Ask HN: Should i quit my lucrative job to work on my startup idea?

2 points by pythoncloner 11 years ago | 4 comments

I work in a hot startup in SF with >150k salary and >1.5M in stock options at current valuation. I have an idea which i'm yet to implement and work it out. I have heard from my friends if you have to work on your idea you have to quit.

Should i quit my job and start working on my idea?

I have a great salary at the age of 23 and if my idea fails i'm losing a good job with >150k salary and 1.5M in stock options which might go 5X according to my calculations.

What should i do?

kidlogic 11 years ago |

Complete as much work as you can while being at the startup (customer exploration, wireframing, customer development, team development, etc.).

If you manage to get customers to pay you prior to launch, then quit and pursue your venture.

Just my $0.02

switch33 11 years ago |

The expression don't quit your day job seems to suffice here. Don't quit your day job until your idea has a platform to rest on. You could always work for few years then pursue what you originally planned, just you will have more startup capital which is a plus.

On a side note, if your idea is a tech based startup idea you can save a whole lot of time/work/effort and money if you read up a bit on microservices, docker, coreos, devops, and selling Software as a Service(SaaS).

sharemywin 11 years ago |

You can do things they way you want to. but, you probably need to be working on something full-time to get investment money. I would stick to what your doing until your options vest. As for your idea, you can afford pay for market research to see if your ideas has any meat to it. Also, if there are technical challenges, build a proof of concept.

sanswork 11 years ago |

Is it something you can implement solo? If so do it then decide.