Full-time Employed Startup Founder, 5 Learnings.

This is me sharing my experience with all those thinking about running a startup while holding a full-time job.

There many ways to go about getting funding for your business, however many of the startups will go through the bootstrapping phase and this can last longer than 2 years or shorter depending on vision as a founder, the space you’re in and for many others reason, failing to raise the needed funding being one of them.

For me, while starting the entrepreneurship journey together with my co-founder Mugambe Daniella Asher at Teheca we knew that raising the necessary funding for us to be fulltime at our company would take longer, especially because of the space we entered and the market we set to serve. So how were we planning to keep float? This brings me to today’s topic, employed founder.

For the years we have run our startup we have full bootstrapped depending hugely on my monthly salary and small grants from time to time. Today am going to share my 5 learnings from being employed fulltime while running an everyday growing startup.

Have a great co-founder

Together with my co-founder from the day go decided to split roles when it came to running Teheca, one of us was to find the funding to run the company and the other was to run the company, this has greatly worked for us and because I truly believe we are a great team.

We all know what our strengths and weakness are, and this was key at that very early stage in determining what each person was bring on the table. My co-founder runs and works at Teheca full-time, while I have worked 3 different jobs in the period we have been running the company and all these jobs have greatly contributed towards us building our company.

Without my co-founder holding down the fort back at the Teheca office, it would practically impossible for me to run Teheca even if I was making the money needed to keep the company running. Yes, you can hire the people but for a very early stage startup, a co-founder is key in shaping the future of the company.

So you thinking of keeping fulltime job while you build your company, your choice of a co-founder is key

Financial discipline is key

You need to work within a budget, Plan 3 months or so ahead how much money the company will need and activities the company is going to engage in, where is the money coming from other than of course the founders’ pockets.

At Teheca we tried as much to keep our expenditures standard month on month with a few changes from time to time, this greatly helped us plan, and even when I was in between jobs we were able to service and bridge the gap with small loans from friends and family. This was possible because we worked with budgets and kept expenditures at a minimum.

A Complementing Job.

Teheca is a Tech-based company and I have only worked for Tech companies, this not only helps to do 180 contexts switching between your day job and your startup work but also helps you learn from your job things that will benefit your company.

Working at e-Saving helped me learn how to work with a small team but deliver large results, at ZTESoft I learned how to work as a unit of a bigger team as well as working with remote teams across different timezones.

My time at SafeBoda has put me in the front row on how to build a market place product, how to put a product to market and manage lightning-fast growth, all the things that I much need for my startup now and in the future.

So don’t get a job in an alternate industry to your startup, because your day job is not just for a paycheque but for life long learning as well as immediate actions to try out at your startup.

Learn to ask for help

You will be surprised how much people are willing to help you if you only asked. From advice about how to build your product, code review, execution, mentoring to… the list is endless. All you have to do is ask.

Throughout my employment, I have asked for help from my co-workers, bosses, and friends. One colleague offered me 10 hours of code, one offered to help me with the product management side of things.

Because you have very limited time to invest in your startup, whenever you can ask for help as this will help you save time and create more time for other things that will require your time.

Use your time wisely

You will have to sacrifice a lot of things, especially in the social aspect because that’s the only working time that you have. As your colleagues are going for an evening catch up, that’s the time when your workday will be starting.

Have X number of hours a week that you will have to dedicate to your startup and ensure that you do put in those hours. This not only helps you keep on track but also ensure that you’re putting the required efforts into the company like any other team member.

You will have to learn to say no to a lot of things so that you spare your time for the startup work, I have missed out on a lot of family get-togethers, old boys reunions and many more…but for the right price.

If you have advise for startup founders, who are bootstrapping, do leave a reply and if you like this post, give me some claps