Personal satisfaction maximization framework" might work well for many people including myself, rather than a "Income maximization framework" or a "Career maximization framework" that we tend to default to.

disgruntledphd2• 14 years ago

The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates, via Plato. So this is a very old idea, but nonetheless true for all of that.

shortlived• 14 years ago

Can someone please point me to "A married-with-family person's guide to quitting your day job"?

zmitri9• 14 years ago

I am definitely not qualified to write that one!

ktsmith• 14 years ago

Have plenty of savings and the full support of your spouse. Don't let your new venture consume time to the detriment of your family life. Everything else can be pretty similar.

lutusp• 14 years ago

> Can someone please point me to "A married-with-family person's guide to quitting your day job"?

Sure - here it is, short and to the point: "Don't even think about it."

michaelochurch4• 14 years ago

I was going to say: "move to a country where child labor is legal".

hkmurakami2• 14 years ago

I think having a strong personal and professional network of friends and colleagues in "bigco" type places will help getting back into such an environment if/when the entrepreneurial venture unfortunately fails.

I think that kind of peace of mind would be invaluable in really giving it a go.

mogrim2• 14 years ago

Depending where you live it can go by many names: lottery, powerball, loteria, etc.

A rich, childless uncle dying may also work.

nathanbarry• 14 years ago

I did that a year ago. My last day at work was 2 weeks after my son was born. You can read about it here: http://nathanbarry.com/i-quit-my-job/

What made it possible was that I spent an entire year before hand designing and developing apps on the side. I got to the point where I was averaging at least $2,500 a month from the App Store, which was half of what I made at my design job.

I knew with that as a base I could make up the difference with consulting.

The other really important thing I did was save a lot of money. I took all the profits from an entire year of selling apps, plus my regular savings, and had just over $30,000 in savings.

Those two things gave me the confidence to leave, even with a newborn baby.

Now, 1 year later, I've written two books (one comes out next week), released more apps, and make more money than I did at the day job. All while having more flexibility.

If you want to talk further, my email address is in my profile.

Good luck!

zmitri9• 14 years ago

Surprisingly similar to my situation when I quit (except I didn't have a baby, and I'm not American). So nice to hear things turned out.

LaGrange• 14 years ago

Have huge savings, so that your decision doesn't put your dependents at risk too much. That's the main difference. And, just like some stuff in the original article, this partially depends on how lucky and good at making money you were previously.

rayiner2• 14 years ago

My former boss did a successful startup in his 40's with a wife and three kids. The recipe was:

1) Spend that time becoming an expert in your field and developing a network of professional contacts; 2) Marry a bright, accommodating spouse with a stable career and generous health insurance; 3) Be willing to work your family into your business life so you don't become alienated from them.

I think it's a bit of HN echo chamber thinking to believe that you can't do a startup while married with kids. Outside Silicon Valley, a startup by a married person will raise fewer eyebrows than a startup by a 20-something.

gregpilling• 14 years ago

100% agree. I am 43 self employed, the fourth child is due in March. The understanding spouse with a good career helps a lot. You can do any company a 20-something can, you just use your greater experience and social contacts to make up for the extra time you don't have.

d0m• 14 years ago

Can't stress the "start small" part. I.e. not a marketplace or a social network to start with. (If you learn a new language, would your first project be a StarCraft2 clone or hello world?)

ataleb52• 14 years ago

That was seriously some awesome motivation. I've only been out working for a few months after graduation but I can already related to almost everything on his list.

Thank you for sharing!

mindcruzer• 14 years ago

As can I. I think I have some natural aversion to having a boss.

vlokshin• 14 years ago

You offer some really good advice, and I'm in a REALLY similar boat / life.

I wrote up something like this about 1.5 years ago. I started my company on the side, while still working a similar (top-tier consulting) gig. I hedged my bets a bit more by running the shop while I still had a full-time [salary] and built out my dev team as full-timers first. As of 1.5 months ago, 3 more of us are full-time and in beautiful San Francisco trying to grow the collective into something real. 7 full time, and 10+ in the collective.

The problem with both of our writings to the world about doing this, is that it's not actionable. It's motivational and awesome, but there's not much of an action item. If you can't do it in a single pomodoro, most people won't do it :)

We're both young, without a family tie-down, and ironically both Russian-born? men.

@OP: Team up for a blog post next week so that we can put together some actionable steps towards giving up the life of a cog and working for yourself on actually building something awesome?

vlad (at) DarwinApps.com if you're interested.

blhack2• 14 years ago

First: this is hardly a "guide" to quitting your day job. The only advice OP gives on actually quitting your day job is:

"Find a good partner!".

---

Does there exist freelance agents? Like somebody that helps you track down freelance contracts?

(I may be mincing words here)

If there isn't, will some of you bizdev people pretty please make something like this? I'm a hacker, I've been coding for a long time, and I fit exactly the descriptions that this person laid out in part 1, but I would have absolutely no idea how to find work even if it came banging down my door.

SandersAK• 14 years ago

I think, like most things, most of this stuff is case-sensitive. If the situation resonates with you, then the experience of what happened is valuable.

It sounds like you already have your mind made up and you've committed yourself to making the leap. Lots of people aren't there yet.

As for freelancing - your best bet is hitting the pavement and meeting people. People tend to kick jobs to friends or people they personally have connected with.

First step might be to, instead of waiting for work to bang on the door, open the door and go out and get it :)

fizx• 14 years ago

In my experience, most boutique development shops and agencies would love to put about 80% of their work through employees, and 20% through trusted contractors. Typically you need to be a product engineer--web, ios, etc. Expect to get paid about half of what you would for contracting work you source yourself. To get this work, go to conferences and be friendly with people in this group.

If you can't meet these people, build some open source thing they want (when I did this five years ago it was imagemagick integration for RoR). They'll contact you and pay you to customize it.

I have friends who've used https://grouptalent.com/main/talent/. They had a pretty good experience.

Good luck!

tcdent3• 14 years ago

> Expect to get paid about half of what you would for contracting work you source yourself.

Being in a position that hires said contractors, I have to say this is false. Rates are competitive; we're not the one's setting them, the market is. Recruiter's commission may play a factor where it's involved, but it certainly doesn't halve the rate.

I'd also say "good luck" to acquiring contracts in your area of expertise directly from the companies that are buying them. They're looking for complete packages and the effort involved in acquiring and maintaing those relationships is quite often beyond the abilities of a single person.

tcdent3• 14 years ago

Do you have a LinkedIn? I'm constantly contacted with offers for positions (full and part time) in areas of my expertise.

blhack2• 14 years ago

No, sigh. I have been avoiding linkdn forever as not being "cool", and should probably change that, eh?

tdyrsmid• 14 years ago

Having quit my day job back in 2000 to go into business for myself, I think I can give you a quick summary on the process to use:

Step 1: ensure you have at least 12 months of living expenses in cash. If you don't, then sell everything and move in with your parents or friends so that your expenses go down a LOT. If you don't want to do this, you might ask yourself how bad you want to create your own business.

Step 2. Spend all day talking to potential customers. Skip online research. Go talk to people. If you don't have something to sell (yet), tell them you are building it and you'd like to show them screenshots. You will suck at this conversation at first, but you will get better.

Step 3. Sell, sell, and sell some more. If you have a product, sell to customers. If you don't, sell to investors. Either way, you have to persuade somebody to give you their money.

Step 4. Pat yourself on the back because you just did something that most people only talk about.

Step 5. Network your ass off and only hang around other entrepreneurs who will support you. JOBers will most likely only knock you down because they envy what you have done (and they dont' have the stones to do).

Trent Dyrsmid

GICodeWarrior• 14 years ago

Depending on the interest rate of your educational loans, it can be better to keep them around. Save your money in the bank and budget for loan payments.

Sometimes it is useful to have that extra cushion in the bank instead of saving a small percentage in interest.

Crake3• 14 years ago

Most federal loans these days are at 6.8%, and max out at around $5,000/year for undergrads (which is only half the cost of tuition at a state uni here). Private loans tend to lean more towards 8-12%. Also, good luck even qualifying for the latter if you don't have a rich parent with collateral to cosign for you.

It's a good thought, but I think it's much less useful today than it was in the era of 2-3% interest student loans. My teachers always use amazingly low interest rates in math problems and then get all shocked when I mention how much even the government charges these days.

moocow01• 14 years ago

Quitting your job is the easy part. Legitimately replacing it is the hard part.

There are some nice thoughts here but I'd like to know what the plan is to survive. Its certainly possible to make it but I feel like this is glorifying a situation that most people once on the other side of the fence are going to be under stress and realize things are not necessarily so rosy. You have savings - great step. You have some things your working on - great step. Now how do you start making just enough money before your runway ends and you have to either go back to a job or start eating into your own time to do consulting (which is basically employment from my perspective).

Ill admit Im a relatively risk averse person but Id say the best plan is the 1 step plan where the time you are spending on your own business becomes more profitable than going to work - easier said than done but thats my 2 cents.

zmitri9• 14 years ago

I'm on the other side of the fence now. Yes, it's much harder, and much more stressful, but it's on my terms.

There's a lot more to this story, but I've decided to draw this out over a couple posts.

Funny you mention being risk averse. I've talked about this with my cofounder, and we don't see doing this as being risky. We see taking jobs as being risky, because we feel like we are losing out on doing something we like more and wasting our lives.

A young person's guide to quitting your day job

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