Ask HN: Is your significant other supportive of your entrepreneurial tendencies? - whitepoplar
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ajeet_dhaliwal
Unfortunately not and it sucks. Anytime I spend on my endeavours is considered
a waste of time by her and it is difficult. She started out somewhat
supportive but success has been elusive and faith has been lost over time so
there is a feeling of having let both of us down. She wishes I'd focus on my
job and do well in the corporate world but it's not what I want. Here's hoping
(with some reason) to 2017 being the year I turn it around.

~~~
odonnellryan
People put a lot of emphasis on success. I've seen the "need to succeed"
destroy more projects and motivation than anything else.

I know someone who would be really interested in working on projects, enjoys
programming, and so on, be very reluctant to take up projects that seem "iffy"
with regards to financial success.

My point: being ruined financially by a project is one thing. It's another to
program for fun. You can spin up a project for fun, as long as it isn't
wrecking your bank account, and not have to worry if it's going to succeed.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
I'm starting to think emphasis on success is necessary. It's something I have
not had before, I tend to work on projects because I find them interesting or
I believe they should exist because they are useful. I've always maintained a
job at the same time so financial ruin is never a risk. The problem with this
approach is it leads to any spare time outside of the paying job being
consumed with projects/entrepreneurial pursuits which is the source of the
friction, not enough of my time to go to the wife/family creating the
perception of me being very selfish. Ideally you want to see some traction and
then ditch the job, doing so before would add additional stress due to lack of
income. However getting to traction while having a job is extremely hard.
Ideally you want to move in with the parents or do this when you're young to
make it easier on yourself and your significant other.

~~~
ahazred8ta
Remember, an extroverted engineer stares at OTHER people's shoes when he
talks.

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erroneousfunk
Yes, with some reservations. We met as one part-time business was failing,
although he brainstormed ideas with me to try to make it work, and even came
into the office on a few occasions to help out. He was supportive for four
years, while I was getting a half-time masters degree, and while I wrote
technical books (at the same time as a full time job and half-time degree!).

Although recently I said, only partly joking, "maybe I should go to law
school..." and he was like (only partly joking) "Do you WANT a divorce?" So he
does have limits!

But he's always been supportive of me flying to conferences, giving talks,
running workshops, not being there in the evenings because I'm busy with one
thing or another. He's even taking a few days off in January to go to a
conference in Texas with me (he's not technical, so he doesn't actually go to
my talks, but he can keep himself occupied around town, and we turn it into a
mini-vacation in the evenings).

I give up a lot of weekends to freelance work, and we've discussed the
possibility of me starting another business -- he's totally on board with it,
_despite_ the fact that I tried it once already and failed, AND having
experienced firsthand how much time it takes and how much it will disrupt our
lives. He doesn't understand most of what I do, and was never interested in
understanding it (I've offered to teach him how to program, or show him code
I'm working on -- he's always like "nah, that's your job"), but I couldn't ask
for a more supportive husband for the things that really matter.

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borplk
Not significant other but my family does not seem particularly supportive.

The concept of taking risks and sacrifices today for potential future benefits
is completely foreign to them.

Pretty irritating. I don't have anyone cheering for me. It seems they are just
waiting for me to any day announce that I have chained myself to another cushy
office desk job and collecting the chunky pay check.

Just recently I had to break it down for my mother. I'll cut it short but
basically I told her "If you are someone with a bunch of money you can invest
it all in low-risk government bonds and wait for 50 years or you could show up
at the casino and gamble it all in one game. They are the opposite ends of the
risk spectrum. Never taking any risk is just as bad as taking huge crazy risks
like gambling all your life in a game of poker. There's some middle ground.
You gotta take a few shots while you have the time.".

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diggan
Yes, but not without any tension. When we met it was implicitly agreed that I
need time to build my own things on my free time, something she understand and
appreciate. She does react when it becomes too much, which is great, because
sometimes I do loose the track of time. But in general, yes.

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kohanz
It's early for me, but so far she has been behind me 100%. She supported me
quitting my FT job that brought in 75% of our income when our first child had
just been born to switch to freelancing. I think the key here is that the
benefits of this change weren't just felt by me: not only did our income
(security) go up, but I had more time to support her in child-rearing efforts
and was generally a happier person, so I think these benefits earned trust for
the next steps.

She is now also supporting me in dialing-down my freelancing efforts (and
therefore our income) to focus on bootstrapping a small startup, even as we
now have two young children. Outcome unknown, but I keep her posted and we
talk about the business (ideas, ups, downs) on a regular basis.

That said, I myself am a very risk-averse person and we both are the kinds of
people that have always lived frugally or "within our means". This means that,
as a family, we have a very low "burn rate" and our runway on savings is very
long. So the "risk" of failure is not really that high. We both know that if
disaster struck (and yes, we have insurance too), I could get a 9-5 job almost
instantly (as much as that might suck).

I think one thing to remember is that your spouse is only going to support you
as long as your decisions benefit _both_ of you (in the long run, at least).
You want more time to work on a side-project? What are you going to change in
your life so that your spouse is also getting some benefit?

Anyone wanting to delve a bit more into this type of relationship, I recommend
listening to the Zen Founder podcast
([http://zenfounder.com](http://zenfounder.com)). Rob Walling (Startups for
the Rest of Us, Microconf, and someone who's insight and opinion I respect
greatly) and his wife Sherry talk about a lot of founder issues, but I find
that the candid back and forth between them gives you a great look inside
their relationship dynamic. They don't always agree, but they _trust_ each
other. That's what counts the most.

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genbit
Yes, I share us much as I can with my wife, so far she gives the best
entrepreneurial advises.

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acedinlowball
Yes, my wife and my son have been supporting me throughout the 3 startup exits
I have overseen. They have sacrificed a lot of time and effort to support me.
In return, I have earned enough money that none of us will ever have to work
again.

I love having a supportive family.

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jetti
Sort of. She isn't adverse to the idea of me making money doing what I love
and I'm not looking for giant profits, just enough to cover monthly expenses
(though I'm not opposed to making more, I'm just keeping it real at this
point). That being said, she doesn't want me to spend any of our money. My
company bank account has the short lived freelance work I've done, which I'm
running out of. It is hard to do things to drive traffic without money so I
have to get creative

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Johnny_Brahms
She wasn't. Then I sold a thing I did and it paid off our house and invested a
whole lot of money so that we don't have to care much about our retirement
funds.

It wasn't a huge amount of money (about 10m SEKR, in my opinion vastly
overpriced) but considering it was a thing I did just for fun in the beginning
I am more than happy with the end result.

