I wanted to do this so jumped in and read the comments to this post to try to get some ideas on how to do this. They made me a bit depressed: Most people achieved this while working as a consultant (i.e. flexible hours, etc.), not as a big company employee, like me. Also from what I gather, many data points come from young people, unencumbered with a family life and kid(s).
So, my more specific question is: Has anybody done this while picking up your kid from daycare at 5pm, having family business until 8:30pm and working at a day job. Id this impossible?
I think the viable alternatives in this case are trying to earn money from blogs and mobile apps.
I hear ya... This is something I struggle with too. Long workday at Mega Corp., 45min+ drive-commute each way, 3 kids (7, 5, 2), a spouse with a highly variable work schedule, and ongoing charity work.
It's really, really hard to make time for a side business in there too.
Are you working on something? How are you making the time for it? How's your progress?
You have to cut that commute. It's not possible losing 1.5 hours a day.
My commute is 100 foot walk, I still strugle with not having enough time.
Sell the house and rent closer to the office. If its the midpoint between two jobs, either you or your wife needs find a new job to shorten the distance between them. If it is because of the school districts for your kids, you are going to have to decide your priorities.
But realize that the long commute is a choice entirely within your families control and you need to change it.
Alternatively, take advantage of your commute. I switched from driving to public transit and I've found the time can be incredibly productive, as its in between work time and at home family time, which makes it much easier to concentrate on what I need to do.
Many folks can't make that switch (from driving to public transit) because there isn't reliable and/or suitable public transit for that route -- but this doesn't change the point.
Look for housing that is either very close to where you work (remove the commute) OR that's well-placed for a simple and comfortable commute on public transit (try it out a few times, at the times you'd be using it!) where you can also get some side-project work done.
I am in a similar position. I'm 26, my girlfriend is 27. We're both medical students doing our clinical rotations. I'm near the top of my class in med school and my girlfriend is similar. We have a 4 year old daughter as well. I'm currently working on my startup and keeping my girlfriend happy.
Some tips:
- Weekends are not for your startup. Weekends are for your wife and kids. I work on my startup after I finish putting my daughter to sleep at 8:30pm. I finish working by 11pm or midnight.
- Your wife is going to be the one picking up your slack. Make your life easier by making her life easier. For me that means taking on more responsibility around the house(I'm vigilant about dishes, cleaning the bathroom, and doing laundry). I do this stuff as soon as I get home so she can play with our daughter instead of doing housework. This keeps my girlfriend's stress levels down and makes my startup seem less burdensome.
- Take on tasks that require you to sit around for long periods of time. Today I took our car to get serviced and coded in the waiting area.
* If you can, take the train into work. That's about 1.5 hours of additional productive startup time. Sitting in a car is dead time.
* Get rid of your lunch hour. Park yourself at a nearby Starbucks and add an extra hour each day of productive startup time. Do this every day.
* Given your spouse's variable work schedule, my guess is that your most productive time is in the evening, after kids are in bed. Can you shave off 2-3 hours per night? Better managing this time is huge.
There may be other things that are specific to your family life that can give you 30-60 minutes here and there. Time slicing like this is hard, but it adds up to meaningful startup time.
About the lunch hour, one always needs to be careful of the rules of the company they work for regarding intellectual property. Working from a Starbucks shields you from using company equipment/network, but I'm sure in some cases, lunch time is not exactly your own time.
But otherwise, great points!
As far as I'm concerned, my commute doesn't allow me very convenient public transportation. (though I should look into it again) Another thing is that I'd be a bit worried for my laptop since I would go through some somewhat shady areas…
And for the lunch hour, it's sometimes difficult to resist the appeal of socializing with colleagues. Sure you can do it at other times and it's a sacrifice, but it's still a temptation.
If you're worried about legal issues with working on your own projects during lunch time you can easily sidestep that problem by spending that time learning instead of making.
if you have (or could have) problems working your laptops (you cant install apps, you dont want others see your personal project stuff on your pc etc..), you still can:
* work in the cloud (virtual server, ec2 instance, web based tools etc..) using a internet USB key on the train
* use another OS instance in a virtualized environment (i.e. virtualbox installed in a usb key) and install all the stuff you need in this VM (im not sure you can do it w/o admin priviledges in windows)
* boot a linux distro from USB key so you still use your laptop but completely without touching your original OS
great tips. Anything for me??
I work in a typical IT services company in India. 1Hr commute one way, have teleconference calls till 11pm. then eat and sleep. But should be in office by 10AM. The problem is my wife also works in the same project. :-(
Fortunately we are in a joint family. food, my sweet baby, cleaning, washing etc.. are all taken care.
Make a schedule where every minute of every day goes for 2 weeks and you'll know what to cut. Having joint family support to do everything for you is a big help already.
I do this. In all honesty, it is tough but not insane / impossible. I'm usually home @ 6:00 pm and with my daughter until she goes to bed at eight. I spend two hours with my wife until she goes to bed usually around 10. After that, rather than play video games, watch tv, etc, I work on a side business until one or two am in the morning.
I'm lucky in that my whole life I've been good with really only needing 5-6 hours of sleep a night so, when my daughter wakes up at 7:30 and I go get her out of the crib I'm usually good to go.
So, it's really a matter of prioritization. I play a video game once in a long while, read books slower than I used to, never really watch tv (but parenthood also removed that possibility) and I have the time.
Customers and customer support are where it gets tricky as you will be juggling two companies that operate 9-5. In that scenario I more often than not give up my lunch hour at job 1 to work on job 2.
Not saying it's perfect however, if you want it, it's there for the taking.
One thing you might want to look at is putting in some time in the mornings with your best energy instead of at the end of a long, long day. Early to bed, and early to rise might work for you.
Cool. I've been having good luck with on and off. The hard part is getting back into an early sleep routine when I have the odd late night. Anything you do to help reset the routine?
I just try not to have odd nights... so far, the worst I did was going to bed at 0:30 - at that time after working 15 hours I was so tired, that I wasn't productive at all anyway, so I decided to call it a day
Thats exactly what I found too, total night owl too.
The people I work for don't always want/need my highest creativity, but my reliable attention to detail and high quality work. It's nice to innovate in the mornings for my own stuff.
I have read posts of these kind for quite some time. All of them suggest. ...
Wake up early, exercise, work for 2 Hrs and then get ready for normal life.
I have been trying to do this but failing miserably, cos my body doesn't cope up. I say start exercising regularly once it becomes a routine then start working on your start-up.but don't forget exercising.
Having said all that it boils down to one point. WILL POWER.
The downsides are greater too. It's one thing to miss out on TV or drinks with friends; quite another to miss out on the one evening you might get to sit with your wife and have dinner, or not see your kids for a week.
It doesn't matter how rich or respected my side-project startup would make me, I wouldn't be able to get that time back.
Are you asking 'can I easily make 10k a month, working only 8 a week on it (a few hours here and there at night an in the weekends) and do it without having anything special (connections, experience, market knowledge, ...)' ? If so, the answer is most likely 'no'.
I think the best thing to do in your situation is to work on a project you really enjoy on the weekends. It'll be the equivalent to or replacement of games or other forms of entertainment. Try to write a blog relating to your project on the weekdays, even before you launch your product. By the time you launch, you'll have a good audience. Even if your project doesn't get traction, you technically didn't waste your time for nothing, because it was an enjoyable experience. :)
I'm exactly at this point. A big company, wife, 1 yr old, always wanted create something of value, don't really need it to be super profitable, etc. I have outsourced everything except product management and my only marketing plan is "Show HN".
So, my more specific question is: Has anybody done this while picking up your kid from daycare at 5pm, having family business until 8:30pm and working at a day job. Id this impossible?
I think the viable alternatives in this case are trying to earn money from blogs and mobile apps.