Can a Part-Time Startup Work Out?
By: Jannis Dust
Tags: Founder, Founder Stories, Startup Lessons, Entrepreneur, Startup

Can a Part-Time Startup Work Out?

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Starting a startup is hard. Obviously. It needs a lot of time and a lot of effort. But what if you are still studying or working full time?

Is it even possible?

I read an article about it by coincidence a few days ago. One of the quotes was slightly irritating me:

If you cannot take a risk of leaving your job for your startup, it somewhere means that you are not fully convinced about it. If you are not convinced, you cannot convince anyone (including an investor).

Well.

Saying it cannot work out because part-time shows you are not fully committed/ convinced to your own idea is heavily generalized — in my opinion.

There are a lot of great examples of founders who started their businesses part-time and had massive success.

Marc Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Jack Dorsey (Twitter)

Ben Francis (Gymshark)

Evan Spiegel (Snapchat)

Travis Kalanick (Uber)

Starting a business next to your studies is absolutely possible.

It’s not a matter of whether it’s achievable or not.

It’s a matter of how it’s possible.

Mostly, it’s about misbeliefs, some kind of inefficient structures, and inappropriate approaches.

While researching for the problem I found a few common problems which appear because you start part-time. Of course, it’s not ideal to start part-time but every case is unique and there are several well-justified reasons why someone starts part-time.

Nevertheless, they are not as insurmountable as you perhaps think.

Let’s dive in.

I’d start by thinking how much you want that idea to succeed. If it’s the most important thing you can do, use it at the center of your time and plan other things like studying or working around it even if the time distribution is not equally split.

Bootstrapping

In my opinion, you should delay the use of venture capital as much as possible — whether part-time or full-time.

It’s not just about increasing the valuation because you can achieve more but also to take the pressure off your shoulders.

It’s not necessary at the beginning. Get your idea to a decent level and maybe then you can change for full time.

VCs would, unfortunately, prefer you to work full time It can be a disadvantage so you are dependent on a great idea with traction if possible.

Moreover, I would keep my monthly burn rate as low as possible. Start extremely lean and focus on validating the idea itself.

Starting Lean & Keeping focus.

Sometimes, slow steps are better than fast steps because slow is steady and steady is fast.

That’s what my girlfriend always say to me. And it’s true.

So take your time and validate the idea. It’s not needed to run as fast as possible right now. It will be a lot more efficient to actually invest the time appropriately. So validate. And after that, validate more.

To take your time, be patient and stay the course, not run the fastest you possibly can. To persevere even when everyone around you believes otherwise. Even when you believe otherwise.

Why?

There are plenty of key problems and questions every startup has to answer. They are not postponable. If you don’t answer them when needed, you will lose later on.

Unfortunately, a lot of startups fail because they think answering the questions is unnecessary. So focus on them and build advantage by answering them as soon as possible.

Structure.

Your time is limited. No matter whether you are working full-time or part-time. A lot of people will claim that they do not have time.

But “not having enough time” is in my opinion a false deduction of faulty prioritization work.

This is not meant in a judgmental way. It’s just my opinion about the topic. Set your goals for relevant projects and plan your time accordingly. There's plenty of time — trust me. The problem is more that there are more than enough possible projects or stuff to do.

Building a startup part-time will obviously result in a lot of long evenings and weekends especially next to your studies.

Be careful. Keep yourself productive and not just busy.

Are you aware of the PARKINSON LAW? That’s interesting. To put it all in a nutshell, it means that

Work expands to the time you gave it to fulfill it.

Think about how much time you really need to fulfill vital tasks and try to keep them as short as possible. A lot of startups are spending a lot more time than needed on tasks and you as a part-time founder cannot allow yourself to be one of them!

Last but not least, you should think about building a team as soon as possible.

Conclusion

In my opinion, it is easily possible to start a business part-time with the right approaches. Of course, sooner or later you should switch to full-time, but it’s not a problem at the beginning and there are numerous examples of successful implementations. So, if you are planning to start a business but are “scared” because you can’t work full time, try to get the maximum out of it.

Because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

If you want to learn more about founding a startup at a young age or next to e.g. your studies, consider watching/ reading my further work.