[leesalminen]

Just an anecdote for you- in 2009, I wanted to drop out of college because I preferred partying. I obviously needed income and was dissatisfied with the jobs I’d had in the past (fast food, waiting tables and hotel customer service). Like you, I had always been a tech “nerd” and had built websites and recycled computers for my church/charities in the past. One day I came across a job post for a small SEO firm that was looking for a “web developer” aka clicking around Wordpress, writing some CSS, and writing SEO content. It paid $11/hr. I sent an email and he agreed to interview me. I must’ve charmed him because he agreed to give me a 90 day trial. It worked out and I worked for him for about 2 years before a recruiter found me and got me a job at a “real” software company on a team of 15 engineers. After a couple years there, I founded my own SaaS side business (which went viral on HN circa 2014). It grew to become much, much more than a side business and was eventually acquired by a PE firm.

I just wanted to say to keep your head up, remain persistent, keep learning and stay curious. It can be done and hard work (usually) pays off.

Stay flexible - even if a job doesn’t seem super relevant to your core interests you never know when it’ll come in handy later. For example, my experience in fast food gave me great insights into POS systems (which I ended up building) and my time working at a luxury boutique hotel taught me how to provide excellent customer service even in difficult situations (one time I didn’t call a customer’s room at the request wake up call time and he missed his flight- eek).

Best of luck to you!

Ps- just sent you an email

[mkoryak]

But were you able to keep partying? And for how long and how hard?

[leesalminen]

Hahahah, the most important question! I was a fairly prolific partier until about 2014, right when I started building Gingr. I actually started building the app while on partying-related probation. The inability to party hard was what drove me to code after-hours. Today, I’m pretty lame at least according to my wife and son. Thanks for asking ;).

[vcanales]

Just wanted to say that I read Grindr and I had to do a double take :)

[xupybd]

You've just tipped me over the line. I'm finally going to start my side project.

[leesalminen]

Best of luck! Remember- what’s the worst that can happen? Even if it doesn’t become a commercial success, surely you’ve learned something(s) new that you can use later. Hope to see it on Show HN one day!

[scomp]

Side question sorry, what happened to the side business after the PE firm acquired it?

[leesalminen]

It’s still going strong today! It’s led by my “protege” and they have 40+ employees now with 8-digit revenue. They just acquired a second competitor in our space. I couldn’t be more proud of them. Check out www.gingrapp.com.

[ux-app]

I don't want to derail the conversation, but I'd love to hear more about gingrapp. What made you choose this niche, what were the early days like?

[leesalminen]

Well, I had recently adopted an Australian Cattle Dog puppy but had a full time in-office job. They’re a very active breed and leaving her at home all day wasn’t an option. That prompted me to find a dog daycare, something I had never heard of (and honestly thought was slightly ridiculous). When checking out the first day, I noticed their business was a mess. Everything on paper, in messy stacks at the front desk. And then it took almost 5 minutes for them to be able to accept my card payment (one of my biggest pet peeves). That got me thinking- why isn’t there software in this niche? It turns out there was, but it was all CD-ROM software straight out of Windows 98 land. I didn’t know Jack shit about dog kennels so I emailed 10 local businesses asking if they’d beta test what I built and provide feedback. 1 wrote back so I drove over that day. The owner didn’t know anything about computers but he set me up with his manager- an aspiring product designer. We hit it off immediately and started collaborating. Eventually we became 50/50 business partners. Once we had built something we decided to show it off at a trade show. Turns out there was one in our city the following week! We bought a booth, and a shitty sign and 2 polo shirts and showed up. Every single person there lined up to see what we had built. We knew we had something. Got our first customer that day. Eventually it became more work than we could handle on nights / weekends, so I decided to pay my partner’s bills out of my own pocket (from my day job) so he could quit his and run the day to day until we had revenue to pay both our bills. We got there after a few months. After that, we worked 16 hours, 7 days a week for about a year. We started hiring people. The rest is history, as they say.

To this day, my partner is my closest and most trusted friend, even though we haven’t worked together in 2 years.

Dunno what else to share, feel free to ask!

[Dragonai]

Absolutely love this. Proof that opportunity is everywhere. Congratulations on an awesome success story!

[hikarudo]

What an amazing story! Thanks for sharing.

[LegitShady]

congrats and thanks for sharing

[40four]

I have used Ginger! There is a Pet Paradise in my city we used to go to, and I booked through the app all the time. Small world haha

[leesalminen]

Oh, awesome! We love Pet Paradise- they run a good business and the leadership really does care about pet safety.

[40four]

Probably the nicest daycare/ boarding brick & mortar facility I've ever seen. Great people working there too. We only stopped going because we moved to the other side of town and it's too far, there is another place closer.

[lynguist]

But how did you pay for your livelihood at 11$/h? That costs in the end more than what you make! I was in a similar situation, but I quit because the job was costing me more money (paying for transit and food) than I was earning.

[lukasdanin]

Thanks for sharing this story!

[leesalminen]

Hopefully it helps motivate someone. I’m pretty astonished with how my life turned out, seeing that a partying college dropout’s trajectory isn’t exactly pointed towards the moon.

[Bakary]

If you don't mind me asking, what prompted the change in mindset from wanting to drop out to party to working hard and ambitiously?

[tomcam]

Lovely story!