There's such a high startup failure rate. Is it worth taking the risk?

don't leave your day job. Set aside some money that you are willing to lose and use it for paying people to do the work for you it could be marketing/development etc. and see if you are able to get traction and get atleast 10 paying users. After that you can take calculated risk to jump fully into it. If you are unable to get paying users and have exhausted your funds than just cut your losses and move on to something else.

i also that keeping your day job is what you need to do for now. Save money & use that money to hire contractors who will build out the MVP. From there you can write a set of questions for users - then ask contractors to do interviews with your target audience (of course they have to agree to the interview first so lots of probing email must go out). After the interviews, assess the data - better to do these interviews when the customers have tried out your product - i think you'll be able to measure whether the thing you built solves the problem. better to leave your job when the product is generating between 70% - 100% of what your day job pays you if you're too worried about security.

Remember - if you have a family to take care of - good to have some money saved or have some form of de-risking.

If you can take the risk, then go for it. Life's too short to not have a little bit of fun playing with your passion

I think people frame this issue in an unhelpful way (i.e. "do I quit my X safe job to do Y extremely risky thing?") The answer to that will always be no. Some (more) questions worth asking yourself:

• what do you have to lose? housing/healthcare/family costs? If you have a plan and a supportive partner who can keep things afloat, you can de-risk starting your own venture.

• are there ways you can de-risk this before making a "decision"? Side hustle, time off, doing a mini-project to see if you even like the founder journey.

• lots of startups fail, but lots of founders go on to do interesting things. It's worth expanding the definition of what failure means. Is doing a job you don't like failing? Maybe. It's worth thinking through that. What is so bad about going back to a 9 to 5 after trying something?

I'm a big advocate of exploring career questions with curiosity first rather than success/failure. I think there are ways people can follow their dreams WITHOUT necessarily incurring massive risk or learn how to get comfortable with massive risk. But it starts with being curious and open-minded rather than focused on whether "everything is going to be OK".

I get your fear as I'm also in the same boat. I'm still thinking of quitting my job regardless though, due to the following reasons:
-I have enough savings for a few years of runway, but I'm just aiming for 6 months for the time being.
-The project I'm working on I genuinely care about. Even unpaid, I am keen to get people to use it as I believe they'll benefit from it
-Even if I have to go back to full-time job, I would want the project I'm working on to be running as a side
-I'm no longer learning that much at work. Lately, few hours into office hour and I just can't wait for the day to be over.
-I miss the passion and joy I got from building and owning. I really don't want to be burned out and hate doing dev work due to the boring tasks I'm doing on my day-to-day.
-I don't want to have regret! :)

As Sean Wise and Brad Feld recommend in their book Startup Opportunities, don’t quit your day job unless you are . . .

1. Passionate about the space.
2. Able to execute the solution.
3. Certain that the problem is a need (as opposed to a want).
4. Certain that the problem is shared by a large (and growing) market.
5. Able to offer a solution that is 10x better than anything else in the market.
6. Ready to “burn the ships.”
7. Able to access potential customers.
8. Able to spend six months without personal income.
9. Able to garner enough people, users, and money to create an MVP.
10. Prepared to get into the weeds and do the grunt work.

Stay on your job and hustle beside on your startup.
I know it is hard, but if it's important to you - set priorities and take every second you find.

I have the same problem, I work 60h+ per week, I have family, friends, hobbies, sports and still I work almost every night on era.sh.

Your first product will most likely fail. Most 1st time founders fail. I would suggest sticking to your job and working on your idea nights and weekends. Gain some traction and paying customers, then rethink going all in. Or fail and leave your job for your second product. I know, a bit harsh, but that's the reality.

Don't quit your day job. You have one life to live. Treat it as a challenge and an adventure. Gamify it. How can you built a startup while maintaining a full time job? Tell the story to your kids and grandchildren someday.

Maybe you can try to find a less committed job? This way you can find that middle ground where you have more time to kick-off your idea but you are not instantly cutting all your income

It is a risky decision but I would not recommend quitting your job to push a start up unless you either really believe in it or see a big opportunity. Take it from me I've failed in a few myself.

no i don't think?

You have family commitments. My advice: don’t go all-in on anything, especially a new startup idea.

I’ve been on IH for 5 years, wanted to go all in on my stupid SaaS idea many time but it’s incredibly hard to build a sustainable business.

Only until I saved enough (3+ years of runway) that I quit consulting and spend full time on indie hacking.

Considering your viewpoint. You shouldn't probably take this risk. Don't do it if you believe it will quickly replace your jobs income. Too many founders should never have become founders to begin with.  You have to have a few screws loose to be a founder because it isn't a logical decision. I hire folks like you to that are entrepreneurial enough to go down this path but want to do it in a secure environment. Let me know if you want to chat. mmogull@annapurnapartners.com

Could you change your situation, so that you take less risk and that instead of it being a binary choice, 'quitting my full-time job' Vs 'no time for my project' it becomes 'earning a bit less in a four day job or three day job' and 'working 1-2 days' on your own project?

You can start trying to validate your idea, by creating a landing page with a waiting list, start talking to customers, and so on - that may be the biggest issue later on, so you can already reduce risks and get a feeling of how chances of success will be. No need to quit your job yet.

What's a 'failed founder'? How do you define that?

If you define yourself an intrinsic goal ('I want to learn how planning building and launching a product') instead of an extrinsic one ('I want to have 5 digits passive income') then your chances of 'failure' are quite reduced. Of course this isn't a hack, you actually need a goal you believe in and want to work towards.

But then again this isn't tongue-in-cheek, I see no failure in launching and returning to 9/5, if anything you are still cooler than everyone who never tried (if that's your concern)

it's all about personal risk tolerance, what drives you, and whether you've got the stomach for the rollercoaster of highs and lows that come with the game. I'm with @alemakers on this one - at some point you just have to make the call, and it has to be your call. It's scary to make the jump and walk away from a paying job - but the ride and experience of trying to build something new pays dividends in more ways than people realize. If you know your tolerance and can be comfortable without a salary for 6-12 months, dedicating 100% of your time to building something from nothing and getting other people to care (and buy) is a masterclass in itself. Good luck.

Research the idea, research your product, research your competitors, and then do it all again 5 times over. If your research shows a chance of success, follow @pdyc's solid advice. You could also take some holiday leave for a week or two to work full time on the project and see how you feel after that.

Only you can decide whether it's worth it but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm always skeptical about looking at failure or success rates because every founder/business is different. If you know there's a market for your product then there's every chance you can succeed.

I'll say this: You HAVE to be passionate about your idea. If you're wavering now then it will be likely you'll bail on it if things get hard if you do go all in. Put things in place so you're 100% committed. That is the best indicator of success in my opinion.