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19 Comments

Why I started working part-time after 8 months of full-time indie hacking

I quit my f@#%ing job!

After 7 years of climbing from junior dev to tech lead/dev manager, I quit my job to finally taste pure freedom. Starting my own business has been a goal of mine ever since I launched my first app back in college.

I had worked on side projects for years, but I found myself burning out from managing a team of 10 developers while also launching Mobo Games on the side - all during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Quitting my job was a decision long in the making. I started saving up my runway years ago and even reduced my hours by 25% in August 2020. I am very financially conservative, so I had 12 months living expense saved in cash (high-yield savings account) and then about 5x more invested in stocks via an individual brokerage account (purposefully not including my retirement account).

This past March was when I officially quit.

8 months of full-time indie hacking

It took me a full month to decompress after I quit my job (it was very stressful), but after that I was able to spend a solid 8 months working 100% on my own projects. I spent my time writing for my newsletter/blog (smalltechbusiness.com) and I also continued making games for my browser-based board games platform (gomobo.app).

I was able to get over 1,000 newsletter subscribers and I had a pretty successful booth at Gen Con 2021 (large US board game convention) where I’ve generated just over $1K in sales. I also started doing career coaching on Fiverr and have netted about $1.5K since August.

I learned a lot and I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished, but ultimately it was a lot more stressful than I thought. I had given myself until the end of 2021 to decide if I could continue indie hacking or not, and the clock kept ticking and I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to make it work because I knew I wasn’t ready to rejoin the corporate world.

Reaching a breaking turning point

By October, I realized I wasn’t happy with my current situation. Even though I was finally able to work full-time on my own projects, I was becoming too focused on making money and inversely, not spending money.

Buying a $5 latte would fill me with guilt. I wasn’t trying out new restaurants anymore. These were small parts of my everyday life that used to bring me bits of joy. Now, every time I spent money felt like I was subtracting directly from the sparse revenue my products were generating.

Designing games and writing both became a lot harder too. Turns out, stressing about money greatly reduces my creative output.

I realized that what I desperately wanted and needed was financial stability.

My approach to looking for part-time work

What made it hard was figuring out what I actually wanted. At my previous company, I really struggled with motivation by the end and I really wanted to make sure I avoided putting myself in a similar situation. At my previous company I worked 30hr/wk for 7 months prior to leaving. I learned a lot from that experience. Notably, most companies don’t really have an established protocol for part-time workers, my last company made an exception for me.

If you are considering switching to part-time work, I think the best place to start would be to ask your manager at your current company. As employers are more likely to make exceptions for employees they already trust. Although do that with the understanding that it likely will impact your career advancement at that company.

The way I tackled my recent search was to either look for companies explicitly advertising part-time job roles or looking with-in my network. For me, I knew I wanted my next company I joined to be a small team (4-10 people total). So I ended up doing 2 simultaneous part-time contracting projects. Both projects came organically from just talking openly with people in my network.

After a couple months of each, I talked with one of the clients and we both mutually wanted to bump up our work together to more of an official part-time role. I think building trust initially by working on a smaller contract allowed both of us to move forward with a lot more confidence.

How it’s been going

Since the start of 2022, I have been working as a contractor for a small 5-person company that produces custom NFC (near-field communication) tags. It is a perfect situation for me right now:

  • $4K per month (more than covers my monthly expenses)
  • Fully remote team, everyone else is part-time as well
  • I am the sole developer (lots of autonomy and flexibility)
  • I only commit 50% of my working hours

I work really closely with the owner of the business, so I am learning so much about how to run a business with a small, distributed team. My work feels really impactful too, it is what will allow this company to scale effectively. The best part though: my creative energy is coming back and I am enjoying working on my projects again!

Hope you found it helpful, feel free to ask my any questions in the comments!


If you want to follow my journey and connect with me, I’ve been very active on Twitter - I'd love to meet more indie hackers! @jstnchu

  1. 2

    Hi Justin. Thanks for sharing your experience. It may be really exhausting to focus more on money than the product if you are not very comfortable economically. I think it is better to have a balanced working life just like you did till you reach a satisfactory MRR from your products.

    1. 1

      Totally agree, Fatih!

      I hope that more people consider part-time roles as a way to find that balance towards independence. I also really hope more companies embrace part-time workers.

  2. 2

    A lot of people end up going back to full-time after a stint of indie hacking but I think you found a sweet spot. Freedom to pursue your projects + Financial stability.

    Really enjoyed reading this Justin!

    Goodluck with Mobo!

    1. 1

      Thanks Ashish! Glad you enjoyed it 🙏

  3. 1

    Thanks for sharing! This is the advice I got from an entrepreneur: don't quit your job at once, rather, start part-time and make just enough time to allow you to do your own project. The financial concern is real but you also can see it from a different perspective: what will you regret most at your death bed - having lost some income for some time or not having started your business. For me, the answer is clear.

  4. 1

    Great post, Justin! I think you have found a very sensible setup that allows you to work on your businesses while still making enough money. I do it pretty similarly. I started out freelancing and once my products start making money I will hopefully be able to transit more and more towards full-time indie hacking.

  5. 1

    Hi Justin, and thanks for sharing your story. It is not often that we can see founder taking the opposite path : from full-time to part time, and not the other way round. One question : I understand your creativity and energy came back thanks to the contractor work that you've contracted, did you still manage to get as much done with now only 50% of available hours to work on your side projects ?

  6. 1

    Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
    Following you on Twitter and best of luck !

  7. 1

    I moved from the opposite direction. From full-time to part-time (10 hours/wk) and have been on that level for the last few years while trying to build my own software. Even 10 hours/wk has been a major distraction and held back my side projects.

    If there is one thing this experience has cemented it is that I never want a full-time job ever again. Though I had to sacrifice a few luxuries, I find it very difficult to sell back the priceless time I've gained.

    Good luck on your new structure!

  8. 1

    I'm finding that the topic of your work is so important - you can feel burnt out from a job where you actually do very little work - ie bored, unchallenged and only have work anxiety.

    Would you have felt burnt out working 30hrs/week at this new venture? Congrats on finding something that's interesting and allows you the space to do both work and own biz.

  9. 1

    Interesting progression and really well thought out. A lot of people likely don’t even think of part time work as a developer. Great reminder!

  10. 1

    Ha! I just accepted a position to for FT dev job this week because I burned through to much savings while working on my project. Spent too many months being "unmotivated"/burnt out and now I find myself at a similar "turning point" and need to jump back into the work force to provide for my family, give my wife a much needed stress relief, and replenish the savings.

    Going to go back to hard mode for coding my project and I feel like a complete failure, but I've been forcing myself to still show up each day for a couple hours as I remind myself it is not a race, and consistency is what is most import to getting my project to to live.

    1. 1

      Thanks for sharing your experience! Sounds like you have a great mindset about it. The importance of consistency is a huge thing I have learned from this process as well.

      Wish you the best of luck!

  11. 1

    Justin, I feel like you've described my exact path too! I'm in a similar situation myself. Glad to know there's more of us out there.

    I help make ends meet and introduce a bit of financial stability by doing some part time consulting as well, working on contracts here and there. I also tend to find my clients via my network, and also by reaching out to folks who have signed up for my product via my mailing list. I've gotten some good leads there that end up in more work.

    In the end, I feel like this sort of work arrangement works out pretty well for me. Gives me lots of freedom and allows me to dedicate a decent amount of focus on indie hacking, but also gives some security.

    Great writeup!

    1. 1

      Cool to hear that you have had a similar experience! I think part-time consulting is a great way to go, especially if you have a solid network to pull from. The demand for a trusted developer is honestly limitless, but the trust aspect is the hardest part of that equation.

      Are you on Twitter? I'd be interested in chatting over DMs to see how you juggle contract work and your indie hacker projects!

      1. 1

        Not on Twitter - but if you are on LinkedIn and want to connect there, I'm here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-weaver-53313b76/

  12. 0

    Justin, I really see myself in your story. I could have written a very similar post. I am also now reaching my 8th month of "unemployment" working on my projects and I am starting to seriously consider finding something. If you feel that you need to meet other entrepreneurs in the same situation have a look into my community the WBE Space we are all bootstrappers working in our projects. It really helps to share the journey with like-minded people!

    1. 1

      Thanks Tiago! Wish you best of luck with WBE, great that you are creating stuff for indie hackers like us 👍

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