It wasn't easy, but it was necessary for me to get over the "rent and health insurance hump". I do agree that it's hard to reconcile bootstrapping/consulting with pg's advice to "not do other things".
My main advice is: make sure consulting (or whatever "auxiliary income source" you are spending time on) is a means-to-an-end for you, and that it doesn't become the main thing. And also make sure to carve out time to actually work on the startup daily -- whether that's early mornings, "lunch breaks", or late nights. (In my case, it was all 3 :-) ...)
Avoid the easy way out. During my multi-year consulting/bootstrapping journey, I got a lot of offers to join other startups or take on big consulting clients. But I knew that wasn't what I wanted, however tempting. Ultimately, I had to turn down lucrative short-term gain for taking a stipend salary on my startup when it finally landed seed funding. Pulling the trigger on that was tough, but worth it, in retrospect. This was only possible because I had already mentally convinced myself that consulting/bootstrapping revenue was a means-to-the-end for the startup.
But yeah, life is messy, and we aren't all in the privileged position of being able to work without income for months or years on end, which unfortunately is often the vantage point taken by some of our "wise startup elders".
One small piece of practical advice based on some mistakes I saw other founders make: don't use debt.
Thank you for the comment, and both pieces are great. You even answered my question directly - way back in 2011!
"If I hadn’t worked on my consulting projects last year, Parse.ly would have died. PERIOD. PG is often right, but he’s wrong on this one. I agree that startups require your undivided attention. But surviving isn’t a compromise — it’s a necessity. Do it however you possibly can."
https://amontalenti.com/2011/04/02/not-for-the-faint-of-hear...
It wasn't easy, but it was necessary for me to get over the "rent and health insurance hump". I do agree that it's hard to reconcile bootstrapping/consulting with pg's advice to "not do other things".
My main advice is: make sure consulting (or whatever "auxiliary income source" you are spending time on) is a means-to-an-end for you, and that it doesn't become the main thing. And also make sure to carve out time to actually work on the startup daily -- whether that's early mornings, "lunch breaks", or late nights. (In my case, it was all 3 :-) ...)
Avoid the easy way out. During my multi-year consulting/bootstrapping journey, I got a lot of offers to join other startups or take on big consulting clients. But I knew that wasn't what I wanted, however tempting. Ultimately, I had to turn down lucrative short-term gain for taking a stipend salary on my startup when it finally landed seed funding. Pulling the trigger on that was tough, but worth it, in retrospect. This was only possible because I had already mentally convinced myself that consulting/bootstrapping revenue was a means-to-the-end for the startup.
But yeah, life is messy, and we aren't all in the privileged position of being able to work without income for months or years on end, which unfortunately is often the vantage point taken by some of our "wise startup elders".
One small piece of practical advice based on some mistakes I saw other founders make: don't use debt.