
The lifestyle business bullshit (2009) - wslh
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1686-the-lifestyle-business-bullshit
======
InclinedPlane
Some people don't realize the implications of hours worked on effective wages.
If you work more for the same income you are giving yourself a pay cut, and
worse a free time cut. If you work less then you are giving yourself a raise,
and increasing your free time as well, a double whammy.

Most people have trouble thinking like this though. They lose themselves in
their work, filling up their time with trivial and menial work (or even, as is
typical, spending a lot of time in the office not actually working very much)
instead of trying to maximize their effectiveness. They think that somehow
they shouldn't work too little because of some sense of a work ethic based on
economic systems that are now outmoded. And too they think that earning a high
income while working only a little is too much like being actually "rich".
Nobody likes being rich these days, they like the money well enough, but they
don't like the idea, they want to justify their wealth with long hours at the
office.

~~~
harshreality
There are still many menial jobs that cannot be automated (not cost
effectively). Encouraging people with menial jobs to seek higher effective
wages increases everyone's cost of living.

Until robots can do all the menial work, and build themselves too, a lot of
people are going to have shit jobs. I don't see any way around that.

Philosophically, is it better to have more people each doing X hours/yr of
menial work, rather than fewer people doing X+n hours/yr of menial work?

In the spirit of the recent thread about EVE, it seems to me that the impulse
which game makers depend on to keep people playing games, particularly MMOs,
is similar to the impulse that keeps people doing menial jobs. Both involve
long hours spent doing uninteresting work, and rare random rewards. People are
conditioned to feel good about getting through tedious real work as long as
they get occasional random high-value rewards (salary or praise or both).

~~~
zanny
I don't think it isn't that we can't build robots that can do menial work
(mcdonalds casheers, farm laborers, road workers) it is that the investment to
get the return is not worth the cultural wall to replacing dead end depressing
work for people who would otherwise have no jobs due to limited education or
drive for excellence.

------
AznHisoka
I think it's mostly investors that make fun of lifestyle businesses. Other
entrepreneurs, not so much.

~~~
AVTizzle
Very true in my experience. And as recently as 4-5 months ago, I was
listening.

Really not far from "brainwashing" as DHH called it. The 37Signals message is
a very, very welcome and refreshing signal amongst the noise of investments,
valuations, and exits.

------
timjahn
Amen. There's more to life than business.

If you want to devote your life to creating and running a world changing
business, do it.

If you want to devote your life to your family and kids, and use a "lifestyle
business" to fund it all, do it.

Just remember one is not better than the other. To each his /her own.

~~~
robryan
I don't think it is that clear, businesses that people to devote their lives
to also get called lifestyle businesses. People that aren't taking big rounds
of funding, only reinvesting profits. People that don't intend to IPO or be
acquired, rather are building a sustainable business.

Whether that is the official definition or not, that seems to be the
distinction I have seen around here.

~~~
timjahn
Agreed.

My point is simply that either way is fine. There is no right answer here.

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Cushman
> It’s been a long time since there was a direct correlation with the number
> of hours you work and the success you enjoy. It’s an antiquated notion from
> the days of manual labour that has no bearing on the world today.

It has never been true. Success has always been primarily correlated with the
circumstances of your birth. This is not an antiquated notion so much as a
fabrication invented to trick the less fortunate into putting up with it.

In that sense, it is as relevant today as it has ever been.

~~~
pbiggar
I have no data on this, but my spidey-sense says you're both wrong. If I had
to put money on it, I'd say:

\- success is correlated with hours worked (though it's by far not the only
variable)

\- education is more strongly correlated with success than birth is

\- education is strongly correlated with birth

What do you reckon?

------
randomdata
I have read on here several times that many entrepreneurs want to squeeze
their entire working lives into a few short years, banking on the big payout
that will set them free.

37signals, on the other hand, was in business for a long time before Basecamp
was even released to the public. It has been a slow road, relatively speaking.

I respect what 37signals has done. It is the way I would want to build my own
business. However, have they really worked fewer hours to reach some
arbitrarily high income threshold? I would suggest probably not. It has just
been spread out over a longer period of time.

~~~
subLimb
But perhaps one could argue that this resulted in those hours being more
productive because they were more spread out. So assuming what you're saying
is true, they could have gotten more productivity out of the same number of
hours as another business that condensed its work more.

------
dm8
First of all, "lifestyle business" is a terrible name. I'd like to know who
coined that term?

To my main point - With risk of getting downvoted. Why not think bigger?
Building business is hard. Be it local publishing house or web based product
serving millions of customers all across the globe. It requires same amount of
(to quote Churchill) "blood, toil, tears and sweat". Then why not to swing for
fences? In smaller markets chances of survival might be higher but survival
doesn't equate to success.

~~~
famousactress
Seriously? There's loads of reasons why not, and while I agree that it
requires similar amounts of blood/toil/tears/sweat I'd say there's a bunch of
differences.

[Background: 12+ years as an early employee in fence-swinging tech startups,
also started and ran/run a modestly successful wedding photography business
with my wife]

Our wedding photography business is _definitely_ a "lifestyle business" by the
usual HN definition. What a silly term and a silly set of ideas. For one
thing, it's profitable. That makes is _more_ profitable than the _vast_
majority of startups. It gets old spending other people's money and I have to
say that one of the things I found most informative and invigorating about the
photo business was that it really re-reminded me the value of profit and the
fundamental idea of being in business in the first place.

[It's also craaazy educational to be _any_ kind of founder. Honestly, standing
up the photography business might be the single most valuable thing I've done
in my _tech_ career]

Beyond that, our business (really my wife's business at this point.. I'm so
busy with another startup that she does everything nowadays) makes a couple of
dozen couples incredibly happy every year. I can't tell you how satisfying we
find this. My wife shoots their weddings, becomes their friend, shoots photos
of their children's first years.. It's a really incredible gift. The
assumption that scaling up/out to serve a larger market would be such an
obviously better idea is short-sighted and frankly kind of sad.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that there are loads of people swinging
for the fences and tackling huge problems that have huge markets. So many
awesome things come out of that! But don't fall into the trap that ultimately
leads to thinking that it's the only way to go.

~~~
timjahn
That's awesome.

And the best part is that you already realize how awesome your business is and
why it makes more impact on the world than any of the hundreds of random
social-photo-buying-contact-managing startups that come out of the Valley
every 6 hours.

------
edandersen
Lifestyle businesses are awesome if it is _your_ business (ownership as in
equity, not 'responsibility for all the bugs'). Be careful if you are joining
someone else's lifestyle business and make sure you know what you are getting
into. Depending on the person, there can be nothing worse than only being
employed to maintain the founder's lifestyle with no plans for growth, company
or career-wise.

------
j45
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

The only people who use "lifestyle business" as a way to downplay, minimize or
trivialize a business are often people who have the "lifestyle" and are saying
it to people who don't have the "lifestyle".

The best lifestyle to me? Being free of time and obligation to bills to truly
chase any crazy idea you want and any funding that may or may not come it's
way.

There's a lot to learn from building any business seen as a lifestyle
business, namely, you pick up the end to end business skills you didn't have
to go big.

The alternative? Get funded and pushed out when you don't have the business
chops to grow.

Go hard or go home? Get real, I want to create great things forever,
sustainably, not try, fail and go back to finding a job. The part of being
successful that makes you a well rounded person is non-neogotiable. Maybe
folks here are still in their 20's with no real other responsibilities or
obligations or priorities. This is my second internet boom and I can say as
much as I've enjoy every second, I enjoy living for a living just as much.

------
jakejake
You would think that this article is obvious to the point of not really being
necessary to even write. But, I think hanging out on tech forums like HN you
read about billion dollar buyouts, massive IPOs and basically I think it gives
the impression that is the only way you can consider yourself successful is if
you are a part of one of those deals.

I kinda equate it to wishing you were a rock star. It's a lot of show, but in
most cases it doesn't result in any particular happiness. And it doesn't even
result in a lot of financial success except in those extreme cases - and only
for the early employees. There is a perception of excitement but even the day-
to-day working long hours is sometimes not that much fun either.

On the other hand there's a lot of businesses out there that don't get much
attention. Unfortunately it's not all that exciting to read about on HN with a
headline like "I make a decent salary at a no-name company and have a nice,
comfortable life"

------
jeffio
I work from home and I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with my kids. I've
built a successful startup and am launching another without compromising
anything. It IS possible and our breed of entrepreneur is more common however
underrepresented in the startup community.

~~~
wmboy
"I work from home and I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with my kids."

That's crazy impressive. I tried working from home and was only ever
productive if I worked till early in the morning. Daytime productivity was
terrible with 2 little kids detracting me... perhaps my house is just too
small.

------
gavanwoolery
Yes, you can work very little and be very successful if you play your cards
right. And there is nothing wrong with that, certainly. But hard problems are
hard. There are a lot of easy problems I could work on, and probably get
funding and then flip the hypothetical company for a quick profit, but I am
more interested in the risky, hard problems that most people wisely would not
invest in. If you look at the names that history remembers, they all worked
their asses off to achieve something great.

------
Lucadg
We're building an online business while traveling. We're 3 months in Mexico
this time. Tomorrow we'll go for a month long trip by car around Mexico and
we'll spend those long hours on the road talking about the next feature,
enjoying the scenery or stopping for some tasty tacos somewhere. The million
dollars may come one day but I don't take any chances: I spend my time capital
wisely as you can't buy time. Once it's gone, it's gone. A

------
wisty
I think the main point is, 37 signals runs a bit like a lifestyle business -
agile, low stress, no overtime; because that's what they think is the most
profitable way to run a software business. Even if they _wanted_ to do
overtime, or were in a more cut-throat niche (i.e. taking on Facebook) they
would run their shop the same way..

They aren't doing things the way they do because they think it's glamorous, or
because it's easier.

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drats
This is pretty trite nothingness, even for 37signals. I am not sure why it's
been upvoted either as it's not even recent either.

------
jbyers
(2009)

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connorlee
All work and no play makes Sally a dull boy. Or whatever. But seriously: don't
over-work yourself. I mean if you really want to, go for it, but the quality
of your work will decline with you. Meet some new people, go hiking, go
outside, eat better, live better, work better, and your work will look better
with you.

------
AnnaVital
Lifestyle business is just a business that is not scaled. That can be either
because of its nature or by choice.

