Entrepreneurs are often mistaken for workaholics, but that is generally not the case. It is that they love what they do and would usually be doing it than other things.

If you can test the waters first part-time to see if the work and your personality fits the be your own boss style, than I recommend you do that first.

If it’s starting a new venture that you’re after, there are a great deal of things to consider, and I’ll agree with Kartik above me, that it will probably be a lot wiser to keep your job before branching off on your own. I know there are a lot of people out there who say ‘there’s nothing like being your own boss’ and ‘quit working while there’s still time’ and all of that crap, but here’s a word of advice: don’t go into this eyes closed. Realize that it’s going to take you a lot of time to build up your market and street cred as a serious provider of products or services or both.

However, I would also say that there’s nothing without a little risk and that if you’re taking a calculated risk, it might just pay off in the long run. Running your own company takes time, especially if you’re trying to find the right product and/or service to focus on.

But don’t strike out on your own if you don’t know what you’re doing. There are a bunch of interesting articles on the subject here, and they’re definitely worth a shot since they’re coming from people a lot like yourself.

Cheers,

Tom

There are 2 ways of looking into it –

1. To keep up with your costs, you can continue with your job while working on your idea. This provides the base to your idea and you get a start/feel of things as you get into it deeper. You can keep on managing a start-up with your job, but only till a certain point. Afetr that I dont think this way you would be able to do justice with your job and start-up.

2. Can you think of any company which has made it big, with the founders building it part-time? Its a difficult thing to do..When you dive into it full time, it shows a lot of commitment – It shows your confidence in the idea, your passion to pursue it fully and prove it to the world. You get more time to concentrate on your start-ups product/marketing/team/ops etc.

My view is initially you can bootstrap the start-up while being in a job and get the basic prototype up.(I know thats the most difficult part…but these are fun times..when you got to utilize each and every minute of the day). After this, depending on your commitment, passion, team and financial situation pursue it full-time.

~kartik

I was wondering if anybody can throw light on other aspects of venture. ( apart from funding ) . Is it really necessary to be already full time before asking for funds? Specially for web startups , I think they can be managed with whatever current job you are in. Anybody who disagrees , I can prove it to you.

Let me know what you guys think?

Apply strategies of other industries including comodities to your s/w startups, it helps a lot.

“how will we get our first 1000 (or 5000) users & what is our plan for that…do we have what it takes to do that”

…long term product planning may be looking too far into the product’s lifecycle, which for web2.0 products is much shorter

Make sure the above question before developing the product and what your product provides that could stand out in the crowd

Capturing the people’s desire[problem] which is hiding inside subconscious mind is the key to all entrepreneurs.

If you ask people what you want, they start explaing the short comming features of existing products but dont know what exactly they want. It is this entrepreneurs need to capture. Case study iPod its amazing.