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Startups Anonymous: Thinking of leaving your job to start a company?


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This is a website where real founders submit articles anonymously. Good articles are then posted by the website owners.

It is mostly tech oriented startup companies, but the information on some of these articles is relevant to everyone.

Startups Anonymous: Thinking about leaving your job to start a company? Read this first.

http://pando.com/2014/05/14/startups-anonymous-thinking-about-leaving-your-job-to-start-a-company-read-this-first/

[This is a weekly series that brings you raw, first-hand experiences from founders and investors in the trenches. Their story submissions are anonymous, allowing them to share openly without fear of retribution. Every Wednesday, we'll run one new story chosen by Dana Severson, who operates StartupsAnonymous, a place for startups to share, ask questions, and answer them in story-length posts, all anonymously. You can share your own story here.]

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There are just so many factors that might play into whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful or not - some that can be controlled, some that can't be.

I've worked with some personality types that needed the motivation of utter financial failure, and worked with others so risk averse that they'd fail in the same situation.

Had the opportunity to work with a number of startups over the years, some close, some from afar, and from my perspective - "I want to leave my job" is a warning sign other than not. Much too easy to have rationality and objectiveness clouded by the emotion associated with an existing job, especially if there is some kind of resentment attached (overlooked for a promotion, didn't get a raise, issues with supervisors/co-workers, bored). It's too easy to get caught up in the passion and romance of an idea, without the necessary pragmatism. Don't get me wrong, that passion is a necessary prerequisite, but I've seen how easy it is for people to fall in love with half-baked ideas.

Keeping your day job is probably a good recommendation for most. Quote from someone on ADI I heard a few weeks ago stuck in my head. You pay your bills from 9 to 5, you make your fortune from 5 to 12.

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"Keeping your day job is probably a good recommendation for most."

That's where I'm at. I'm part owner of a successful manufacturing company. I like my job and make great money. Operating a distillery is somewhat of a pipe dream for me. I have every intention of doing it and plan to do it slowly so I can finance it all myself, but it will have to be done outside of my regular work hours. I want it to be my retirement job, and I'm only 33 so I have some time to work with. However, I'd like to retire by 50 (yeah, right) so I should probably get moving.

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"Keeping your day job is probably a good recommendation for most."

That's where I'm at. I'm part owner of a successful manufacturing company. I like my job and make great money. Operating a distillery is somewhat of a pipe dream for me. I have every intention of doing it and plan to do it slowly so I can finance it all myself, but it will have to be done outside of my regular work hours. I want it to be my retirement job, and I'm only 33 so I have some time to work with. However, I'd like to retire by 50 (yeah, right) so I should probably get moving.

My wife / CPA calls this process "Crawl - Walk - Run". It's translated pretty well into our business plan. As James said, above, we intend to continue paying the bills from 9-5 and make our fortune from 5-12. The synergy for us is, as she just reminded me, the house will be paid off in 47 months, all the kids will be done with college at the same time and our bills will diminish to the point where I will be able to quit my day job by then, at the very latest.

Of course, if we're enormously successful before then, that would be fine too. :)

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