Yes, well, I went into partnership. It was hard to leave my previous job in a big company as it was a good company, good package, great people, 10 minute commute. The reason I left was because although the job was good, I would never become more than a small cog in a large company and then retire. I wanted to do something cool, make a difference, and have a shot at earning enough for my family to have a good life and start some altruistic projects.
The things that enabled me to leave and start something new were that I became more known for my work so I was offered opportunities, advances in broadband, video conferencing, web based project management, collaboration tools, powerful hosted DVCS, and other free tools allowed me to easily work from home so I didn't have to relocate or commute for hours.
It has been a good few months, it is going well, and I'm excited for the next year.
I've started to do web-dev/design and 3D since january here in France.
I'm 20, I work around 20-30 hours per month, and I've make 7000€ in one year (tax deducted).
Not a company, but I have been doing freelance work on my spare time since college. I graduated 2005. 2011 is a special year for me. I got 3 more regular clients and made more in a couple of months than what I would normally get in one year with my dayjob. Regular cleints keep sending me work. Eats a lot of time but totally worth it since I (w/ wife) have plans to move to New Zealand.
Yes! About a year after finishing school, I started an LLC to sell an electronics kit [1] that I was working on and also as an entity to receive income from an Android app's advertisements. It's been great; I'm not quite in the black yet but I'm already experiencing some growing pains for hand-assembling these power supplies, and android ads pay my cell phone bill plus a little extra.
It's kind of neat to be able to say "yes, I build these things from scratch, based on my own knowledge and research, due to risk from my own pocketbook, while working full time."
Also, I've met some very cool people (whose work I had only previously admired from afar!) because I had questions about a library they wrote or was improving a design of theirs, not to mention starting to form a set of people who I can email for advice (from how to make PCBs to the best tape to order from ULine.)
Yep, back in January. I wanted to do design work professionally so I set up a simple LLC. Real motivation was to test my own skills and see if I was able to run a successful business. Went full-time in October. Despite all the negative connotations around starting a business these days, I can't say I have too many complaints.
Side note: Congrats to all HN members who started a company and kept it going this year. It's a lot of work, but fun as hell.
I have started a new startup, but haven't started a company just yet. Where I live it would be a suicide, and I only plan to start one once the project is ready to make money or raise investment.
I usually consider my start-ups to be pre-trading/revenue stage, where it can have a url & be in active development, but not be necessarily be an active registered company. Generally I prefer to avoid the expense (and in some countries the hassle) of business registration if I'm not sure the start-up will reach launch or revenue stage.
In my view, a startup is a commercial project -- which these days can easily be done online without formal incorporation, even by a single person. And if having a formal company hurts more than not having it, the choice is simple.
Yep, I started Parse with some awesome co-founders in YC. We started it because we saw all the pain that comes with making an internet enabled mobile app, and wanted to make a platform that made it easier.
That was you?! Awesome! I love Parse. I'm signed up in the beta and it's not just giving me a backend service but teaching me some iOS programming too. Thanks for that man.
Totally biased poll obviously but still nice to see all the stories.
I was lucky enough to find two amazing cofounders to start Ridejoy and doubly lucky to participate in YC. Being a founder isn't for everyone but for me, it's the most thrilling occupation I could imagine. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I know it is a shunned statement around here but "I developed an idea for a company" this past November. Regrettably, my programming skills are limited so step 1 is learning enough to create a prototype for my project. I am really interested in shaking up the language learning industry and plan to be able to answer this poll differently in 2012 :)
Continue to better your programming skills, it's a challenging but worthwhile endevour.
Being as though I was in the same boat as you (and my programming skills are still laughable!), what I found to be really helpful is while you're learning how to program, using other skills (maybe you know how to make a webpage, or animate)to create a mock-up to more quickly and easily translate your idea into something concrete and more understandable that could attract people (read: potential co-founders) into at least looking at your idea--at the very worst they can see that you've put some time and effort into your raw idea and as I'm sure any technical co-founder here would say, that's a good start. Good luck Meng. :)
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadThe things that enabled me to leave and start something new were that I became more known for my work so I was offered opportunities, advances in broadband, video conferencing, web based project management, collaboration tools, powerful hosted DVCS, and other free tools allowed me to easily work from home so I didn't have to relocate or commute for hours.
It has been a good few months, it is going well, and I'm excited for the next year.
-sorry for my terribad english
YC strongly advise you to use their default company structure as it's much easier to raise investment if investors know you've been correctly set up.
It's kind of neat to be able to say "yes, I build these things from scratch, based on my own knowledge and research, due to risk from my own pocketbook, while working full time."
Also, I've met some very cool people (whose work I had only previously admired from afar!) because I had questions about a library they wrote or was improving a design of theirs, not to mention starting to form a set of people who I can email for advice (from how to make PCBs to the best tape to order from ULine.)
Highly recommended!
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3054861
Side note: Congrats to all HN members who started a company and kept it going this year. It's a lot of work, but fun as hell.
Which answer should I choose? ;)
I was lucky enough to find two amazing cofounders to start Ridejoy and doubly lucky to participate in YC. Being a founder isn't for everyone but for me, it's the most thrilling occupation I could imagine. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Being as though I was in the same boat as you (and my programming skills are still laughable!), what I found to be really helpful is while you're learning how to program, using other skills (maybe you know how to make a webpage, or animate)to create a mock-up to more quickly and easily translate your idea into something concrete and more understandable that could attract people (read: potential co-founders) into at least looking at your idea--at the very worst they can see that you've put some time and effort into your raw idea and as I'm sure any technical co-founder here would say, that's a good start. Good luck Meng. :)