Your Silicon Valley survival guide

After reading this article about a struggling SV techie who formerly worked at Yelp, I was so worked up, I decided to create an account and give a little “how-to” advice for people living on the fringes. I won’t address all the whining in the article, or the nonsense about how she’s broke but the company she works at is worth millions, or the stupidity of insulting the company and the CEO she works for — I’ll save that for another day.

So here’s my list of strategies to survive living on less than what you want to, while still keeping your head above the Mendoza Line.

1. Get a part-time job at a food place — This works really well because most of these places will give you a meal if you work more than 4 hours or give you a hefty discount on food. This takes care of one of your basic needs, and puts some extra cash in your pocket to boot.
2. Free food at bars — Every bar in the town where I went to school had some crazy happy hour deal. Free pizza, free taco bar, free hot dog bar, etc. The school newspaper used to put together a free food list at the beginning of the year for students; it was an absolute gold mine. Do some research, and you can save some money during the week and get some free food to boot.
3. Get a roommate, get a bunch of roommates. Rent is brutal, and by shacking up with your friends can go a long way to easing your monthly burden. I know roommates can suck, but when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it can help reduce your costs and put some money back in your weekend party fund. Do I need to tell you not to live in some high price district simply because its close to work and the hipster bars? Find a dive apartment in some low income housing area. It will save you tons and probably humble you a little bit in the process.
4. Network your ass off. Networking is the one thing that will get you everywhere. Put your resume on LinkedIn, talk to your professors, or senior developers at work. Be vocal about what you want to do, and what technologies you like working with. If you talk to enough people, it will come back around for you. By connecting with people now, you’re also laying a good foundation for creating contacts when you need them most.
5. Take an entry level job and then level up — I worked for almost ten years in the pizza business. Is that I was dreaming of as a career when I was a kid? Not even close. But you know what? I worked hard, I came to work on time every day. I started as a driver and saw three guys get fired because once their cars broke down, they couldn’t work. So I told my manager I wanted to learn how to cook. Boom! Learned that, then I started helping him to do inventory and asked him to show me how to do it. Within another year, I moved up to assistant manager. Again, this was not the career I wanted, but my pay went up each time, and each time I was able to breath a little easier each month until I could start planning on where I really wanted to go. Take an entry level job and then convert into something more stable, more long-term while you plan your future.
6. Cut your costs to the bone — This is the hard one and probably the hardest. If you’re in survival mode, this is the fastest way to free up money. Cut your cable, phone, internet, everything. Buy a bike, sell your car, use public transportation. After I graduated from college, I had to do this, multiple times, over the course of five years. It was painful, but when you think about wanting to watch a movie on Netflix, or having enough money to eat? That decision should be easy. Living on the fringe and being frugal teaches you a LOT.
7. Move back in with your parents — Nobody ever wants to admit defeat, but sometimes you have to swallow your pride and start over. I was lucky enough to have a family who always had a place for me to crash. It also motivated me to work harder (three jobs amounting to 60 hours/week) and spend more time working and less time hanging with my parents. If you do move back in, make a plan, and set a “re-launch” date to get the hell out. That means saving money, and creating a plan for your future.
8. Go SOLO — This is really for that special breed of folks. I had a buddy who crashed out in the first dot com bust (circa 2001). He ruined him in so many ways, he had to start over, with absolutely nothing. No car, no girlfriend, no family (they were 2,000 miles away) and practically no friends. He called the next 6 months “going solo”. He got a cheap bike, got two jobs (one at a tech firm, the other at a bagel place), and started by crashing on friends couches. He worked 80 hours/week and within a month had found a cheap place to live. Another month, and now he was down to 60 hours a week. He worked, slept, ate, wrote some code and repeated this for another month. He didn’t want to go out. He didn’t want to drink or smoke weed or do anything other than “get back” to the life he once had. He went “solo” and shut everything and everybody out. He lived on the fringes with his head down, completely focused on reclaiming his life again. The funny part is once he got his life back, he never abandoned some of the things he was doing when he was down and out. Living frugally had taken a hold of him. He became a simple man, with simple needs.
9. Monetize your hobbies— I have a lot of friends who work full time as developers, but do some very cool stuff with their own hobbies. When a bunch of my friends were let go in 2009 after the economy crashed and they were all out of work, they took their hobbies and started making money off stuff they were doing in their garages. One started refinishing old furniture. He put an ad on Craigslist and within a few days, he had a lot of people wanting him to refinish their stuff because he was doing it so inexpensively for them. Another one was a senior developer who started tutoring people on basic HTML and CSS. Another one, started designing logos and marketing materials for businesses just starting up and doing consulting work. My other buddy started a recycling company where they would come pick up your PC parts and recycle them for you. In the process, he’d re-sell the good parts he found and recycle the rest. Remember, just because you’re not working in your chosen career field, doesn’t mean you can’t use your other skills to make ends meet.
10. Make a plan and stick to it — If you have a goal, and you set out the plan to achieve that goal, and you stick with it, it will happen. I finally got sick of living paycheck to paycheck at remedial jobs. I decided to finally get out of working at smaller mom and pop shops. I wanted a nice stable corporate gig. I made a three year, then a five year plan. I made a budget, cut all my unnecessary costs to the bone, and stuck with everything. It was a long road, but I got that corporate gig, then spent a year in their sales meat grinder (60 calls a day, everyday, for a year) and then jumped ship to a marketing role, and then finally took a gig as a developer. I was able to convince a manager even though I had zero dev experience, I would be able to learn on the fly in a few months. It worked, and I was finally out of sales, in a stable corporate gig, and had a nice future ahead of me.

Hopefully some of these will help you keep your head up, save a few bucks, and allow you to get to where you really want to be.

Pete