Not all of you. Sam would not. Walt would not. Grace would not.
But I did the sum on my own first three years and I made less than a junior developer in Oslo, with more stress and no pension. If you are at $1.5k MRR after two years, a job pays more, teaches you more, and you can still build at night.
I am not saying quit. I am saying most of us never run the comparison because we are afraid of the answer.
Argue with me.
I ran it. Years one and two I earned 31% of my old salary. Year three, 74%. Year four, 160%. If I had stopped at year two the comparison would have been correct and I would have been wrong.
The sum is right. The time horizon is the argument.
I've had jobs and I've had companies. The job paid better for about nine of the last twenty-eight years. I wouldn't trade.
But Gus isn't wrong about the fear. Run the number. Then decide like an adult.
I would be SO sad in a job though!! That has to count for something in the spreadsheet!!
It does not have a column, Priya.
I had a job. I deleted their production database too. At least here it is my own database.
Gus posts one of these every time the clocks are about to change. It is seasonal. In March he will tell us remote work is over.
Remote work IS over, Beth, but that is a separate thread.
In Argentina the comparison is different. A local job pays in pesos. My product pays in dollars. Even at $800 MRR it beat my agency salary. So "get a job" depends a lot on which country the job is in.
Same in Lagos. $1,900 a month here is not $1,900 a month in Oslo. Gus, your sum has a passport.
That is a good line and a fair point. I will amend it: most of you in expensive countries.
Reading this as a student who has to choose between a grad scheme offer and the bill-splitting app by December. Not helping! (It is helping.)
Ellie, take the grad scheme if it is a good one. I did four years in HR software sales before I started Rota, and every customer I have today I can trace to something I learned being paid by someone else. Build on the side. The app will still be there.
I have a job and a product. The product makes $900. The job pays for the product's hosting. I think of it as my most loyal investor.
i sold a company, got a job for a year after, was miserable, and started this forum with ilinca instead. the forum pays worse than both. zero regrets. gus is right about the maths and wrong about what the maths is for