quiting your job and going web-mastering

dangerman

Good read over at kuro5hin for anyone thinking of dropping it all and trying to make cash from your own websites.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/12/20/04610/206

About a year and a half ago, I quit my day job as a programmer and started burning through my savings (and at the end, borrowing money from family) in a quest to work for myself by making my own websites.

15 months later, I have one fairly successful website, a half-dozen or so failed websites, a bunch of debt, ruined credit and I'm back working for the man. For all you would-be webmasters out there, here's my $25,000 dollar lesson:

The last sentence of the article is the good middle ground I think - if you have what you think is a good idea, take a few weeks off work, build it, and then go back to work once initial dev is over, though i'm guessing not all killer web apps can be made in 3 weeks.

CuLT

I find the comments were much more informative than the actual article itself.

I think it's fairly logical really; don't jump the normal job ship until it becomes impossible to balance both. Massive amounts of juggling are pretty much the way every entrepreneur starts up from what I gather (from self-made millionaires within the family as well as reading various articles).

wheres me jumpa

christ. it seemed like he just thought if he kept developing sites he would stumble upon a hit eventually. the sites he produced were in no way great innovations. he didnt satisfy any need of the market he presumed he had.

he makes it sound like he sacrificed his job for this new calling but judging by all the talk of "the man" this guy had no interest in work. take the kid who made the million dollar homepage. he had an idea, he followed it through, kept his focus and hats off to him hes made his money.

this guy had no idea and no focus. he was just waiting to get lucky.

Webmonkey

His websites are CAT