Ask IH: Founders, how do you pay your bills?
This is for founders who don't make enough cash from their startup.
Do you have a full-time day job? Part-time job? Freelancing/contracting?
(From myself and my founder friends, I know that this is a problem for people who want to build a bootstrapped business and I have a solution I in mind - just want to learn more about the problem here first)
I currently have a part-time internship that pays the bills. I have extremely low expenses, though.
Cool! Do you think working part-time until your side projects takes off is better than full-time? If yes, how do you plan on continuing after the internship?
@canolcer Yeah, I have a decent amount of time to work on my company while also paying the bills. That's the question. I'm not positive yet.
Makes sense, I'm doing the same :D Well, we're starting an app to match founders like you with company who are looking to hire part-time founders (and only founders). It will be free founders, if you're interested let me know (email in my profile) and I'll keep you posted.
I set up an eCommerce firm that made money while I was in college. Invested most of that money as I didn't need that much cash in college.
Got good returns, so I have a cushion for around two years now. Will mostly pick up a consulting job even if I run out.
Full-time job. Have used some savings to get work done on the development of my platform too, where I lack the skill or time.
Full time job.
Freelance design clients
My clients mostly come from referrals and word of mouth, so it's not as consistent as it could be. However, that means that when I'm not actively working on projects, I can work pretty much full-time on side-projects.
Thanks for your comment! Why don't you use freelancing platforms like UpWork?
When I get a good referral I'm not competing for price-conscious clients against people living in lower cost of living areas than I am. I was actually invited to their Upwork Enterprise offering and tried it out for a little while, but never really found the right projects even there.
I have done some projects as a subcontractor through agencies or from a platform called Gigster, but that's a bit different.
Yeah that makes sense, made the same experience with UpWork. As I said in other comments, we're building a platform that matches founders with companies looking for part-time help. If you're interested, let me know (email in my profile).
I have a full time job, the project I founded is also not really intended to pay me or become my employment to be honest, so that takes the pressure of somewhat!
It's an interesting dilemma though, like I've started other things with friends before and sometimes putting the hours in alongside day jobs is really not feasible and you're desperate for your venture to make money. At the same time, it's a good (albeit ruthless) system really - like if you want to make something work you realistically have to stay true to the idea of an MVP, really police feature creep, and launch early to get feedback. If you don't then you're only extending the time it takes to fail and not find the thing that does work/make money (most ideas fail after all).
That was the most difficult with with a project I did to launch my charity Target 2030, like I set myself 100 days to complete it - but in a way I should have done 30 days, or 50 or something to shorten the time before I got feedback. It's worked out pretty well so far regardless, but it could just have easily not done and I'd have spent 3 months before finding out.
By doing some consulting gigs on the side.
Where do you find those usually?
Reach to friends and family. They should help. That's how I currently source gigs.
Also, talking to your earlier employers could help.
Yes that's a good way. We're working on a service that matches founders that look for part-time, limited time work with companies that understand the value of having a freelancer with a founder mindset on the team for a while. If you're intersted, write me an email (you can find it in my profile) and I'll let you know when we get started.
I work from Monday to Thursday on my regular life job and on Friday I have my day off to work full time on my side projects. I try to do as much as I can in the evenings during the week. Weekends I try keep clear to relax and fulfil social duties.
Cool. Is your goal to stop working for your regular job one day or do you want to keep your side projects as side projects?
That would be the ideal dream. But at the moment it's hard to keep up the regular day job tempo mixed with enough time to work on the side projects. Also I need more ideas for products to work out. I guess I'll just go with the flow and see where it brings me.
Hehe. Anyways, if you're interested in looking for a new part-time job some time, we're building a web app where we help founders find part-time jobs by matching them with companies that look to hire exactly folks like this. It will always be free for founders. If you want me to keep you posted, write me a short message (email in my profile).
Thanks. I fired you and email :)
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
What keeps you from getting a part-time job so you can spend more time on your projects?
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
I guess it depends on how well the part-time job would pay? :D
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
:-) Well we're working on a matching service to help founders (and only founders) find part-time jobs with companies, so let me know if I should keep you posted (my email is in my profile)