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Ask HN: I'm resigning soon, any suggestions what to build on my own?
32 points by cousin_it on Sept 1, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 48 comments
This summer I decided to take some time off - the last two weeks of August - and spend them at home doing nothing. The experience of freedom from office work was so wonderful that I want more of it!

This Monday, immediately upon returning, I told my boss I'll be resigning in about three months. (That's a reasonable grace period because the job happens to be my all-time favorite - http://kosmosnimki.ru - plus I happen to be the lead client-side dev, and the boss happens to be my schoolmate.) Same day I told my landlord I'll be moving away in a month to find a cheaper apartment. There's some money stashed from previous odd jobs that will last me several months at least.

So freedom is ahead, now what? Starting a startup would be the logical course of action... except I've never had a burning desire to make a lot of money, and business ideas don't pop into my head by themselves. So I'm turning to you for suggestions.

(Personal background: the HN community may remember me from my project http://openphotovr.org that was discussed on HN a year ago or so. I know my math and can program passably well in most languages used in the industry and some exotic ones.)



the job happens to be my all-time favorite

What are you crazy?!?

I've had many jobs and I've liked few of them. If you have a job you love working for a schoolmate, why would you want to leave? You don't even have any plans. I'd understand this a little better if you had a project you're dying to work on full time, but that's not the case.

Why don't you just keep your job and find a side project. If that side project gets big, go part time. If it gets so big, you're burning to work on it full-time, then quit, but not before.

Good jobs are hard to come by and jobs you love are almost impossible to come by. Also, don't discount all the data you get from your job to feed your startup plans. Lots of people would love to do a startup, but don't know what to work on. People with jobs don't have that problem as much. The job can be the source of lots of great ideas for things people actually need right now.

I'm the last person to discourage anyone from doing their thing, but job vs. startup is not a binary decision. You can do both, at least for a while.

Keep that all-time favorite job for now. You can always leave later once something else has wings.


No matter how much I've liked any job I've had, I always knew I was working for someone else.


you say that like working for someone else is bad - do you think your startup will have no customers? (for whom you'll be working_for harder than your boss)


You're overparsing my intention. When you work for another company, there is always someone else who ultimately has to sign off on your decisions; I'd far rather be the person with whom the buck always stops.


That's not necessarily true. I can code basically whatever I want. I just can't launch it without Marissa's approval. But there are more potential internal users at Google than most startups ever get anyway, and anything with significant internal traction will likely get launched regardless of the decision-makers' opinions.


With my day job right now, I determine our release schedule, what features go into the product, how things get implemented, what tools we use, what languages we use, what hardware we purchase, what development methodologies we use, how we build, how we test, how we handle user training, how we deal with bug reports, what candidates we hire, which people we fire, and I don't have to ask for permission to do any of these things.

But, it's not my company; and what I can and can't do could change instantly if the guy at the top of the org chart decides on a whim that things are going to be done differently. While I don't think it's likely to happen, it's still a possibility; and you have a lot less of that when it's you at top of the chart.

[Edit: I just want to preempt some other angles if I can; I know that things get muddy when you deal with investors and and boards of directors, and when you deal with partners and staff and all of those things. There's a bit of nuance here that I'm somehow not conveying. I guess at this point you either get what I'm saying or you don't.]


If the guy at the top decides on a whim that things are going to be done differently, you can just keep doing what you're doing. If he doesn't like it, he can fire you, and then you're in exactly the same position as if you'd quit to pursue a startup. Except that you probably have a bit more savings, a bit more experience, and a bit more of a desire to prove him wrong.


On the other hand if you have a job you like and it's paying you well, it can be hard to get motivated enough to really work on a side project, even if it's something you'd like to try. Forcing a little hunger on yourself might be what you need.


Forcing a little hunger on yourself might be what you need.

That hunger can easily become real, not virtual, if you're not careful :-)

Things take longer than they seem. Money lasts shorter than you plan.

Like I said before, I'm not one to discourage, but OP doesn't even have a "hair on fire" idea yet. I'd think twice before I left a job I loved.


Let's take things with a grain of salt. It sounds like the OP can definitely hack - I'd assume if he needed to he could just go back and get another job, no?


Probably. Maybe I'm a little sensitive lately. I love the idea of doing my own startup. It trumps everything else I'm working on. But there's something to be said for a job you love. I know so many people who hate going to work, so OP shouldn't discount the job he loves too much, that's all.


Well, you're right about having a great job being worth a lot; but the fact that the OP wants to leave something so great to work on starting up really speaks more to the depth of his drive to start up, right?

(Also, I totally agree with you about having an idea to work on before quitting.)


Good jobs are hard to come by and jobs you love are almost impossible to come by.

I've loved all my jobs.

Also, don't discount all the data you get from your job to feed your startup plans.

I wouldn't dream of starting a competitor to the project we built together.


Where's that friend button when you need it...

How about this:

Find some idea, get your friend on board as an investor / advisor ? You guys seem to get along well and have each others interests at heart otherwise you wouldn't say you loved the job that much.

Three birds with one stone, angel investor / mentor / continued professional relationship, only this time you are in charge.


I know exactly how you feel. I was recently laid off for 5 weeks and worked full-time on my startup. Working from home was so awesome... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=641400

With that said, here are my thoughts.

First of all, you're lucky if you enjoy your job and work with friends. I would strongly suggest that you see if you can work part-time while you "do your own thing", with a possibility of coming back full-time, should you ever "come to your senses".

With no plan, no idea, no help and no anything, I don't see how you can support yourself past "several months at least". One remedy is to find a fledgling startup to join. It's risky without knowing the other founders well, but it could be good experience.

My #1 recommendation for you is to read the following links:

http://www.slideshare.net/venturehacks/customer-development-...

http://steveblank.com/2009/08/27/the-leading-cause-of-startu...

http://steveblank.com/2009/08/31/the-customer-development-ma...

Basically, the idea is to verify that your idea can actually make money before you write one line of code. Since you're probably heavy on tech and light on customer development, use this time to learn and experiment. I'm not telling you this as a know-it-all, I'm telling you this as someone who wishes they would have done it years ago.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

EDIT: spelling


Thanks a lot! This is precisely the kind of answer I wanted. Don't want to stay for part-time, though; I'm terrible at switching from project to project, this takes days.


Here's 30 ideas: http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html


Good list. Three years ago I made a working demo of #22 but then got distracted by personal problems. Thanks for reminding me.


Here's a serious idea.

An SMS-based/ mobile app that will help me and my family encourage each other to work out.

For example, when I come back for a run, I would text in "just ran 5 miles" and my parents and sister would get the text /email/ twitter update and perhaps be encouraged to exercise as well!

Some other functionality could be showing me trends of my workouts (think Nike+ on iPhones) vis a vis my other family members, or SMS updates ("your son said you should go for a run!").

The problem is that people in this country are getting fatter every day, and could use motivation to work out. Support and ecouragement from family and friends might be the most effective source of motivation.

Thoughts?


This is a neat idea. However, by enabling the user to post "just ran 5 miles" you are just duplicating the point of Twitter!

More compelling, to me, is a site that scrapes your Twitterfeed for "<action verb: ran/biked/swam> <#> <miles/km>"-type posts, and tracks the data automatically through a website.

You could increase your conversion rate through a bunch of neat hacks: 1. Using a script to scrape tweets like this and DM them once you have X datapoints charted, inviting them over 2. Allowing people to view their history without registering, just by going to http://<website>/<username>; -- you could spider their tweet history on the fly


yeah i thought about that, but i dont want to spam my twitter followers. plus it just makes me look like a tool =)


Fair point!


That may be a good idea, but I live in Russia and practically no one around me is fat, so it'll be hard for me to muster the startup enthusiasm. :-) Anyway, thanks!


Here's some useful marketing intelligence:

http://www.food.gov.uk/healthiereating/advertisingtochildren...

Probably best to target the merely overweight than the hopelessly obese. In which case Russia (or perhaps more urgently my native England) actually looks like a fair bet!


lol. yeah american lazyness is definitely unmatched at this point. maybe give Russia 25 more years =)


See Uladoo http://uladoo.com/

It was just blogged about at Atomic Object http://spin.atomicobject.com/2009/09/01/chart-your-life-with...

Edit: fix links. Arrgh!


Having never done this myself, I have to ask: Shouldn't the normal order of process be: 1) have an idea, 2) quit job to work on it full time, 3) profit! It seems to me like your #1 and #2 are swapped. That doesn't mean it won't work out for you, though. :)


Isn't a more common order 1) unsettled in job, have an idea 2) quit to work on it full time 3) realize the original idea sucks and zero in on a new one through trial and error 4) profit!

In which case, skipping step 1 doesn't seem too harmful to the process.


1) have an idea 2) have an idea 3) work on it WHILE still holding your job 4) quit job only when you're ready to ramp up the project

You're in for a big surprise if you think you're going to get more freedom while running your own business.

A key part of running your own business is being able to accept feedback. Notice that instead of giving you an idea most people are telling you that you might be making a mistake.

Reconsider this decision. By all means start your own business but come up with an idea and develop it a little before you quit your job.


I have three months to think of an idea, surely that should be enough for us :-)


Like others, I'm not really going to answer the question you asked, but instead offer unsolicited advice on the decision you've made.

Being at home doing nothing is fun, but realize that you'll be at home working your ass off. If it was the "doing nothing" part that was most interesting to you then a startup may not be as much fun as you're currently anticipating.

Also, I don't know what your financial situation is, but "several months" of savings doesn't sound like a whole lot if you're just starting from scratch now. It could likely take longer than that to get ramen profitable.

Just some background, I was in a somewhat similar situation last year. The new startup/project I quit my job for was something that I had been working on part-time for 3 years before that. Even with that head start, my initial revenue was only about 10% of what I had projected/hoped for. It's still steadily growing and could be ramen profitable in the next year or two, but I just wanted to share my experience to let you know that financially it could be harder and longer than you think. It was for me.


So ramen profitability will take you five years? That's pretty depressing - I don't want to think about that scenario :-)


Yeah, it was very depressing when it first hit me. Great learning experience though.


Make an app in your favorite language with just a red button on it. Then just figure out what the button should do when pressed, and you'll be fine.


A modern day version of:

1.Quit job

2.Ask HN

3. ???

4.Profit!

Love it :)


Seriously, do not quit your job UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE YOUR KILLER IDEA!! Apologies for those who can't stand the all-caps. If you have a good job now, what you should do is move to a cheaper place to live and get your bills down to as low as possible. In the meantime, do some market research and really think about what kind of business you want to build or what kind of service you can provide. For this to be good, it needs to accommodate both your needs for doing something you enjoy and the needs of being a realistic profitable business. To do this well, you will want one to two years worth of savings in the bank, not a couple of months! Best of luck to you in this endeavor.


Are you bored with http://openphotovr.org and its time to find a new project?

You did a really good job on it. Maybe you can create a business around it?


I'm not bored with it and will definitely continue doing what its users ask me to do, but it was started explicitly as a non-profit: all photos are Creative Commons licensed and the code is GPL.


http://openphotovr.org/ is really cool, good work! I uploaded a small set, and it was very easy to make a 3d scene.

I'm sure people would be willing to pay to be able to host a viewer on their own site. For example, companies may put a 3d scene of their office on their jobs listing page. Or restaurants, museums, universities, and so forth would do well to have one on their site.


Thanks! Actually you can already host a viewer on your own site for free, see the help page for how.


Just start building something and let it evolve - sort of like stream of consciousness writing when you have writers block.

Just start building something simple and your mind will begin moving.

I've done the same thing you have with my life, congrats on taking the leap :) You might find it worth your while to pick up a weekend part time job too so you can have some fun money (having fun is necessary when you are cooped up all by yourself working in an intellectual space).

GL!


I would love an app that could keep an inventory of the food i have on hand in my aparment (based on what I've ordered in the past and my own inventory revisions), allow me to order more when I run out (from freshdirect.com or whatever the local equivalent is), and provide me with recipes that I can make with what I have on hand. Kind of complicated to orchestrate the whole thing, but would be obscenely valuable.


. Build a grocery list for a mobile app.

. Finds coupons

. Integrates with bar code scanner to inventory all items

. Integrates with weight scales to measure consumption to predict future usage.

. Integrates with grocery stores and online vendors for call ahead packaging and delivery.

I could go on and on on this one. If someone get funding for something like this let me know, I would be in.


build something to alleviate annoyance in your everyday life. even if someone else already has a product in that space, do it better.


I think you should have already built something else - at least a prototype - in your free time while staying gainfully employed and then quit later when you can at least guarantee yourself and any dependents a lifestyle full of roofs and ramen.


Contact me, alexander dot macgregor at gmail dot com, if you like. I am working on a project that might interest you.

I'd also be happy to discuss any ideas you might have. :)


Scratch your own itch: build something you either need and doesn't exist or it does exist but sucks.


Ouch! You seem to have fallen in love with laziness.

>You are leaving a job you like, with no idea of what to do next.

>You are leaving a job you like, inspired by vacation.

Thats you being lazy.




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