I worked in IT, with no BSCS. I took some college classes at nights and weekends while working.

When 2008 rolled around, I knew things were shaky at my company, but many companies I looked at had "Required: BSCS" or even when not, HR would grill me on college when I applied. I began saving a lot. I decided if I could find an equivalent or better job I'd leave, otherwise I'd take my chances - I had many months warning about the company and economy shakiness. Finally at the end of 2008 I got severance (it was a big company) and unemployment. I went back to school full time.

While at school, I learned how to program better and better. I learned Java. I took $100 of my money, sent $25 to Google and bought 6 months of web/email hosting with the other $75. I began publishing Android apps. After six months, one of my apps finally began doing well, and it has paid for itself ever since.

As far as my revenue, it has averaged $600 a week for the past few weeks. My business expenses are negligible - about $35 a week, $25 of which is my cell phone bill which is not fully a business expense. My non-recurring costs are when I pay for artwork or translations or ads.

My fall 2013 semester was academically tough (with my AI class only being one of the hard classes) so I did very little new work on my apps, just some minor maintenance, checking Nagios etc. Sometimes I can do work during the semester, sometimes I can't. I wind up doing a lot of new work during winter breaks, and during those summers in which I did not take classes (some summers I do take classes - but there is a short break around those as well).

The general ideas floating around here on HN are good. Paul Graham's essays, the Lean Startup ideas of Eric Ries and all of that.

One major difference for me is I am not looking to build a billion dollar company that is initially desirable to invest in for angels and VCs. I am doing a bootstrapped, lifestyle thing for now. I'm happy with $600 a week, although I hope to push that up to $700 or $800, and then eventually to $2000 a week. Once I get to $2000 a week, I'll probably shift what I'm doing, and may take on a more long-term, ambitious project more in tune with what is discussed here. For what I'm currently doing, pg's "Ramen Profitable" essay is good. "Startup = Growth" is good as well. As well as other essays, posts, and blogs by others doing bootstrapped startups.

You talk about working part-time. I started off taking four classes a semester, including a hard class in each semester. Before doing my own apps, one semester I took a consulting gig, and stripped down to two classes - one hard, one easy. It was not stripped down enough - I wound up having to drop the hard class, and the company said I was taking too long.

I also took a summer consulting gig and had no time at all to work on my apps. It's hard to juggle too many things. One semester I could only get two easy classes registered, so I got a lot of app work done during the semester.

One problem with working for others is during go-go times like 1998-1999 there is a lot of work, but come 2001 or 2009, work dries up, especially if you have no college diploma. I'm happy I've built up $30k in side income. If it keeps building up, it might become all of my income.

On the other hand, as others have said, you learn things working at companies, technical and otherwise, meet people etc. Some companies are just overflowing with cash.