In this panel discussion, several founders discuss how they managed personal finances while launching their startups. Janice emphasizes the need for savings and spousal income to survive the early stages. Aaron recounts self‑funding through early Bitcoin gains and highlights the difficulty of monetizing a niche technology (rocket engines) that serves a tiny market. Speaker D shares personal experiences of living in a basement and even renting a closet to keep costs low, stressing that financial insecurity can impair business decisions. Speaker E describes supplementing startup work with consulting projects, blog writing, and Upwork gigs, while also relying on angel, friends‑and‑family funding, and creative budgeting to hire additional developers. The conversation underscores the importance of a financial safety net, frugal living, side‑hustles, and strategic use of early investment to sustain a startup until revenue materializes.
Chapters
how did you balance like making money versus working on your startup? Did you have to dig into your savings? Janice, it looks like you've got a lot of things going on in your head right now. So why don't we start with you?
There were people in the program who were working at the same time. And so it is possible. To do that. You know, when you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to launch a startup, money always seems to be a challenge. And so you just, you know, hopefully you're— you've saved your money and you maybe have a spouse that's working at the same time that you're going through the program so that you can so that you can survive.
So maybe Aaron, how did you kind of self-fund yourself while, you know, launching your company? Because you're still doing it, right? You know, the program ends, but you still got to pay rent, right?
Yeah, it's, uh, I mean, I guess in my case it's kind of unfair question because I got lucky and bought some Bitcoin like way back when. But, um, but yeah, I mean, it's a lot of— it's all out of pocket, you know. It's, uh, the— especially rocket engines. I mean, there's Nobody needs one except for like 12 people. So you're trying to sell a revolution technology to 12 people essentially that actually can make a decision. Yes, we're going to change everything that we know and we're going to take your product. So it's an uphill climb and you got to be ready for it. I mean, regardless of what your product is, it's going to take longer to make money than what you think.
Yeah, and I think it applies ultimately to just startups as a whole. It's a It's very hard to try to do a startup if you're worried about where to live the next month. It's, yeah, again, sort of having at least a net of safety is definitely, I would say, fundamental to really thinking more on your business. Because if your decisions are driven by, oh, where I'm gonna find next month's rent, sometimes that doesn't really lead to the best business-making decisions. I had personal experience as my first startup where I was basically a student, I was living in a basement. In fact, I think in the last couple months I rented a closet in someone's apartment, and that's where I lived for a year.
I add a little bit to that as well. I think you do need a base to start with, because at the beginning there's maybe so many things that you have to think about, so it's not— it's very hard to do a full-time job that pays a good salary and also build a company. It gets really, especially if you have a family and kids and things like that. So a little bit of base, I think it helps. And then the second thing we did is that I still take consulting projects on the side. And I mean, my case is a little bit interesting because I'm like, I'm in the stock market and I can write, I can find job on Upwork. My team can find job on Upwork or some other platforms and we could write blogs and articles for everybody. But even to this day after 3 years, and we still have, like, we now have revenue and things like that. And, you know, we have money from like angels and friends and family who invest in the company, but we still, every now and then we were like, we need to hire that second developer for the next 2 months. Where is the money going to come from? We haven't budgeted. Well, guess what? I'm writing blog and articles and posts and taking consulting projects. And it's hard because you have to do it. You have to build your company. And then after, 8 o'clock at night, you know, you have to also write a consulting work for somebody else. But I mean, you make it work. It's not easy anyways. At the end, when you're starting, you have to be creative in terms of where the money is going to come from.
Yeah, I think full-time startup, part-time work is probably the best combination.
