Here's How I Rented Out My Bedroom to Join a Startup Full-Time

This post originally appeared on the mHelpDesk Blog in 2015.

This is a pretty crazy story so I wanted to share here on the Building ShareWillow newsletter so you know a little about me.

I believe that everyone has a desire to build something incredible. For me, I had a burning desire to get out of my cubicle and help build a company. I was going through Twitter the other day and remembered tweeting this one afternoon, when I literally felt trapped in my cubicle like a caged animal.

I had met Vincent Wong, CEO at mHelpDesk a few weeks prior to this tweet and instantly knew he was on to something huge. I was trying to figure out a way to jump ship and join mHelpDesk full-time.

I knew that I needed some runway money in order to survive (the amount of money I could live off of without an income). Although my risks were calculated, there was still a very short window in which I needed to make it — or I was going to be homeless. 

At the time, mHelpDesk was comprised of just Vincent and Khoa. I was quitting my full-time job with only $8,120 to my name and I had to figure out how long that was going to last me.

I was only able to eliminate a few of these expenses like Audible, Netflix, Free Credit Report, Gold’s Gym, and Xsport. After a few simple calculations and eliminating the unnecessary expenses, I determined that my monthly burn rate was $2,530 per month.

This meant that I had 4 months until I would run out of money. In short, I knew I had to make a change.

I had been renting out my upstairs loft on Airbnb for about $30 per night. I literally threw some sheets on an air mattress, and added some curtains for privacy. 

I thought it was okay, but according to one of the reviews, I guess I was wrong.

Unfortunately, the $30 only slightly helped my burn rate. I knew I needed more time, so I decided to rent out my actual bedroom.

No joke, I moved up to the loft, and posted my bedroom for rent on Craigslist. I was able to package utilities and rent for a total of $850, which brought my burn rate down to $1,680. The logistics of it seems simple, but the story is actually quite ironic.

The person that replied to my craigslist ad, was actually in my fraternity at Clemson, and an old friend. Through a long email chain, we bantered about how crazy it was that we got back in touch from a craigslist ad. That’s weird, right?

The likelihood of knowing the random person that responded to my craigslist ad in rural Virginia in the middle of December has to be close to 0%.

However, that’s not the craziest part of the story…

Although I was able to decrease my burn rate substantially, I still needed some privacy. So, I decided I was going to build a wall and close off the loft, making it feel like a windowless bedroom. This gave me somewhat of my own room, but more importantly, a quiet place to work.

Now I didn’t know how to build a wall so I went to good ole google and search contractors in the area. I stumbled across a website called HomeAdvisor and reached out to a few people in their network.

I ended up choosing DC Drywall & Finishing and they were able to come that same week and build the wall.

It only took them 2 days to finish the job but in the end the wall was complete and my loft was full converted into another bedroom.

Because I was able to use HomeAdvisor for this project, I was able to live in the upstairs loft and reduce my burn enough so that I could go full time on mHelpDesk.

The crazy thing about this entire story is that just 2 years later, HomeAdvisor ended up acquiring mHelpDesk.

In 2012 I was doing whatever it took to be able to go full-time on a startup with no pay (in the beginning). Just 2 years later in 2014 we sold the company and I became the first millionaire in my family at the age of 26. I couldn’t believe it.

My takeaway from this is that if you want to go after something, you absolutely should do whatever it takes to do it. If you have conviction, take the leap of faith.

Figure out exactly what you need to do in order to buy yourself enough time to make it work. In my case, I knew that I needed about 4 months in order to make enough money from mHelpDesk to support my burn rate. I got extremely lucky, and things worked out, but don’t be afraid to take the risk.

You spend the majority of your waking hours at work and if you aren’t doing something that you absolutely love, keep searching – the upside reward is well worth the risk.