The first year of it was spent living with family, paying the bills via some light contract work. At that point, I wasn't really sure of where I wanted to go startup-wise, so I leaned on them for a bit.
From there, I moved to Atlanta and into the house of a business partner of mine. Initially, he was working fulltime at a day job while I worked on our product. This lasted for about a year and a half before he left that job.
The last year and a half were spent surviving off savings, stocks, about two months of contracting, etc. In the end, the runway ran out, and the house was foreclosed on (kinda happens when you don't pay the mortgage for a few months). We launched our product the day we moved out of there.
It was the most stressful time of my life, the most work I've ever done, and I feel like I aged a decade in that 3.5 years. But it was easily the most amazing time of my life.
I'm now living in Manhattan and working for an awesome company, but I still miss the startup life. I figure I'll end up doing it all over again in a few years, once I come across the right idea and strategy.
>I'm now living in Manhattan and working for an awesome company, but I still miss the startup life.
When I was finishing college I could not WAIT to get outta there -- what between homework, regular work, and just being plain TIRED of school. The day after I got my degree, I said "man I already miss school!"
How did you feel right after you left your "startup life?"
I can't really say for sure, simply because there was no "ok, well, my company is dead" moment -- the company is still going, I'm just not really doing anything. I guess the closest thing was my first day at Matasano, and I was mostly just excited at that point. I miss doing the full-time startup thing, but not so much that I'd jump at the opportunity to do it again right now. I'm sure that I'll get the itch in ~3 years, though.
From there, I moved to Atlanta and into the house of a business partner of mine. Initially, he was working fulltime at a day job while I worked on our product. This lasted for about a year and a half before he left that job.
The last year and a half were spent surviving off savings, stocks, about two months of contracting, etc. In the end, the runway ran out, and the house was foreclosed on (kinda happens when you don't pay the mortgage for a few months). We launched our product the day we moved out of there.
It was the most stressful time of my life, the most work I've ever done, and I feel like I aged a decade in that 3.5 years. But it was easily the most amazing time of my life.
I'm now living in Manhattan and working for an awesome company, but I still miss the startup life. I figure I'll end up doing it all over again in a few years, once I come across the right idea and strategy.