[jmduke]

Self-employed, running https://buttondown.email as a solo founder. (My day generally looks like — 30% engineering, 40% onboarding + support, 10% marketing, 20% operations.) It was a profitable nights-and-weekends project from 2017—2022; took it full-time in 2022.

I think the thing that I would say about self-employment is that people understate the day-to-day flexibility and overstate the month-to-month flexibility. It is _addicting_ to be able to structure a given day exactly how you want it, and to take days off without having to worry about PTO; conversely, I've done a hither-to poor job of increasing my bus factor and it's tough to e.g. plan entire week-long vacations without knowing I'll need to carve out extra time afterwards to catch up on inbound issues.

Being self-employed is hard work for sure. I also _totally_ understand the cliche of "becoming a founder makes you un-hireable"; it's really hard to imagine going back to a traditional job after this, and I find it more fulfilling than anything else I've done in my career.

[snide]

I have no need for an email sender at the moment, but I just wanted to say that I found your website and premise super simple to understand. I think the thing that often gets lost in large companies is that "tone" gets neutered. This copy reads like a person wrote it, rather than a large committee. Cheers.

Bookmarked for when I do need it!

[XCSme]

> people understate the day-to-day flexibility and overstate the month-to-month flexibility

I completely agree! Somehow every day feels like you are free to do what you want, even take it off, but in the long-term it feels like you never really have free time at all, because your mind is always thinking about the business or feeling guilty for the time off, which could be spent to further improve the product.

[twojobsoneboss]

Many 9-5ers minds are always thinking of how to escape anyways, so at least you have something tangible to think about if you already have that business

[XCSme]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy thinking about how to improve my product, new marketing ideas etc., the issue is more how it affects the rest of your life, where your attention on other aspects of life might be diluted, as a result maybe you will spend less time thinking, for example, about what nice thing you could do for your partner.