
Y Combinator, a Two-Year-Old, and a Pregnant Wife - tadmilbourn
http://tiempoapp.com/y-combinator-a-two-year-old-and-a-pregnant-wife
======
aresant
I love articles on this topic because they're uplifting and hopeful, I hate
them because they are unrealistic.

Y-Combinator's expectation for start-ups is that they are to be "all-
consuming" (1)

From Sam Altman's "Before the Startup":

"If you start a startup, it will take over your life to a degree you cannot
imagine. And if your startup succeeds, it will take over your life for a long
time: for several years at the very least, maybe for a decade, maybe for the
rest of your working life. So there is a real opportunity cost here."

In my personal experience start-ups are terrible for young families.

If you expect to have a balanced-family-life and still also out-work / out-
hustle 20-year olds or 40+ year olds (older kids) that are out for your blood
you are setting yourself up for failure.

I've been through this exact grind with young children born 18-months apart
and you are FORCED to choose.

That uninterruptable family dinner?

Wait until an investor flys in to SFO unexpectedly and wants to go out on the
town.

Being around for more of the "little things”?

Wait until you are forced to marginalize the importance of being there on your
kid's actual "birthday" because heck, you'll be at the birthday party this
weekend and you need to be in Dallas for a sales meeting.

I am writing those two anecdotes from my own personal experience.

Working up on start-up #XX with plenty of success under my belt, pre-set
expectations that I'm going to do this "balance" now, etc.

It's unrealistic, and I have been forced to choose my start-up and my team
over my family to succeed, and it sucks.

But that's my path, and that of many others here.

I have incredible respect for anybody juggling y-combinator, a working spouse,
and two kids.

But you have to be made of steel to undertake this path and look at the
sacrifices you will make as a husband and father in the eye.

(1)
[http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html)

~~~
trcollinson
We get into a mindset that this is the only way to start a business,
particularly in technology. And while I think you have touched on a number of
good points, as did the original poster, I think we need to come back to the
reality that businesses have been started for a long time in many different
ways. My father, grandfather, great grandfather, and great great grandfather
have all been in business, they have all started them in different ways and in
different industries. "If you start a startup, it will take over your life to
a degree you cannot imagine." That is a strong and hyperbolic statement. In
fact, with all respect to Sam Altman, his entire statement is quite
hyperbolic.

Can a business take over your life? Absolutely not! Can you allow a business
to take over your like? Absolutely!

I have been involved in and started a number of successful businesses. I am
also actively involved in my marriage (I have had exactly 1 wife, we've been
together for just a bit). I have 6 kids. I go to birthday parties, soccer
games, teachers meetings, and camp outs. I even volunteer at the schools.

What happens when someone wants to schedule a meeting when my wife has dinner
ready? I tell them to move it.

What happens when an investor flies in and wants me to take them out for a
night on the town when it's the choir performance night at the elementary
school? I tell them I can't.

Have I had investors leave me because I would not play their social games?
Absolutely! And I was glad that I didn't have to deal with them again.

Now, have I missed things? Yes. But I have gotten pretty good at looking at a
schedule and planning around things. I want a close personal relationship with
my wife and kids, so I have made that my priority.

When people ask me how I do it, I tell them honestly. I am the CEO/CTO/CIO, I
make the rules for me. I am not a slave to my company nor its success.

~~~
cik
Bang on - I couldn't agree more. Wish I could +10 this.

My version of that is that there's a difference between living to work and
working to live. It's really up to you, how far you allow your business to
encroach on your personal life; it's up to you how much of a workaholic you
want to be.

I see my kids every morning, have breakfast with them, and drive them to
school. I have dinner with them every night, albeit at 2000, and they're very
young. There's a (stereotypical) North American mentality that dinner needs to
be early for children, that they can't stay up late, and then there's the rest
of the world. Kids can nap for an hour or two around 1630/1700, life won't
end.

Call me during dinner time, and you're instantly on voicemail. Employees know
it, investors know it, business partners know it. Dinner is sacrosanct, I've
literally never missed dinner with family.

Some people will leave you, some people can't work that way- but that doesn't
mean your company can't. Sometimes that means losing great talent, there's a
shocking amount of the world that (currently) NEED their work to be all
consuming. That's okay, it just means my companies aren't for them.

A shocking number of investors actually get this, and respect you for it.
There's no need to dance around the 'knowing what you will not bend on' phase
- because you're up front. Equally, the approach helps you focus on the time
you do have. It helps you maximize the time you're using, because of the need
to get what's truly important.

Businesses will come and go. Fortunes will be made and lost (hopefully made!).
But you only have X years. If you want to spend them engrossed overarchingly
in business, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're like @trcollinson, and
others like us, then family is the priority.

~~~
001sky
This ingores the bias of investors. The original post is quoting investors, so
I don't think its a speculative bias. You seem to be suggesting to ignore the
wisdom of "know your customer"\--and for many founders/ceos investors are as
critical a customer as any (equity is just another a value added product).

~~~
ryanbrunner
If we want to look at investors through the lens of a customer, I think that
we should also acknowledge that sometimes you need to fire / turn down a
customer. Different investors have different expectations, and compromising
fundamental beliefs about how you want to run your business in pursuit of cash
is going to be a horrible experience for both you and the investor in the long
run.

~~~
001sky
People join YC to get the contacts and credibility to implement this strategy.
But suggesting that they have the ability to implement such a strategy before
having such credibility is flawed. The conditions precedent for it to be a
viable ptactical are not in place. That's all I am saying.

Chelsea Clinton or Ronan Farrow doesn't need to do Y combinator if they want
to launch a startup, they have their parent's rolodexes as assets on their
balance sheets. But most people are looking to "raise social capital" along
with raising financial capital. And to do this, other considerations come into
play.

Of course, one can always use a calculated social transgression as a form of
breaking into the establishment. That's also a proven stragegy, but its not
without its own risks and is really beyond the scope of what started this
comment thread. But it does need to acknowledged, so that's fair.

------
aepearson
As a father of two - articles like this come off as incredibly pretentious and
I have a really hard time even finishing them.

I feel like so many in the "startup" culture are completely trapped in an
imaginary bubble that literally means jack shit to anyone outside it.

You aren't changing the world out there...you're building business.

You are a father and a husband making a conscious adult decision to put work
over your family...writing this little "how-to" article does not somehow make
you immune to that reality. Venting your elitist self-serving views to the
general public does not make you any less irresponsible, much less some sort
of "leader".

"From 5:30pm-8:30pm, I’m not a startup CEO. I’m a dad." <\- That statement
right there pretty much illustrates my point.

No amount of money will ever replace what you're missing out on at home - I
guess you'll have to figure that out on your own though. Hopefully your wife
and children will give you back the same 1/8th of their time and focus that
you give them.

~~~
tadmilbourn
It's interesting that others in the thread have implied that I'm not spending
enough time on my startup and will be out-hustled.

My wife and I both work. So, we have our kid in daycare. 5:30-8:30 is actually
100% of the time from daycare pickup until she goes to sleep. If she doesn't
go to sleep until 9:30, then that means I'm with her until then.

On the weekends, I work while she naps or is having one on one time with her
mom.

My point is that I'm spending as close to 100% of the hours I have with my
kid.

I grew up in Green Bay, WI (about as non-bubble as you can get) with a dad who
worked nights. Once I was in school, I'd see him at dinners only. But he made
every soccer game I was in. He had to make choices between his career and his
family. And I think he did an excellent job of it. His time with me, though
less than my mom's, was always attentive. We have a great relationship. I
think he made the right choices for our family.

This isn't just a Valley issue...I just happen to be in the Valley. Many
parents struggle with how to make the tradeoffs between work and family. My
hope in sharing my situation is that others can get another perspective and
maybe take away a thing or two to try.

~~~
zak_mc_kracken
> It's interesting that others in the thread have implied that I'm not
> spending enough time on my startup and will be out-hustled

You're not spending enough time on your start up AND you're not spending
enough time with your family. You're losing on both counts but you will only
realize this in ten years.

What's the rush? Couldn't you have accepted a job at a big company for a few
years while you plan a start up once your kids are a bit older?

~~~
nostrademons
FWIW, there are ample counterexamples of startup founders who have had young
children and done very well on both fronts. For example:

All but one of the Fairchild Eight had young children while founding Fairchild
(and the modern Silicon Valley).

Jan Koum had two young children while founding WhatsApp.

The Zenter founders both had young children during YCombinator, and ended up
getting bought by Google.

It can be done. I doubt anyone would consider it easy, but the data certainly
doesn't a blanket claim of "You're not spending enough time on your start up
AND you're not spending enough time with your family."

~~~
avalaunch
You didn't list any counterexamples, or at least we have no way of knowing if
they are counterexamples. You've listed a number of examples where the startup
founders had young children while successfully growing their companies but we
have no way of knowing whether they were equally successful on the parenting
front. Perhaps they sacrificed their parental responsibilities to achieve
their business success.

------
scald
I can relate. My wife and 2 toddlers were 12 hours away for 4 months while I
did an accelerator this Summer. I saw them about a week a month.

Guys like us are in the minority. A lot of people told me I'm nuts for putting
my family on the back burner to chase this dream. I told myself I wasn't going
to let work come ahead of them, but yeah, I put them on the back burner for 4
months. At times it felt nuts. My kids are growing up fast and I'm working 18
hours a day across the country. Some days, it took immense amounts of
willpower to not jump on a plane and dip out.

I used the military analogy with my wife when she complained. Hell, how many
guys went over to Afghanistan for months without seeing their families? A lot
of them never came back. A ton more risk, for what? Priority boarding and
discounts on oil changes? (I have a ton of respect for those guys, and no,
they don't do it for perks or respect.) Compared to that, I'd say the upside
of this opportunity is what they call once in a lifetime.

But in reality, a lot of those folks didn't really have better options. I
could make a good living as a developer if I wanted to. If I'm honest, doing
this startup thing with a family requires me to be pretty selfish most of the
time. But selfish in a good, weird way - working 80 hours a week so someday I
don't have to work 40, so I can take my wife and kids to Hawaii for the summer
someday, or whatever.

Luckily for us, the experience of the accelerator was worth every pain point.
It probably only gets harder from here. Now I'm back with the family, with a
(soon to be) funded company, and will have to make those tough juggling
decisions on a daily basis. It's all about finding boundaries and balance.

Off to pick my kids up from daycare...

~~~
comlonq
Terrible analogy.. Your wife complains about you being away so you tell her to
shut up becuase military families have it worse? Yeah... when my kids are
hungry, I'll tell them to quit complaining because some kid in Africa is worse
off....

~~~
prawn
There is a politer way to phrase this.

~~~
comlonq
I not able to come up with politer wording yet I'm downvoted. Total
discrimination.

------
dominotw
What is this strange bizarre heroism around having kids? I don't get what the
big deal is. People have been reproducing for thousands of years without
writing self eulogizing blogs about how heroic they are. Have kids if you want
to or don't, you are not some kind of martyr for reproducing.

I've seen women who go to do hard labor in rice fields the following day of
giving birth, its business as usual.

~~~
danieldk
_I 've seen women who go to do hard labor in rice fields the following day of
giving birth, its business as usual._

And heroic. We have a baby, but I can't imagine the pain my wife had to go
through. Even if it happens to a substantial part of the population, it's
still heroic.

~~~
general_failure
Well, there's a point at which the word 'hero' won't make sense anymore if you
use it this way.

Not having kids is a heroic thing to do since it's quite a brave decision not
knowing how the older you thinks.

Leaving kids and working all the time is heroic because you are keeping many
people in your company employed and you are selflessly working for their
happiness.

Taking care of kids and not working is heroic because you said screw you to
the corporate world.

And so on. See my point? It becomes like everyone is 'special'.

------
ryanSrich
Interesting article. I guess I don't quite connect with it because I feel like
the challenge, by far and away, would be financial, not social.

Living with someone and being married to them requires an intimate
understanding of who they are as a person. Being able to work through those
hard times is something I can do. Being able to make the hard decisions is
something I can do.

Being able to go without a salary for 4 years, own a house, provide for a
family, and work on a startup is something I couldn't do. In fact no one talks
about this. I suspect many founders are either:

a. working on their second startup and have a huge bank account full of cash
from a pervious exit

b. come from an extremely wealthy family where money has no effect on their
decisions

c. are in fact paying themselves a salary (and hiding it from investors?)

d. have a significant other that can support the entire family

~~~
tadmilbourn
Very good points. Part of why I was able to make the "startup leap" is because
my wife and I both worked at Intuit for 7.5 years. We established a good
amount of savings that allows us to not have to worry so much about things
like the cost of daycare/diapers/etc.

If the finances were tighter, that would add another level of stress to the
equation.

~~~
ryanSrich
Awesome. Thanks for responding.

I guess my assumptions of YC founders are that they are 20-something college
dropouts with no previous work experience. Thanks for proving me wrong. This
gives me hope that my 25 year old self still has time left :)

~~~
tadmilbourn
I'm 31! You're not over the hill yet :-).

In fact, our whole founding team was 30 and married. There are many different
configurations for starting a company. My advice is to take whatever your
situation is...and use it to your advantage.

------
CodeJackalope
I went through this journey with Tad. Not having a kid myself it's been
amazing to learn about the demands of starting a family while simultaneously
getting overwhelmed by the challenges of a growing startup.

As Tad mentioned communication has definitely been the key. And often
situations where Tad or Kyle's parenting demands seemed like an inconvenience
to Tiempo have actually helped remind us all why we are doing this crazy
adventure. And we come back swinging even harder the next day.

So kudos to all you startup parents out there. It's a tough road but I'm
confident you and your family are going to come out stronger for the journey!

------
Tyrannosaurs
The thing which I always see missing from these descriptions is the persons
other half.

The usual logic runs - from 8am to 6pm I'm at work. From 6pm to 8.30pm I'm dad
(or mum but realistically it's usually Dad). Once the kids are back in bed I
get back on to e-mail, catch up with what I've missed and start planning the
next day.

That's great - you've covered work and your kids/family as a whole, but where
are you fitting in time just as a couple? I'm not talking about weekends away
or big nights out (though those are tough enough), I'm talking about just
fitting in time to talk and catch up and remember why (and indeed that) you
like each other.

For me that's the toughest one. You or your other half can find time on your
own - that's easy, the other one takes the kids. Time as a family is always a
default for any spare time because guilt drives you towards your kids. The
tough one is time as a couple because it's the one that by default comes after
everything else and is therefore the first one to get squeezed.

------
tadmilbourn
My thoughts on ways to balance the needs of a growing startup with the needs
of a growing family. Would love to know what others in similar situations have
tried. What's worked? What hasn't?

------
nkozyra
One of the biggest misconception in the startup world is that there is a 1:1
relationship with the unquantifiable "hustle" and time spent in front of a
computer.

Long story short from me: a few years back my company was courted by one of
the big guys. We had a staff of four and immediately thought "this is it."
They asked a lot of us in this "discovery" process, and I was routinely
working 18 hour days, and my productivity dipped further with each day. As I
clamored to work more and therefore "get more done," I ended up getting less
done than ever.

The deal fell through but not due to not coming through for them.

Fast forward to last year when my wife and I had our first kid. It's an
_immediate_ hit to your flexibility. For the first few months I felt helpless,
I wanted to work all day long but I was exhausted. The more I tried to sneak
work in, the less I got done, the grumpier I was and the less time I enjoyed
with my family.

It took months, but I realized that productivity in limited time is about
efficiency and delegation. It's about finding what time-consuming
responsibilities can be handled by others (either through charity or payment),
it's about reducing recreation (or scheduling it for a certain time).

I spend less time working now than I did when "hustling," but I get more done.
When I sit down in the morning it is time to go. I don't check Facebook when I
work. I don't go out to lunch, unless I'm meeting someone.

Hustling is about effort, not time invested. Don't fall into the trap that
says you can't beat someone with more time to spend on something, you just
have to work that much smarter.

It's a mistake to call it "balance," it's really about efficiency. Don't waste
your time with your family and don't waste your time with your company - and
finally: know that most people _do_ waste time.

------
stevewepay
I'm at a YC startup, and our culture is very much to not have late nights,
work people to death, etc. The belief here is that working people to the bone
does not build a scalable business, and the only way to grow at a sustainable
pace is to maintain regular work hours, have realistic goals in terms of work,
and to give people a life outside of work. Sure, we all monitor our emails on
our phones, and on occasion we need to work a little extra, this is still
Silicon Valley. But many people here have young families, and the office is
pretty empty by 6:00pm.

------
reshambabble
One of my favorite things about this article is it's a dad (with a spouse who
also works), talking about how important his family is to him and his
struggles to have both family and work (AKA "having it all" when some women
talk about the same thing). It's refreshing, because it shows that wanting to
be both a caregiver and a breadmaker for your family isn't just a women's
issue. I wish more articles would come out like this.

------
JoseVigil
I am married with a seven years old beautiful boy.

The hardest part for me during these years of entrepreneurship have been the
hassle of not giving enough financial resources to my family and instead
putting money blindly into the company and project. In an "early" stage is
likely and inevitable waste and mislead of money without exception.

That, in my opinion is the hardest part of all aside from the time spent and
the amount of love given mentioned. Personal elections and freedom of choice
is cool but when the live style of your family is affected turns cumbersome
and contradictory. I can tell a lot about that.

Furthermore if the project fails, most of the time do, that money is gone and
gone for the family too. Of course we all know that the experience pays off
and the longer term economy will be much better, but at last.

During the journey, your mind plays tricks that opposes completely to a family
type of thinking of saving and caring about moving money to and for the
family.

Thats life, and part of the freedom of being moved by dreams and vision.

------
ryanmarsh
I'd love to know how he paid his mortgage while in YC. We're a single income
family. My co-founder is single and his financial liabilities are nearly zero
(he's a minimalist) so he could make it work. Do you just burn savings?

Lastly, what if you lost all of your savings in your previous startup? _asking
for a friend_ ;)

~~~
tadmilbourn
Hehe...well, I'd tell your "friend" to build up some savings.

My wife and I both had very nice jobs at Intuit for 7.5 years (she's now at a
new company). That allowed us to build a nice nest egg. Instead of spending
that on a down payment for a house, it's now the cushion that allows us to do
it.

So, not having a mortgage to pay helps :-)

Living within your means to build up some savings also helps.

I wouldn't have been able to do this if we hadn't done those things. Which is
why I'm a 31-year-old doing a startup instead of fresh out of college.

~~~
ryandrake
Seems kind of unrealistic, at least given the cost of living in the Bay Area.
Even if you're able to put away, say $1000 a month for 10 years, for a family
of four, that's about two years of very frugal living expenses. Oh, and you
have to fund the business too. Congratulations to you that you managed to do
it though!

~~~
nostrademons
$1000/month is pretty low savings for someone who works in tech in the Bay
Area. It's not unrealistic to put away $10K/month if you hold a senior
position at one of the major tech companies (think about it: total comp can
easily run $250K+/year, so you're taking home about $160K/year after taxes.
Save $120K/year and you still have $40K/year to live on, more than most non-
tech workers get). At $10K/month you can save $600K in 5 years, good for about
10 years of living expenses if you're frugal, more if you get good investment
returns.

It's also not unheard of for tech workers to skip the "found a company" stage
entirely and retire off their savings, with F-U money, after 10 years in the
field.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
If that someone is a single person or perhaps married without children, and
with few or no debts it's pretty low. If they're a person with a young family
and school debts I could see $1000/mo being a decent target (it's expensive to
rent out here, and more expensive to buy).

The scenario you describe applies to a fraction of a fraction of even Bay Area
tech workers, because being "in tech" in the Bay Area is not at all
necessarily synonymous with having a >$200k/yr (total comp) job with a "major
tech company." It's unrealistic to assume otherwise, and it's unrealistic to
believe that people to whom the scenario does apply are the best or only
source of good business ideas and execution.

------
stevewilhelm
Fast forward four years from now.

Parent teacher conferences, AYSO, play dates, music lessons, September flu &
strep throat, recitals, Y Adventure Guides, homework, walking the puppy,
Gilroy Gardens...

Balance that with board meeting prep, sales road trips, recruiting, fund
raising, OKRs, product reviews, hack-a-thons, conferences...

Good luck my friend.

~~~
yesimahuman
If that's your full time job, then how is it different from any other career?
The thing people don't realize here is time spent doesn't actually mean
anything. If you are just "hustling" all day it doesn't mean you are making
progress. It's a false badge of honor.

Also, these responsibilities force you to learn how to delegate. If you are
doing everything yourself and not enabling your team to share the work and add
their touch you are doing it wrong.

I'd rather work with a balanced founder than one consistently on the edge of
burnout and insanity.

------
idlewords
"One advantage startups have over established companies is that there are no
discrimination laws about starting businesses. For example, I would be
reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was
likely to have them soon." \- Paul Graham

~~~
hawkice
It's surprising to me how seriously this is taken. Not many people would
identify anti-workplace-discrimination laws as burdensome regulation. Most
people (at least among the intelligensia) would just not discriminate and be
done with it.

The odd thing is, Graham doesn't appear to be even suggesting a criticism of
any cover-your-ass bookkeeping, and he doesn't appear to say the regulation
isn't the best tool to achieve equality, or any other more nuanced critique
that may or may not end up having merit. He's suggesting that discrimination
is good.

------
chuckcode
I'm surprised about the number of judgemental posts and lack of real world
approaches to help manage a classic resource allocation problem.

We are all balancing priorities where we want to spend our time (and high
quality time) between work, friends, family, hobbies etc. We can choose to do
fewer things and we can try to be more efficient in the things we choose to
do. What are approaches that HN has found useful to help do either?

Personally I like some of Tad's approaches to set expectations and balance two
things that are obviously very important to him. Shared google calendar and
asana todo lists can certainly help communication with family and work but I
haven't found anything that substitutes for spending 1:1 time with the
toddler...

------
imranq
For some reason there is this myth propagating across SV that less sleep =
more productivity... the fact is that if you get half the sleep you are
supposed to, your work is not going to be 1/2 as good. It is going to be
1/100ths as good. Not a great position to have your "life's work" in.

That said, I admire this guy and his tenacity to work hard and smart.

As you can tell, I read a lot of DHH's stuff :), particularly this talk:
[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2351](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2351)

------
foobarian
Every now and then you see young people be advised to do X "now, before they
have a wife/family/mortgage." X can be a startup, getting a PhD, trip around
the world, etc. My view is that doing things differently is biting off more
than one can chew and is selfish. Having done a brutal Ph.D. I cannot begin to
imagine having had a child at the same time, and the irreversible damage to
the kid / opportunity loss / regret that would have resulted in.

Of course if you can make it work and live with yourself, more power to you.
:)

------
belorn
Interesting to see two articles on the same subject posted with about a week
between, one about being a "mom" in Y Combinator
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8456258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8456258)),
and this one about being a "dad" in Y Combinator.

~~~
tadmilbourn
Susan is awesome (she's a batch mate)! And made a hugely difficult decision
with her LA to SF commute.

I was working on an outline for this post two weeks ago then I saw Susan's
post hit and I thought two things:

1) People are very interested in this topic and 2) I should probably hold off
on my post for a week :-)

------
curiousDog
As someone who is single and works as a programmer at a Big 4 and still
struggles to make time for social life, would be nic e to see a write-up like
this from an engineer. From what I've experienced, if you're coding day-day on
high pressure projects, keeping tight-schedules like this is damn near
impossible.

------
DigitalSea
In a few short months I am about to become a dad myself, our first child. I am
currently trying to get a startup off of the ground and it is refreshing to
read other people have, can and currently are doing it. Based on what I read,
it seems Tad has his head screwed on.

Missing the wanky networking events, hackathons and realising that it is a
fallacy the more hours you put in, the more work you get out. This has been
proven time and time again, we are all human and we all have that point where
our brains switch off and stop absorbing information. Putting in excessive
hours does not give you any kind of advantage, when people are happy and
refreshed, they are productive. How many times have you stayed back working on
a complex problem, only to go home late without solving the problem, to come
in the following morning and fix the issue in 15 minutes? It has happened to
me more times over the years than I could count.

I have had numerous chats with my wife about how it will all work. She does
not work in tech and will be a stay at home mother, but we have already laid
the groundwork for how things will work. I want to be there for my child, a
child is forever, a startup has such a small chance of succeeding long-term.
Setting boundaries and being there for dinners and night time tuck-ins are
essential to a happy family.

For me, the weekdays will be for work and startup life with a set boundary of
a couple of hours for dinner and after for spending time with my child. The
weekends will be mostly off limits to spend time going out and doing fun
family stuff, picnics, going to the pool, arts/crafts, watching movies and
spending quality time with my family. Make your time count, do not let your
children grow up remembering you as always being on the computer, especially
if your startup ambitions pass you by, all you have left is your family.
Weekdays should be for work, not weekends.

The challenges my wife and I will face drastically differ from those that Tad
and his wife experience on a daily basis, but I think the core principles of
being there for your children regardless of your arrangement are universally
important for any would-be entrepreneur, small business owner or startup
founder to remember. We live in a technology enabled world so much so, even
when you step away from a computer screen, your smartphone is just within arms
reach and it can be all too easy to open up your email and get just as
absorbed in work as you can on a computer. It can be incredibly hard to turn
off work mode and relish the time you have for the more important and
rewarding things in life.

I think incubators like Y Combinator should honestly do more to encourage
healthy family life in the land of startups. Instead of pushing founders to
drive themselves and their teams into the ground to get a paltry $50k or
whatever, the culture needs to be changed at the root of the source. This
fallacy that you need to invest 19+ hours a day into a startup early on to
succeed is unhealthy. I do not know where it originated from, but I know that
it has not always been like this. When entrepreneurs in the 40's and 50's were
starting businesses, I know for a fact most people were not investing 19 hours
a day into their ideas, technology seems to have removed not only barriers,
but also boundaries and morals as well.

There is not one single definitive way to run and operate a startup. We are
all different, but because of an accepted culture of overtime perpetuated in
the late 80's and 90's especially, everyone in the tech industry has mostly
come to accept that overtime is a way of life and to succeed you need to put
in excessive and unrealistic hours. It is time to change the tide.

I think the one takeaway from this article everyone should take, even if you
are not trying to run a startup or business, is to make time for the ones that
need you the most. When all is said and done, family is the only constant you
will have in your life. Jobs come and go, startups fail and succeed and
friends come and go, family are always there. This means instead of going to
after work drinks or accepting a culture of overtime in your current
workplace, knowing when to draw the line and put what matters first, first:
family. Not only family, but ensuring that you see friends, go and do
activities like visit a theme park, go to the zoo or even a short hike through
your local park. Remind yourself when time and priorities permit that there is
more to life than work.

Great article.

~~~
prawn
Get used to trying to be productive in shorter time spans (interrupted by
feeds, etc) but it is absolutely possible. You will get more efficient with
routines and systems and even gain some satisfaction from getting things
running smoothly so your time is spent best.

My son is 2ish and my morning routine has gone from "Ugh, have to get up" to
all fun - talking with him about our garden or animals or a dream he had,
making him laugh while I dress him, having breakfast together, making Lego
animals, showing him insects in the front garden on our way out to the car,
etc.

------
lynnah
Great topic. So important. I found this book super useful.
[http://www.stonyfield.com/blog/for-better-or-for-work-a-
surv...](http://www.stonyfield.com/blog/for-better-or-for-work-a-survival-
guide-from-meg-hirshberg/)

------
bernardlunn
Beautifully articulated and I believe that the balance is hard but possible.
It is of course easier to succeed in business if you ignore your family (and
your health and your sanity), but that would certainly be a Pyrrhic victory.

------
dirtyaura
Do you have more blog posts about Tiempo on the site? The site doesn't offer a
link to a blog. I'd love to read how you guys are doing business-wise as we
are doing something related but tangential.

~~~
tadmilbourn
There are others that I've written up that I'm transferring over. Some were on
Medium. Experimenting with different publishing platforms to figure out how
best to engage our audience.

I'll wire up connections to other articles. In the meantime:

[http://www.tiempoapp.com/how-minimum-is-viable](http://www.tiempoapp.com/how-
minimum-is-viable) [http://www.tiempoapp.com/tiempo-blog-how-we-got-this-
freelan...](http://www.tiempoapp.com/tiempo-blog-how-we-got-this-freelancer-
paid-in-less-than-an-hour) [http://www.tiempoapp.com/tiempo-blog-the-
surprising-power-of...](http://www.tiempoapp.com/tiempo-blog-the-surprising-
power-of-a-thumbs-up)

~~~
junto
I just followed some of these links back to your website. Just a bit of
feedback for you which I hope is useful!

I'm on a mobile device and when I try and look at the screenshots on the app
they keep moving. They are impossible to look at properly. It's like trying to
nail jelly to the wall. Maybe a simple image slider would be better?

As a father of two children I found your article interesting. For the moment I
have decided that I would prefer to stay contracting in the enterprise on
extremely fixed working hours rather than try the start up route. It is a
personal decision and each of us needs to make our own choices. My choices are
about having a lifestyle that is comfortable and secure but where my career is
mediocre. I know that and I accept it.

------
simi_
I read the title and realise I'm in the exact same situation: I have a wife, a
2nd year-old son, and my wife is 5 months pregnant. And tomorrow my startup
finds out whether we got into YC W15!

------
karlaugsten
I cant help but think of Erlich Bachman's 'Aviato' when I hear 'Tiempo'.

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
Which Elrich sold for a ton of money... like Steve.

Anyways, 'Tiempo' means 'time' in Spanish.

------
comlonq
Jesus christ man - all of this sacrifice for a time sheet application? Is it
really worth it?

------
tytytytytyty
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/tadmilbourn](http://www.linkedin.com/in/tadmilbourn)

Yet another business graduate in "Computer Software"... sigh...

This is why YComb is a damn joke.

~~~
tadmilbourn
That's offensive to me on so many levels. I know some HTML and CSS, but no...I
can't code. And I have a business degree. And...oh god...look at that haircut.
Run! He might have an MBA (I don't)!

Just because I'm "non-technical" doesn't make Y-Combinator irrelevant or
inappropriate to me (or for anyone else).

If you look at the very LinkedIn profile you link to, you'll see that I've
been a product manager at Intuit for nearly 8 years prior to founding Tiempo.
I've dealt with creating software that entire time. I've learned how to build
teams. I've learned how to build businesses.

YC is for people who want to build great companies. I fall firmly into that
category.

Plus, my cofounders can code. Check out our app if you still don't think we
belong ([http://www.tiempoapp.com](http://www.tiempoapp.com)).

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
Don't mind him, it's a common prejudice most "tech" people have against
everyone else. Sometimes, I even catch myself falling into that mentality.

I am coming from the opposite direction - very good coder but not a very good
business man or graphics designer. I am also a new father. I always appreciate
tech industry articles written from a non-"techie" perspective. My life
philosophy is to know at least a little bit of everything, so that my
solutions in life can be better informed.

------
Animats
_Y-Combinator 's expectation for start-ups is that they are to be "all-
consuming"_

Yes. If your wife is pregnant, she's expected to have an abortion so she can
concentrate on the business.

