When is the right time to build your company? Building MarsBased #2

When is the right time to build your company? In this second episode of Building MarsBased, we answer a listener’s question that every aspiring founder wrestles with: Should I launch while keeping my day job, or go all in?

We unpack the real factors behind that decision: macro timing, industry waves, personal runway, team alignment, and share how we made the call that led to MarsBased.

You’ll hear why the 2012–2014 window mattered in Spain’s post-crisis context, what the “mobile app boom” taught us about riding vs ignoring a hot trend, why nights and weekends rarely scale, and the exact moment (December 2013) we took the leap. We also discuss the investor point of view on “founder commitment” and a practical way to spot opportunities from inside your current company.

In this episode, you’ll learn how macro conditions shape founder timing, what makes the difference between a viable and an advantaged moment to start, what the realities of bootstrapping look like compared to fundraising, why part-time efforts usually stall and what to do instead, and how to use your current job to validate a real problem worth solving.