
Sacrifice your health for your startup - lrm242
http://blog.asmartbear.com/blog/sacrifice-your-health-for-your-startup.html
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pg
I disagree with this. It's a net win to exercise. You're repaid for the couple
hours a week you lose with greater productivity during the remaining hours.

This is the crucial mistake:

"How much time does a bootstrapped company take? All of it."

That's not true. What a startup (bootstrapped or not) takes is 100% of your
performance, not 100% of your time. And optimizing for performance means
spending some time on maintenance.

For the same reason, it's not good to live on junk food. It makes you less
productive. The best food for founders is probably rice and beans. That's what
we lived on during Viaweb.

~~~
gcv
_The best food for founders is probably rice and beans._

I disagree with this suggestion. One, the human body does not readily digest
beans. Two, rice is a pretty heavily refined food, and white rice especially
has been stripped of most of its nutritional value
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice>).

From the perspective of spending minimal time, I suggest the unintuitive
solution of learning to use slow cooking techniques. Most slow-cooked food is
fire-and-forget: quickly prepare the ingredients, start the heat source, and
get back to your hacking. Three hours later, you have several dinners' worth
of excellent food.

Example: A simple beef stew takes about twenty minutes to prepare. Chop up
about 1.5 lbs of beef into small pieces, dice one onion, mix with 1.5 lbs of
unpeeled (but properly washed and scrubbed) fingerling potatoes cut in halves.
Mix with salt and some water in an enameled cast iron 5-quart Dutch oven. Put
in a 375-F oven. Return in three hours. You now have about three days worth of
dinners. Improvise with spices as you see fit.

~~~
baguasquirrel
There's more people living on white rice in this world than there are people
living in the Western world. Coincidentally, those parts of the world
(especially China and Japan) have higher-than-expected life expectancy than
most parts of the West. I do not know for sure what makes for healthy living,
but simplifications like "white rice is bad" have a lot of real-world evidence
going against them.

~~~
ardit33
you are failing to account about genetic differences between asians, and
whites (or other non-asians).

Being European, and having been raised with consuming milk/cheese/yogurt
products daily, I was stunned to learn that most people of the world are
lactose intolerant, and have hard time digest milk.

Also, we Europeans do use bread a lot. And wheat bread is probably a lot
healthier than rice, even brown rice.

~~~
sedachv
"And wheat bread is probably a lot healthier than rice, even brown rice."

No dice. Wheat and rice have a similar nutritional profile, however the more
grains are processed, the more nutritional value they lose. Bread made from
bleached flour is about as nutritional as sugar water; this is why it has to
be fortified with vitamins, which sound pretty on the label but aren't
actually digested the same way as they would be if the wheat was processed
less. Rice (even white rice) beats out bread every time.

------
bad_user
This is the worst advice I ever saw, and I hope it's not taken seriously by
new startup founders.

I used to work 14 hours a day, with 5 hours of sleep, and another 5 hours for
everything else. This lasted for only 3 months, but were enough for the
following to happen:

* I exhausted myself. I tried being on schedule and keeping up with the original pace, but in fact my productivity lowered so much that I was LESS productive than in a time when I used to work 3-5 hours a day

* I had developed serious health issues ... because of sleep deprivation I began having supra-ventricular tachycardia episodes

* I became isolated, and lost touch with friends. Lack of social interactions leads to depression and paranoia, and I was there

* I couldn't hold the project in my head and I couldn't see the bigger picture anymore. I was unable to make pragmatic decisions anymore, and whenever I had to make a choice, I got lost in endless arguments (paradox of choice at its peak)

* Good software projects require so much more than technical expertise. When you're exhausting yourself to work, you're bound to lose touch with the real world

* I ended burned-out, and I'm still recovering

Most people are unable to work for 6 hours per day (in the zone). If you're
able to constantly maintain 8 hours per day, while maximizing your
performance, then you're already ahead.

------
edw519
OP overlooks one critical consideration:

Health math is counterintuitive.

Example (extreme): Suppose you work 12 hours, 6 days per week because that's
all you have available.

12 * 6 = 72 hours per week.

Now suppose you decide to add exercise, 1 hour per day, 6 days per week.

You'd intuitively think that would leave you with 6 less hours for work,

72 - 6 = 66.

But the exercise could improve your health (and therefore your effectively
while at work, let's say by 10%)

Then you'd have 66 * 1.1 or 72.6 hours of _effective_ work.

So by exercising an hour per day, you get _more_ work done.

I realize the assumptions and the math are oversimplified, but you get the
idea.

No reason for a tradeoff when none is needed.

------
TrevorJ
This sort of thinking is the same thing we see in economics as well.
Overextending your debt to bet on the future. The problem is, nature always is
payed what it is due. _Always_.

You can skimp on sleep, skimp on eating, skimp on personal relationships, but
you WILL pay for it someday, and in spades. Maybe not today or tomorrow but
this sort of 'deficit spending' when it comes you your health will absolutely
come back and bite you.

~~~
pwncat
This is correct. The problem is that so many people, including top decision-
makers within society, are too short-sighted to care about this notion of
deficit. "Someone else" will clean it up. Externalized costs and myriad
variations of deficit spending (widespread layoffs despite the long-term costs
of an underemployed nation; education cuts; environmental damage; ramping up
social inequality on both the national and world scale, setting us up for
violent revolution and national dissolution) are being tapped for short-term
profit even when it's completely unnecessary. That a sizable portion of people
are going to disregard their health, working insane hours and using substances
of dubious long-term safety, isn't surprising in the least.

------
jf
I just had the realization that, regardless of financial need, I am going to
be working until I'm 70.

This is based on my observation of dozens of people I have met who have won
big in the startup lottery. None of them needs the money, but all of them are
still working.

So, assuming that I have 40 more years of work ahead of me, I've come to the
exact opposite conclusion as the author of the article: I need to take very
good care of my hands, arms, eyes, brain and always be learning.

------
tom_rath
Wow, this is horribly bad advice and the examples provided to bolster it
appear disingenuous.

Sure, Mark Cuban lived on bar food and crashed on a single couch in an
apartment shared with a number of other guys, but that was before he'd even
started as an employee selling software at a small tech shop! As soon as his
means let him live better, he did.

The example provided for Penelope Trunk is even worse: The temporary
blindness, stress-induced pain, and apparent psychosis seems to have cropped
up just as her latest company started accelerating down the road to ruin ( as
told at, [http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/05/7-things-to-
conside...](http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/05/7-things-to-consider-
before-launching-a-startup/) )

I don't know how long the author's been in business but, if you follow your
own advice, your body is likely to give out before your company has an exit.

Your company exists for your benefit, not the other way around.

------
feverishaaron
Having sacrificed my health for my last startup (and largely failing), I
fundamentally disagree with the premise of this article. Over 2.5 years I had
gained over 30 lbs, and even now, 6 months after quitting it, I am still
dealing with the consequences of being unhealthy.

I can tell you that you will see no gains from forgoing an exercise/healthy
eating regimen. The time you save is very minimal, and often offset by the
need to "screw around" and surfing the web, or hanging out and talking.

Now that I am exercising and eating (better) on a regular basis, I am more
focused on the task at hand, have more energy, and more importantly, the
emotional balance to tackle the tough daily challenges that running a
business/working for yourself brings.

Others' lives are a testament to this as well. While not scientific, I have
noticed that well over 90% of the "successful" businesspeople I know have a
regular workout and healthy diet regimen.

------
sh1mmer
I think this topic applies to any work-a-holic, startup or not. The question I
have is though, is working all the time really the most productive for your
startup?

Sure people can work all the hours that god sends but they can't do it
indefinitely. From my own personal experience I know that when I do an hour of
exercise every day I sleep less and have more energy. That goes for food too,
fast food carb-bombs reduce my productivity dramatically.

I think anyone that suggests that you can optimize one things and ignore
everything for success is not offering you a complete or balanced picture.
Sure one (or more) people might have been successful while doing that, but was
it the thing that gave them their success? Personally I would content Mark
Cuban's success comes from his drive, and he'd still have won if he'd got a
few more early nights.

------
bravura
Without your health you cannot do work therefore health must come first.

Most of the hackers/programmers I know lack a mind-body connection. They live
in their minds and are wired to their computers. Many forget that they even
have a body--for hours, weeks, months. This can have disastrous consequences
later in life.

They are practising "deprivation chic"--they get a feeling of satisfaction out
of self-deprivation. Because it hurts they think they must be doing the right
thing.
<[http://nymag.com/news/features/48887/>](http://nymag.com/news/features/48887/>);

As a 27-year-old entrepreneur and cancer survivor, I can tell you that
deprivation chic is just stupid. The long-term sacrifice of one's health is
never acceptable.

It is possible to find a work-life balance. But many people get a sense of
validation from working for work's sake. It's easier for many to program and
blog and run a business than it is for them to cultivate personal
relationships, exercise, and enjoy recreation. "The Business" is a great
excuse to validate an imbalanced life.

That said, it's possible to be productive and successful without sacrificing
health and recreation and personal relationships. It just takes a bit more
creativity.

------
mannicken
Ok. Reducing his argument to basics, it's better to do work than to do
anything else. This means it's better to do work than to sleep. This means
it's better to do work than to eat. This means it's better to do work than to
drink.

However, if you don't sleep, eat and drink you will die => you won't be able
to work. If you "sacrifice health" you will die and you won't work at all.
Like a runner who runs first mile of a marathon under 4 minutes and then dies.

Of course, you might say "oh, don't take it that literally". Oh but I will.
Otherwise this article looks like a brainwashing, blurry, biased, illogical
propaganda, a lot like religion. And don't even begin to ask me about
religion.

Reminds me of macho hackers who spend 30-40 of brainless hours before
computers pointlessly writing code in ineffective languages. Why? It doesn't
help.

Personally, I became a programmer to automate shit I don't like so I can spend
less time doing that and more time playing lasertag. Build a leverage => do
more with less.

------
smartbear
(I'm the author of the article)

Good comments, thanks. I was hoping others would argue the other side; indeed
that's also why I started the post with four excellent articles about how you
CAN have a family and good health and do a startup.

I, too, have done a decent job with exercise and diet. And of course when you
allow your health to deteriorate to the point of having medical problems,
nothing's worth that (e.g. @pwncat).

Still, I've never seen actual evidence for claims that skimping on sleeping
and eating for a few years will cause you to "pay for it in spades"
(@trevorj).

The best counter-argument IMHO is along the lines of @sh1mmer -- that over-
extending yourself doesn't equal more productivity. Again, I made that same
point myself in my post and included a specific argument for why this is true.

In the end though, I maintain that it's the obsession that drives not just the
startup but this self-destructive behavior, and the obsession is _required_.

Thanks all for a great debate!

~~~
ispivey
I think many more people can agree that passion/obsession is required; self-
destructive behavior can be caused by this obsession.

But your post suggest the causal link is the opposite: that sacrificing health
and family can lead to success. I think that's misleading, and hope you don't
believe it either.

~~~
smartbear
Of course being unhealthy doesn't lead to success. I suppose the title might
suggest that but obviously that's artistic license.

The message is that obsession is key and often the trade-off is in favor of
time with the business and not time where it might be "better" spent.

If you're funded, you don't need this advice. If you're not -- and I've done
two bootstrapped startups myself -- I'm not sure you can escape it.

------
sharpn
All interesting deadline-based work involves _some_ degree of overworking at
one point - not just startups, but journalists, project managers & many
others. But the problem with asking 'successful bootstrappers' whether it was
all worth it _in hindsight_ is survivorship bias. _They_ survived & got
successful. Ask someone whose great idea failed because they fell ill & you
get a different picture - especially in the US where leaving a job to startup
_can_ mean foregoing medical coverage.

There are times when a burst of excessive work is both necessary & beneficial
- but it's not universal.

------
rubikscube
No thanks, my health is more important than money.

~~~
benhoyt
Yeah, dead right. And even if he was right and it "worked", I'd still be
saying no thanks. My family is far more important than money.

------
richesh
working on a startup is not a sprint, its a marathon and you need good health
to run it. Maintaining health is vital to your thought process and your
ability to make better decision.

As an entrepreneur, I workout 5 days a week (sometimes more), and it only
takes away 1.5 hours of my time. And during which I listen to podcasts, or
think about feature designs, etc. so its not total 1.5 hour lost.

------
tdavis
I've lived various stretches of my life in balanced and utterly imbalanced
states and I can say with quite a bit of certainty that balance _always_ wins,
both in terms of happiness and performance.

The other thing about sacrificing everything for your startup that people seem
to forget is that when you sacrifice everything and your startup fails --
which, statistically, it will -- you're left with nothing. Having no money is
an inconvenience next to being in poor health and having nothing else in life
to fall back on emotionally.

At any point in life where you're sacrificing everything and removing all you
have to fall back on, you're setting yourself up for failure. Nothing in life
is certain, but nothing in life is _less_ certain than a startup.

------
strlen
This just doesn't seem to be empirically true. When I took on demanding jobs I
found that I needed to exercise _more_ as I'd need to concentrate for longer
stretches of time.

The first position that I took out of college was a fairly demanding (in a
good way) and challenging position. At the time I was overweight and began
experiencing some early stage diabetes symptoms (constant thirst, fatigue).
I've found that I'd _want_ to do more work but lacked the energy. Losing
weight and developing a habit of exercise greatly changed that and I have been
able to not only work longer hours, but to more productive when working same
hours.

Some of the most "hard core" entrepreneurs I know specifically make a point of
exercising, even if they do nothing else besides work the entire day.

I also wonder if there any other needs that, if neglected, greatly impact
immediate performance (in addition to just being a sort of "deficit spending"
in the long term): e.g. if one is an extrovert and is left with no time for
social/group interaction is their performance degraded as well (and conversely
if an introvert spends all of his time working in a high-interruption open
office environment)?

------
known
Health is Wealth.

------
mrbgty
No, you shouldn't do this.

Balancing in exercise will only help you. You're better off reducing the
number of features you create and focusing on your core feature.

While you're exercising, you can think about how to make that core feature
even better.

------
anamax
My brain seems to be a bit happier with a level of blood sugar that leads to
weight gain, even with exercise. Caffeine doesn't seem to completely offset
this.

Any suggestions?

~~~
bravura
sounds like you need to train your body to be happy with less sugar...
gradually reduce the amount of sugar in your diet - could lead to diabetes

~~~
anamax
It's not my body that likes blood sugar, it's my brain.

And, when I say "my brain likes blood sugar", I mean that it's happy when I'm
grazing on bread-like carbs, which produce glucose, not sucrose/fructose/etc
per se.

~~~
bravura
yes, your brain needs sugar to function - one of the reasons I find that low-
carb diets are awful for my productivity - my brain shuts down If you're
living on carbs that's not good for you either

------
frd
We are very obsessed with success. We can sacrifice everything in pursuit of
an idea, our health, family and friends. But success is empty, we have
different ideas of success. What will be the next sacrifice if you win?

------
cmars232
This is a great example of why I don't have a startup project right now.
There's nothing I can think of that I care about enough to want to work like
that.

------
pwncat
Terrible idea, actually. The productivity gained by the health sacrifices is
dubious and might be counterbalanced by the negatives.

Sacrificing most of the fun but not productive activities that fill the hours
of less-ambitious young people (video games, TV, social drinking, chasing
tail) is reasonable (I haven't had a drop of alcohol, or been on a date, in
months). An occasional 5-hour night of sleep can be justified by a freakish,
almost hypomanic productive streak. Sacrificing one's health for work is
idiotic, and going 7 years without taking a vacation is nothing to be proud
of.

[Edit: I developed panic disorder from working through a severe flu, in an
overbearing environment. I'm still on meds, over a year later. So I have
personal experience to support my claims.]

~~~
TrevorJ
To follow this up, I would also say the risk/reward ratio is not stacked in
your favor.

How happy and fulfilled would you be if you had a successful career but your
health and personal relationships where in shambles? In my personal
experience, nothing matters as much as those. I have been in a situation where
I very nearly died, and let me tell you, you don't think about your career, or
the money in situations like that. Those things simply are of no comfort.

