#21 Why Michael Lynch Quit Google to Work for Himself as a Solo Founder

hexdevs

Michael Lynch is a software developer and blogger. He used to work as a software engineer at Google, but he decided to quit and now he's a solo founder, and blogs about his experience.

He's recently launched the course Hit the Front Page of Hacker News. The course teaches everything he has learned about Hacker News after getting many of his original blog posts to hit the front page. It covers the site's unique culture, how to choose topics, improve your writing, and what to do if your submission fails.

We also talked about going solo founder, and his financial independence journey.

Highlights

00:00 Intro
00:41 Who is Michael Lynch?
01:58 Hit the Front Page of Hacker News
03:04 Courses vs e-books
04:00 How many copies were sold
05:04 Beta-testing the course before launch day
07:19 Financial Independence and becoming an entrepreneur
08:16 Financial Independence and travelling
09:16 The shock of going back to a normal job
11:08 Planning for Financial Independence by building a business
12:37 Mr. Money Mustache, the 4% rule and Early Retirement
14:16 How much you make vs How much you save
14:33 What does he want to do when he retires early?
15:12 Life expenses and business expenses
15:49 Negotiating a big salary at Google by getting multiple job offers
18:30 Financial choices in your 20's and the optimum strategy
23:05 A good salary for boring work isn't fun
25:56 Bootstrapping is very different than the startup life
26:48 Having freedom and control over the direction of your product/business
28:40 Prioritizing and evaluating business ideas
31:05 How to do market research
32:57 Lessons after quitting Google: content strategy, marketing, and distribution
36:59 Keep yourself motivated and don't put too much pressure on yourself
39:49 Advice to anyone who wants to quit their job and start a business
42:36 Final remarks

Links from this episode

Show Notes
Hit The Front Page of Hacker News Course
Michael Lynch's Site
Michael Lynch's Twitter
Sign up for our newsletter to get the Highlights from our episodes