How much do you think is a 'good' amount to have saved up? I have a little over 6 months saved up but all the articles I read are like "You need 18 - 24 months. Minimum." which I think is complete BS, especially for a tech founder with an MVP (this isn't to say non-tech can't do it, it was more that tech people can find freelance work)
Thoughts?
Note that you can spend $8k/month or you can spend $2k/month, depending on where and how you want to live while you're founding your startup. The nominal dollar amount could be a huge range.
You could also reduce the dollar amount of savings you need by the revenue in your MVP - if you're making $1k/month on a software startup you'll probably be able to net that against your monthly spend, even if most of that $1k/month is currently going towards fixed costs. The difference between an MVP that generates revenue and one that does not is enormous.
Starting a startup is a lot easier when you're (relatively) financially secure. There's no way I would have been able to survive the first 6 months of my startup (when I didn't have any revenue coming in) if I hadn't saved up a decent amount of cash from working elsewhere (not to mention that working for others gives you important skills). The important bit is to think about this systematically: if you're going to take a job to accumulate financial and human capital, have a plan for how long you'll work there and how much capital you need to accumulate.
Being able to found a startup on your own terms (without having to desperately find angels) is very freeing and I definitely prefer it this way. My current startup is doing much better than my last one because this time I'm not worrying about investors at all.