|
Throwaway due to paranoia about visa status [1]. We both applied to YC summer 2014, were turned down. As the "business" founder (although I make a few commits every week as well) I sought clients out, and we found a medium sized retailer who had some backend issues almost by accident. We became their DBA for 100k USD a year each [2] (something we have a collective decade experience in) plus a work permit so we could live there, working half time. We spend the other half working on our idea, which turned out to be a good thing because the two AI problems core to our success took a bit longer than planned to be solved (our 40+ competitors all use humans). I save around 50-60% of my salary, fly to exotic countries at least monthly (typing this from Australia, going to Japan in 3 weeks) without having to take leave, I live in a nice flat in the centre of town (next to the President's house) in a first world city with nice weather, I never have to wear a suit, and best of all, we don't answer to anybody because the client treats us as expert consultants, not an employee (there is a significant difference!) and we don't have investors and won't need any. The chilled out nature of an easy DBA job with good (enough) money means we can do research properly and build a good quality product. I have to say, whilst I understand PG's dislike of bootstrapping vs taking investor money (and it makes sense when your idea is new and first mover advantage is important)... well, it's a really nice way to start up I think. YMMV. I think financial freedom, and freedom from irrational management techniques designed to control you and not just your output, is by far the highest quality of life improvement I ever made. [1] There is some fuzziness here about the terms of the visa from the gov. Technically, you're supposed to work for only one employer; that is, you can't just work part time and build your own business with the other half, nor have a split company visa. In practice, a lot of people do it and the government is very pro-entrepreneurship; but I'm not leaving a paper trail just in case. [2] Cost of living and taxes are quite low here, so in SF terms that's probably equivalent to 200k. |