Ask HN: Is Your Startup a Side Project or Full Time?
Just wanted to see who all is working full-time on a startup and who all is doing it on the side after work.
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2011 where @james-fend convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 14 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 22 comments
Went full-time when 2010 began and stayed like that for one year. As it didn't work, got myself a new job and it became again a side project while I'm saving some money to go full-time again with a new strategy. I'm so glad I've been able to do this every year or so easily...
On the side. Can't afford to go head first right now. I am saving up to take a sabbatical in the future. Unfortunately this means I have to hide my work from my employer knowing they can technically lay claim on it despite the fact that all development is done at home.
Side project because I have a family I need to feed. If I were on my own, I'd probably chance it as full time for as long as I could. I will say I plan make the plunge to full time as soon as I have enough saved from the day job to survive several months to a year.
Don't all the people here with side projects have IP issues with their employers? How many of you have IP related contracts signed with their employers? My understanding is that most technical companies make you sign such contracts.
I'm part time right now, but will be starting full time in January. Wish me luck!
If anyone has the karma for it, (I don't) maybe we could get a poll started? This would work well as a poll.