The sensible default
Your salary is useful runway
You do not need to resign before you are allowed to take an idea seriously. A job can fund experiments, remove desperate decisions and give the business time to earn a larger bet.
The constraint is not automatically a disadvantage. Limited time forces you to identify which action can produce evidence and which task merely makes the project feel busy.
Before doing anything, read your employment contract. Understand rules covering outside work, intellectual property, confidentiality and conflicts of interest. Keep company time, devices, data and relationships completely separate from the new project.
The weekly rhythm
Protect a small amount of serious time
Do not build a plan that depends on becoming a different person. Choose two or three blocks you can defend every week. A focused Saturday morning and two short weekday sessions can be enough when each has a defined outcome.
Separate making from customer contact. One block improves the offer or first version. The next puts it in front of people. A project stalls when every available hour disappears into polishing.
End each week by writing the next question, not a long task list. “Will three agency owners pay £50 for this result?” creates better work than “finish website”.
Use annual leave
Create one concentrated test
A week away from the day job can break a project out of endless evenings. Use it when you have enough understanding to make and test something, not simply because you are tired of thinking about the idea.
Set an outcome before the week begins. Examples include a paid pilot, ten observed product sessions, three serious sales conversations or a clear decision to stop.
Remove ordinary distractions, prepare the customer list in advance and make sure the week contains contact with the market. Seven uninterrupted days spent designing in private can still produce seven days of elegant avoidance.
The decision
Quit when the evidence changes
There is no universal revenue number that makes leaving a job sensible. Look for a pattern: customers repeatedly recognise the problem, the offer produces meaningful commitments and more founder time has a believable route to creating more value.
Also understand your personal runway, responsibilities and tolerance for uncertainty. A business decision that ignores your actual life is not brave. It is incomplete.
The early goal is not to prove that you are willing to suffer. It is to learn enough that your next commitment is proportionate to the evidence.
Take a week. Not a reckless leap.
LOCKIN is designed for people who can use annual leave to find out whether an idea deserves more of their life.