In the US, you can part-time consult, as programmers are paid way above the national median income. This can either be in a lucrative field, giving you more time, or in your vertical, giving you more pmf exposure. The result is living like a normal US person, though not necessarily your peer group.

As most commenters note, the youth aspect is the real differentiator for the middle class. All this is hard as soon as a family is in the picture, health concerns go up, etc. Frustratingly, most successful entrepreneurs are much older, so a case of "youth is wasted on the young."

Source: Had a 5 figure salary in the bay area for years and it was fine until it wasn't.

This common advice is arguably the best way to guarantee the failure of your new venture.

Source? Every path is hard, so saying that's the worst is one of the most extreme claims one can possibly make.

Ex: I can argue that VC funding is much worse than having paying customers in your space and the luxury to pivot & explore until things work. Having to double down your growth bet every 18mo or die trying is a real killer. People get confused by thinking the VC path is awesome because VCs only fund good companies, but that doesn't mean it helps them, just that the company was good. Back to my main point, I wouldn't say VC funding is the kiss of death, but it a bad fit for many and arguably most companies ;-)

Gauging from this reply I’m not entirely sure we disagree — it may just come down to wording. You said part time consulting. If it happens to serve as networking and you can bootstrap then in most conversations I’m in that would be called bootstrapping.

My point was that part-time pure paid consulting while trying to start an (under-)funded product business is one of the worst things you can do. Would-be founders end up never needing to commit to the riskier venture and having a hard time disentangling form consulting. Source: decades of startup founding and employment experience.

> In the US, you can part-time consult, as programmers are paid way above the national median income.

At some point the middle class becomes unlanded gentry.

Can’t speak to parent comment. But I started a business 20 years ago and I lived in my business partners moms basement. He lived in his old room - this no rent. This lasted 2 years in my early 20s. I’d guess anyone paying rent bootstrapping is doing something similar or the business is paying rent in some way.