From Moonlighting to Fulltime on your startup

May 27th, 2008 by Prateek Dayal | Print From Moonlighting to Fulltime on your startup

Most entrepreneurs I know started working on their idea on weekends and nights while still holding their day job. This gives them enough time to understand the idea, validate it with a beta launch and then see if they can make it big or not. Once they are reasonably certain that the idea is good (thats impossible btw), they take the plunge and go fulltime into it. I thought of writing about my decision making process in this blog post about working fulltime on Muziboo.

I worked on Muziboo for about 5 months with my day job. When I started out, I had no clue that I would go fulltime into it. Even though I had tried bootstrapping another venture about a year back and I did know that to do something serious, you need to be fulltime into it, I did not realize that the point would come so quickly.

When is a good time to go fulltime ?

I feel a good time to go fulltime is when

  • You are limited by the time available in doing things that matter. You can always add mindless features but that should not be your goal
  • You have to do some business development and you need to take time out on weekdays to meet people
  • You want to grow it quickly to a level where you can take some funding. If your idea is particularly novel, this is more relevant.
  • You are so excited about your idea that your day job feels like a drag and you cannot do justice to it. (Not the best reason to go fulltime… everything new is more exciting)
  • You feel that going fulltime will show your commitment to the idea and hence give you more credibility. This could help in talking to investors or media or even big bloggers!
  • You are working 7 days a week (job+startup) and you want to take a day off or spend time with family

Preparing for the plunge

In my case all of the above except the funding point were true. Still it was not an easy decision to quit my job. In fact I quit my job and did some part time consulting for a couple of months just to make a smooth transition. I took more than a month to quit my job after I started considering it seriously. During that time, I did a few things

  • I found a consulting gig to last a couple of months (something that I could work on 3 days a week)
  • I talked to a lot of people about freelancing .. the market scene and other implications (tax etc)
  • I laid out a small roadmap for Muziboo to make sure I had enough work to justify this move
  • I also did ‘some’ financial planning

On the last point, I made sure that I had enough money to last me for about 9 months. I think survival for about a year is necessary because in general it would take atleast that much time to start making money back from your venture. You don’t want to put too much pressure on yourself and your startup so make sure you have enough financial planning. Startups are a tough ride and you want to go easy on yourself and your baby. Not having to worry about money for sometime can make the whole experience quite enjoyable. It can let you experiment for sometime too. But more about that later :)

After taking the plunge

Once I quit my job, I took a weekend off before I started on my consulting assignment. It took me sometime to get used to working from home. I certainly did miss the interaction in office and the regular coffee breaks but then in sometime I got used to it (gtalk compensated!). I think there is a lot to write about it but may be some other time. Overall it has been one of the best decisions of last year and has helped me shape muziboo faster and better.

If you have any experience to share please do add it in the comments. I hope this post helps you if you are thinking about the plunge too.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 5:24 am and is filed under startups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • http://brants.wordpress.com manuscrypts

    oh damn, i’m still waiting for the idea :| .. but tell me, is it possible to create an entrepreneur out of a normally risk averse personality? your experience…

  • http://brants.wordpress.com manuscrypts

    oh damn, i’m still waiting for the idea :| .. but tell me, is it possible to create an entrepreneur out of a normally risk averse personality? your experience…

  • Prateek Dayal

    @manuscrypts thanks for the comment. Coming to your question

    hmmm … what is risk .. if you can ensure food .. shelter … may be school for your kids (if it applies to you) .. then I guess its gonna be fine .. you may have to skip on barista and coffee days and vactions etc though .. I guess we have a very different perception of risk here in Bangalore. Do you agree to that? Career damage no longer applies from what I know!

  • Prateek Dayal

    @manuscrypts thanks for the comment. Coming to your question

    hmmm … what is risk .. if you can ensure food .. shelter … may be school for your kids (if it applies to you) .. then I guess its gonna be fine .. you may have to skip on barista and coffee days and vactions etc though .. I guess we have a very different perception of risk here in Bangalore. Do you agree to that? Career damage no longer applies from what I know!

  • http://brants.wordpress.com manuscrypts

    hmm yes, security and those little extras… on the risk perception, do we? how so? although i always feel we’re a lil laidback compared to say, a mumbai… career damage does not? but in a way, thats also linked to the security factor..hmmm, it really is a mindset thing, in the end…

  • http://brants.wordpress.com manuscrypts

    hmm yes, security and those little extras… on the risk perception, do we? how so? although i always feel we’re a lil laidback compared to say, a mumbai… career damage does not? but in a way, thats also linked to the security factor..hmmm, it really is a mindset thing, in the end…

  • http://elinanetworks.com Prasanna

    @manuscrypts
    Well, I guess IT employee risk perception is going to swank hotels, blowing 2K on a weekend dinner, etc.

    Career-wise, I think doing a startup is seen as a good career move in most places. It shows independence, motivation, and other HR buzz-words in you :).

  • http://elinanetworks.com Prasanna

    @manuscrypts
    Well, I guess IT employee risk perception is going to swank hotels, blowing 2K on a weekend dinner, etc.

    Career-wise, I think doing a startup is seen as a good career move in most places. It shows independence, motivation, and other HR buzz-words in you :).

  • http://www.filebox.vt.edu/~groverp Piyush

    @manuscrypts->Haha..if you have a lot of angel investors, anyone can be an entrepreneur. No guarantee of success, obviously.

  • http://www.filebox.vt.edu/~groverp Piyush

    @manuscrypts->Haha..if you have a lot of angel investors, anyone can be an entrepreneur. No guarantee of success, obviously.

  • http://brants.wordpress.com manuscrypts

    @piyush well, i think the scenario here is a lil before we get angels into our lives :)

  • http://brants.wordpress.com manuscrypts

    @piyush well, i think the scenario here is a lil before we get angels into our lives :)

  • http://techsagar.com Pras

    Hi Prateek, Good one. I think, we Indian’s care a lot for our social status before quitting a day job. Whats your take on this ?

  • http://techsagar.com Pras

    Hi Prateek, Good one. I think, we Indian’s care a lot for our social status before quitting a day job. Whats your take on this ?

  • http://www.tabsglobal.com Mahesh

    Hi..

    Nice to see ur blog(especially this article).My exp is working 24*7 will be really hectic.Currently,I’m in such a position tht, I had started up a company(still i’m in corporate job),but not able to jump completely into my new venture.The main prblm is,some source to fund me atleast for few months.I’m looking up to take few consultancy jobs, but couldnt get anything.
    Could you pl help me out, in getting some ways of getting these consulting jobs(so tht i can kick off these corporate jobs).

    Y dont we meet sometime and have a chat ?

  • http://www.tabsglobal.com Mahesh

    Hi..

    Nice to see ur blog(especially this article).My exp is working 24*7 will be really hectic.Currently,I’m in such a position tht, I had started up a company(still i’m in corporate job),but not able to jump completely into my new venture.The main prblm is,some source to fund me atleast for few months.I’m looking up to take few consultancy jobs, but couldnt get anything.
    Could you pl help me out, in getting some ways of getting these consulting jobs(so tht i can kick off these corporate jobs).

    Y dont we meet sometime and have a chat ?

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