After university. Work Full-Time and start a side hustle or Part-Time and try to get ideas running?
Hey 👋
I just wanted to ask about your opinion. I am currently enrolled as a university student and finishing in a few weeks. What would you recommend? Starting full-time as a developer and try to start a side hustle? Start part-time and have at least an income but more time to launch my ideas? What do you think?
Thanks a lot! 🙌
Full time. Make and save money. Get some real world experience. Side hustle on the side, you are young and should be able to find the time compared to some of us oldies 🙊
I would add that you should try to get a full-time job that 1) will help you maximize the learnings and skills that will be most useful for building businesses, and 2) in a field/industry that you are interested in.
Many of the best business ideas come from having deep expertise and insights that come from working in a particular industry, so might as well try to work in an area that you care about.
Good luck!
Thanks a lot!
I worked since I started studying at an agency where we build MVPs for a special sector. So I would assume I have at least some experience but you are right I should learn more and deepen my knowledge.
+1
You will need some guidance for at least a few years. Otherwise, if you don't get the basics right, you will hurt yourself big time in the long run. Creating easy tor read, test, and maintainable code is much much harder than most people think
Thanks a lot for your answer! Yes thats true and makes more sense. I will keep that in mind.
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Yes I have heard about it and also I am worked as an intern at such companies. That makes sense. Thanks a lot for sharing this!
I went straight into startups from university, got into YC, and had a pretty hard time of it because I was missing some "basic" skills (like meeting facilitation and professional presentations) that caused us to make a bunch of preventable mistakes in sales, fundraising, etc. It takes a long time to learn those things on your own without a manager/boss to mentor and train you. So I think it's probably "optimal" to get a job for a bit.
But that being said, 13 years later, I'm glad I jumped straight into it anyway, despite the "inefficiency". And to tell the truth, I went through some tough times as a result (bankrupt, couch-surfing, sleeping in a freezing warehouse and showering from a jug, needing to ask people for food, etc.), but I'm still glad I did it this way -- I would be miserable in any job, so my only choice was to jump straight in, take my knocks, and figure it out as I went along.
If you do take a job, though, optimize it for either maximum learning (smart, engaged mentors and peers) or maximum free time (including both free hours and energy remaining at the end of the day/week, plus well-paid enough to build some savings as a safety net). Avoidi falling into the rat race trap of maximizing salary and prestige -- it can take many years to escape.
Thanks a lot for your awesome answer!
I think you are right. I should take the job where I learn a lot and could maximize my knowledge. If I have an idea I could still build it beside that and leave my job if it is successful. Thanks!
Full-time for at least a few years, you will learn more
Why do you think I would learn more?
Because I look back over my career, both as an employee and working on my own projects, and I have learned significantly more from working with others. When you work in a company with established processes and good teams, you will pick up things that you just can't find in an online course or internet blog. Those lessons and experiences are invaluable when you eventually strike out on your own.
Full time, 100%. I'm speaking from personal experience on the other side.
In college, I was an entrepreneur of sorts. I launched multiple apps on the Play store (a lot less competitive then) and was making decent money, around $500-$1000 a month. After I graduated, I worked on my own products for a couple years (supported by my parents) before getting a full time job at a consulting company. My products barely grew in that time. I could never get them to what they needed to be to support myself fully.
In the two years that I worked at the consulting company, I learned 5x more about software development than I did in the previous two years. I still regret that I didn't do the inverse: two years at a full time job, then two years self employed.
I could have built things much much faster, and I would have saved myself a ton of technical debt as well.
Here's the thing when you're a new grad. Even though you don't feel like it, you have a sh*tton to learn. If you are self employed, you're burning your own money, and you're almost 100% guaranteed to learn a lot slower too. At a full-time job, ideally you'd have processes, tools, and most importantly, mentors to help you learn things much more efficiently. Why not have someone pay you to learn faster for a few years?
On the other hand, an upside to those two years working for myself was that I'm the most business/product oriented developer out of all of my previous and current coworkers. A lot of developers can't wrap their heads around the product side of things. So it was definitelya learning experience. I wish Indie Hackers was around back then - all I had to go on were random blog posts and stalking @patio11 round the internet.
@yousufj Could you list out some specific things that working at a job taught you that are especially relevant for solo developers?
Nothing in particular. I was just forced to spend time learning things I normally wouldn't have spent time on. New frameworks, build tools, etc. that when I was working by myself I would have ignored for the sake of being focused on building. At a company, though, you're required to spend time in the research and discover phase.
Also, mentorship/ general idea sharing is great as well. When you're a solo dev, you have to think of solutions to your development problems yourself. At a company when you have teammates, it becomes far more likely that someone on your team has already solved the problem and can give you good direction, things to watch out for, etc.
Thats great! Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! This helps me a lot!
It is really interesting to hear your story and what you think about it afterwards. I also did some things while in university and worked for a big company. But I think there is a lot more I could learn and especially working full-time and try to start a side hustle during the late nights and weekends.