Hey folks! I have been interested in starting a data SaaS for some time, but I also work a consuming full-time job. Does anyone have advice on balancing bootstrapping a SaaS (or at least validating the idea) before cutting off full-time employment?

It really depends on how time consuming your day job (is it 9-5) or tons of deadlines, overtime, emergencies, etc. And also on your personal ethics regarding how much you "owe" your day job. Few examples: • Ram and I continued working our very demanding jobs while working on Nile on nights, weekends and a bit of PTO. This was enough for us to have a few customer conversations, agree on features that make sense for MVP, have some ideas around architecture. We achieved conviction in our direction. Real work started after we left. Based on my startup friends, this seems to be the norm. • Another colleague was in a better spot. He was an engineer on a project that was not super demanding for his skills. So he could work 9-5, and had a lot of time and energy to actually built his side project. He left the company with a better-than-MVP product (he also took care to do all the paper work to actually own that product and not risk lawsuits). • Yet another colleague also built the MVP while working for the company, but he pretty much stopped working for the company. Folks noticed that he doesn't actually deliver his work, is not very responsive, etc. Also doable, but burned a bridge or two.

As I've gotten older it's become harder and harder to focus on more than one effort. When I try to split my focus across two endeavors I lose productivity and happiness. When I was younger though (in college), I worked as an engineer about 30 hours a week, played reasonably competitive golf, and got a degree in 3 years, but then again, a college degree is absolutely nothing like a real job. And working part-time on R&D with no deadlines was much different than working a proper job.

I admire people who can pull this off. Personally, I did not have the capacity for building another business while working full-time. I struggled with that for a few months before I could tell myself that that's ok. We all work differently. Human life is too complex to compare one to one. And it's totally fine if people do things I cannot do. Instead of fighting it, I tried to find a way that works for me, a way that takes advantage of my strengths. Splitting my energy between multiple efforts is not one of my strengths.

Thank you all for the feedback! I think that I’ll probably fit into the category of doing what I can to validate the idea and build an MVP on nights and weekends before pursuing it in earnest on my own. My current job is not the most demanding I’ve had, but I believe in the company and my work there - definitely don’t want to burn any bridges.

There are also a couple of Startups for the Rest of Us episodes on this topics, for ex. https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-459-from-day-job-to-productized-service-to-fast-growing-saas-as-a-non-technical-founder