I dream of the day I can have work/life balance. This is a huge problem for me and it bleeds into my personal life, psyche, and creativity. Unfortunately, I am a prisoner of my own obligations as I'm sure many are. Obligations mean I need income means I need a job. That doesn't mesh well of my incredible desire to run my own business one day.
My father and his father have run their own businesses. When I graduated college, I made a strange departure from that norm to get a job. The thought wasn't particularly exciting, but we had medical bills in the family that someone had to handle. I hate it because I feel like I've let that magical time where you have no bills and can live on the cheap pass by.
So I'm playing it the only way I know how. I work at day then come home to work on side projects into the early morning. My hope is that one day these can be used to convince an investor to float my living expenses so I can take a real shot. Until that day, what options do those of us with jobs have?
'patio11 HN-famously claims to have bootstrapped BCC to the point where it more than replaced his FT wage by spending 5 hours a week.
You can't do that with any given business idea; you have to pick a business idea that is amenable to the approach. But that's not saying much; even with a 7 figure A round, you still have to pick a target you stand a chance against. YC isn't funding a lot of Google killers, either.
Do you still have medical bills? Why can't you live on the cheap for a year, save one year worth of living expenses and then leave your job?
For instance:
1) If you live in a big city, live in a very small apartment. Use public transportation and sell your car if you have one. (Yeah, I know this is hard to do in many parts of US).
2) Cut unnecessary recurrent expenses like cable, netflix, gym, etc. You can still buy movies once in a while. If you wanna exercise, just run outside, play sports at public courts, etc.
3) Don't buy the latest gadgets. Unless you're making software for it, you don't need the latest iPhone/android.
And so on. This is essentially how a junior Japanese salaryman lives. They must, because they earn only around $25~30$k. So if you can earn more than that and still keep a low living cost, you could save quite a bit.
I had obligations but now I am essentially debt-free outside of a mortgage (not underwater). I have been saving aggressively however I do spend some of it funding my side projects. I've got around 8 months of expenses saved up and hope to get to two years worth within the next 12 months. Without outside investment, that is when I'll hit my personal comfort zone for going after it.
Until then, I'm focused on building the resume and resources I will need in the future. In fact, that is part of the reason I'm working on Sparkmuse. Working a day job and at night can be brutal but I have no regrets.
Having gone through EXACTLY what your trying, I can say it is very hard. How many startup attempts of mine failed because there 'wasn't' enough time in the day? I count 4. How many side projects failed because there 'wasn't' enough time in the day? 35% of them couldn't be completed. At one point I was only sleeping 2 hours a day for MONTHS. Hows that for compression, and stupidity... I learned the hard way.
You pretty much have 4 good and immediate paths:
1.) Pure luck. Need I say more.
OR
2.) Pay off your debt asap, possibly even saving some $$ up, quit and run your startup (bootstrap or incubator, whatever, you get the idea).
3.) PLAN, EXECUTE, REPEAT with a clear portion of time. I recommend 1-4 hours a day (1 and 2 are the magic hours). You plan the day before, write down questions, execute. You want to start off EACH round knowing EXACTLY what you need to do (because obviously you only have a short amount of time). This is how campfire and friends came to be.
4.) #3 + Delegation: Do #3 while sharing the wealth by building a team, and delegating your very carefully planned duties to your team. Keeping in mind that if any of your fellow team-mates are in the same situation as yourself you keep the sub tasks SHORT and _clearly_ defined.
Now I'm heavily compressing (and lossy at that) some of my hard learned experiences, and fireballs of failure.
Personally, I learned #3 and #4 by working too hard and having my health affected. I was able to obtain some cash from projects while working full-time by planning properly and using that money to bootstrap myself into path #2. I keep the same planning ethic even still, which is extremely important.
Hope this helps some poor souls out there.
Also in reference to long hours, you _may_ find yourself constantly battling to stay focused during long hours. It is very hard for any human to concentrate for long periods of time (especially alone). Which is why you should plan. So you may be working 10 hours and feel OK, but you probably aren't getting any work done for a large portion of that time. Take a walk instead of vegging on the computer, as any activity outside is almost 2N more effective than say browsing HN.
As I've said so many times, I've seen such a huge amount of talented people completely leave the industry. Ever watch "Code Rush"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u404SLJj7ig
My father and his father have run their own businesses. When I graduated college, I made a strange departure from that norm to get a job. The thought wasn't particularly exciting, but we had medical bills in the family that someone had to handle. I hate it because I feel like I've let that magical time where you have no bills and can live on the cheap pass by.
So I'm playing it the only way I know how. I work at day then come home to work on side projects into the early morning. My hope is that one day these can be used to convince an investor to float my living expenses so I can take a real shot. Until that day, what options do those of us with jobs have?