Ask HN: Career options for technical ex-founder?

2 points by inc0gnit0 4y ago ↗ HN

I've been on my entrepreneurship journey for the last 3 years and started 2 startups. The first one was with a co-founder (didn't work) and the 2nd one as a solo-founder (currently bootstrapping as an indie hacker). Before that, I was a full-stack developer for 4 years or so. Throughout the journey, I've acquired many important skills apart from development like a sense for good design, product, hiring, marketing, talking to customers, etc. Even though I could keep building my startup, I've realized that building a startup takes lots of stress, day doesn't end at 5 pm, and I end up working most of the weekends. This means very little time for other activities/hobbies/relationships.

Long story short, I'm now looking for a less stressful role where working hours are defined and pay is decent so I could afford an exciting life outside work.

I'm not sure what kind of companies and roles should I be looking into now that I've gained experience as a technical ex-founder?

3 comments

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v1l 4y ago ↗

If you want less stress and better pay, you have two options: join a growth/later stage startup as engineer or take on consulting work enough to pay your bills while you figure out your path.

inc0gnit0 4y ago ↗

I've heard consulting is again stressful as you need to occasionally deal with bad clients, payment issues, and regularly need to scout new clients to keep the money flowing.

bad clients and payment issues do happen - but not nearly as often as you think if you work with good companies. It mostly also happens with cheap clients.

You do have to find new clients but once you do good work for 2-3 clients, they'll keep wanting you back.

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