Ask YComb: Should I quit to do a startup during a recession?

When you grow old you won't regret the things you did, but the things you didn't.<p>In my time I have done illegal raves, had sex with a porn model, started a bar in Ibiza, done drugs, started a crash-and-burn dot-com, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. But when I talk to my friends now (im in my mid-thirties) they wish they had not held back, and just gone with their ideas.<p>So get going, you have nothing to lose... If it fails at least you tried, your friends will envy you for having the guts to try, and in 10 years you will have a great story to tell.

I'm 34 and finishing my degree in CS after being married for 10 years and having worked as a nurse for the last 15 years. Why was I a nurse? Because my parents didn't think that there was anything to the whole "computer craze", and they thought that nursing was a good, solid profession. I almost dropped out of nursing school to major in CS. And, I spent most of my free time in the computer lab, hanging out with the geeks. Go figure.<p>I know that parents get awfully nervous about this sort of stuff. But... sometimes they just don't understand. Especially when it comes to technology stuff and the tech biz.<p>If you have the money, and can give a startup a shot.. go for it. What's the worst case scenario? The worst thing that can happen is that you'll have learned a lot about starting your own business, and you will have learned a lot about new technologies, and your savings will be gone. That's it. That's the worst.

I have talked to a couple of friends in a similar dillema. My take on the whole thing is that there are two kinds of people:<p>1. Those trying to find a reason to do a startup.<p>2. Those trying to find a reason to not do a starup.<p>"the choice has already been made, it must merely be understood" ...(from the Matrix)

This came up recently. The answer is that you shouldn't worry about it, because you can't time the market. If you were really sure the economy was going to tank at a given time, you could just short a bunch of big stocks and make money that way. But no one really knows when or whether there will be a recession or how big it will be. So the best plan is just to ignore the economy.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88410" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88410</a>

Having a job is no guarantee of security during a downturn. With a startup, you have more control over whether you succeed or fail. If you have one year of savings, you should be fine either way. But if there is a downturn and it lasts more than a year, you're SOL. If you take that year to develop something valuable, you can deal with the macro economy on your own terms. Given your situation, I don't think the economy should be a big factor in your decision. Even if you make a product for an ailing sector like real estate, if you can help them either save money or make more money, you'll do fine.

I started a company (<a href="http://www.electric-cloud.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.electric-cloud.com/</a>) right after the dotcom crash. I partly did this because I knew that going out and finding a job would be hard, partly because I also knew that it was going to take a while to get the product right, and partly because I really wanted to. Once we got funded we had job security for a few years, and we could weather the dotcom storm while creating cool software.

It will never be easier or safer for you to start a startup. In five years, you might have a family to support (not necessarily so, but odds aren't against it), and the decision becomes remarkably harder to make when your own needs aren't the only ones to think of. That "one year" of savings will last a month or two if you have kids.<p>There are many businesses that are recession-proof, and many that can still pay you a salary during a downturn, though your current job isn't necessarily in one of those businesses (and your startup might not be in one of those businesses either). Without a lot of experience, it may not be immediately obvious to you what businesses will weather the recession well and which will run into trouble.<p>Having a job now does not mean you'll have a job in six months if the recession hits hard. Don't imagine that your job is permanent if things go badly for your current employer. There are no guarantees in anything. At least with a startup, assuming you build something people want, you'll have something people want in your possession rather than just a last paycheck.<p>That said, I'll tell you what I wish I'd known at 23: Have fun. Do exactly what you most want to do. If that is starting a company, traveling the world, starting a band, writing a novel, getting another degree, or some combination of these things, do it. You will never be in a better position to do exactly what you want to do.<p>Your mother worries about you, and thinks about basic needs first. You live in a time and society in which basic needs are all but automatic: you can work two days a week at a crap job and make a subsistence living as long as you're single and live frugally. You can always get a crap job if you need it later. Since you're college educated and presumably a nerd, you're even better placed...contract work pays enough to get by on a few days a month.<p>As mixmax pointed out, the old saying that you won't regret the things you did but the things you didn't do is probably as true as any truism ever said. When you're 30 you'll begin to get a sense of this...I suspect that when you're 40 you'll have an absolute certainty of it (I'm not yet to 40, so I don't know for certain...but I passed 30 a few years ago, and it only seems more true each day).

"My mama always tells me the only reason why I don't appreciate my job is because I haven't yet experienced an economic downturn."<p>That's a good reason, but not the only one.<p>Maybe you don't appreciate your job because you have a startup inside of you just bustin' to get out. Not even the greatest job or economy could help with that.

When I was 15 I decided to move away from home and get my own life. Since 15 is a pretty young age to be moving out my mama told me that I would never succeed and that I would come crawling back after a month. That I would ever make it on my own.<p>Moving away from home was one of the best decisions I have ever made - I got to decide when to work, when to play, and when to sleep. And I have never looked back.<p>I think that you are in the same position. So take the plunge.

If you're looking for excuses not to do a startup, you're kidding yourself. Actually starting one up is going to give you incontrovertable evidence that you shouldn't be doing it, and there's no way you're going to be able to work through it. Leave entrepreneurship to the crazy people and get back to your job.

If the US (I assume you are from the US) goes into recession, is there the possibility of you losing your job anyway?<p>Could the recession work in your favour? Goods will become cheaper, interest rates will be cut, there will be people to hire because unemployment will rise, etc. So if you have money saved up, it could actually go further.<p>Although VC investment may slow down during recession, developing through the recession will set you up for prime-time when the economy picks up and VC's want your soul...I mean invest.

I'm a fellow hacker, no economist, but I'd say that now is probably a good time. The state of the economy is going to be irrelevant until you go for the first big investment, at the very least. That's typically quite a bit of time down the line, by which time you'll be catching the economy at its best, during an upswing. If your first big investment is really early on, chances are you're onto something pretty significant, in which case the economy isn't going to stop you anyway.<p>~phil

This is a really common thought, and I have a lot of friends discussing the same thing. Basically in simple economic your opportunity costs decrease during this time.<p>If you are considering this, save your money and begin reducing your costs. If a _major_ downturn happens, you can likely live quite cheaply during those times.

Because during a recession very few people will do startups and when the economic situation will be better you will be among the few that developed value that can be turned into money, advantage over competitors, ...

I was in a similar situation and my STRONG advice is to <i>kill it</i> working nights and weekends on your project before you quit. You need tons of inertia...3 things you should have before you quit:<p>1. some demo/prototypes done 2. a 15 slide business plan 3. one other person that will dedicate him/herself on the level that you are planning.<p>You will have a newfound appreciation for stability if you do your own company no matter what the economy looks like.

I started to write a comment, but it got too long so I just blogged it.<p>How to quit your job and build a startup.<p><a href="http://shelfmade.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/how-to-quit-your-job-to-build-a-startup/" rel="nofollow">http://shelfmade.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/how-to-quit-your-j...</a>

Go with your gut. If you're too scared, it's probably not right for you at this time. If you can't stand the thought of staying in the corporate world, then you should pull the trigger and pursue your dreams regardless of anything else.

If you can keep your job and hack on the weekends, you can seed-fund your own damn self.<p>Less worry about money will also allow you to work on what you enjoy, without the constant spectre of "How am I going to monetize this?"

I'd say wait until you're 40, then you'll have 17 years worth saved up.

history tells us that recession is a time when creativity is at a all time high and you have a lot less competition. go for it.

You don't sound like you have much to lose, but don't forget that most the people here have a bias towards starting startups vs keeping a steady comfortable position. Even if you do have a good idea, I think you should only really do your own startup if you think you are the type of person who can get it done without a lot of help or if you have confidence that you'll be able to get the help you need. You might want to try and find people who can help you (potential customers, investors, partners, etc) before making a final decision. If you find yourself having trouble getting people to help you early on, that should tell you something.

Recessions come and go.<p>If you can find a sustaining revenue source ealy on, by doing something thatXs truly new and useful, I canXt see a reason why not start a startup even during a recession.<p>Actually, if what you sell really benefits users, specially if your users are other companies, youXll probably find many of them.<p>Finally, during recessions, thereXs a lot of great talent available on the market.<p>ItXs good to remember that most of GoogleXs growth as a company happened during the "nuclear winter" of the web after the bubbleXs burts in 2000.

I don't know how passionate you feel about your startup idea. I would take the plunge, as if I hunker down, my startup will never take off for sure. As others are mentioning it would be valuable lesson at worst. Your risk minimization instincts are making you think about recession and stuff. In my view, economic environment would only add very marginal risk to the risk that you would already take by going for your startup. I wouldn't be rash, but I would take the plunge.

I think you "probably" should go for it, however, my advice is to at least attempt to write a business plan, do some financial calculations, etc. Try to figure out at least some of the hidden costs (time OR money) that will bite you as you start your company.<p>Also, one thing that saved my bacon was having an actual customer pay me money for what I was doing - and give me feedback as a result; some things I thought were valuable, were not valuable to the customer.

I blame the press for all this, if noone reported this crap noone would be selling their shares etc. I have seen some real scare mongering going on in the press in the uk for weeks.<p>In short if you have enough money to last you for year then go for it. You could always freelance for extra money if needed.

Do it. Dude, you're 23, have skills, qualifications and are presumably smart. If things don't pan out, you've got the rest of your life to sort yourself out (just don't take on too much debt!).<p>Now if you were nearing retirement, had no money and financial support, that'd be a different story.

Is your mama 90 years old? What economic downturn did she live through?

If it is a compelling business/startup based on a great product then you should start it. Nevermind the recession.<p>HP was founded during the great depression. Sun and Adobe were started during recessions.

i would try doing it on the side for a while and then quit when you physically cant manage doing both any more. You could use your wages to pay for outsources to help you build a first release e.g. designers, logo etc. In my view we all waste 50% of our day being unproductive so you might as well get paid for that bit. Also it takes a long time for a site to start ranking in search engines etc and getting traffic so that's another reason to build something slowly first.

Dude, quit your job.

I think you should. If you lose your job because of recession, it makes your decision making even easier.

Read the 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. It will give you some useful perspective on this.

i don't know you, i don't know your idea but even if i did i would still have innuficient data to answer such question.<p>the only thing certain is that the doing a startup is totally different from a normal job.<p>you must be ready for a serious commitment.

I think it entirely depends on what kind of website / startup you're creating.

yes, I think you should.

don't be too discouraged by the economy. do you really want to make a major life decision based on what your parents think they know? and learned before the internet? at the very least, research the topic yourself.<p>but also, it's not good to have a boolean choice. you can make it less so, on both ends. you might be able to reduce your hours at work, in a potentially temporary manner (they might not like that idea at first, but if they want to keep your hours up, then obviously they don't want to fire you, so you have some ability to negotiate. reduced hours, for them, beats none by a large margin). and you could start on your startup in spare time, to learn more about<p>A) will it work B) how long will it take to finish C) how much you like working on it.<p>you can also research competitors, look for cofounder now, and other things, without some permanent "taking the plunge".