
Does Startup Life Have To Be A 24/7 Grind? - alexmturnbull
http://blog.groovehq.com/post/47537406719/does-startup-life-have-to-be-a-24-7-grind
======
outside1234
The reason this meme exists is that there is a huge economic benefit to (some,
not all) founders and VCs to perpetuating it.

It attracts only young impressionable shutins to the startup and they feel
like if they aren't working 18 hours a day they are slacking. Plus there is
the "Stanford/Google effect" in play where everyone claims to be
studying/working all the time but aren't if you factor out the foam dart / BBQ
/ bro time.

~~~
w1ntermute
> foam dart / BBQ / bro time

Oh god, all my life I've seen people waste _so much_ time and then claim that
they're _so busy_. It has developed into a huge pet peeve of mine, especially
when they get pissed when I arrive to work at 8 AM and get up to leave at 5
PM. And I've done more in those 9 hours than they've done in their last two
16-hour days.

~~~
Swizec
Coincidentally, you'll find that it is impossible to spend more than ~6 hours
of focused time on a single type of task. If you have different types you
might be able to stretch your total focus to about 8 or maybe 9 hours.

So if your main job is coding, you can probably spend about 6 real work hours
on that. This leaves you with another 3 hours to spend on stuff like email, or
writing or whatever. Certain types of hobbies do count into this as well.

~~~
willurd
"Coincidentally, you'll find that it is impossible to spend more than ~6 hours
of focused time on a single type of task"

I'm not sure who did this research, but I can tell you from personal
experience that this is simply not true. Maybe I'm a freak of nature but when
I was first learning how to code I would hold one man hackathons in the summer
from the moment I got up until deep into the night. Similarly, when I was
younger and played a lot of RPGs, I would play quite literally all weekend,
pausing only for sustenance and a little bit of sleep, and usually
multitasking on the food part, far surpassing 6 hours of focus time.

~~~
inDigiNeous
When I was younger I could do it easily too, hack through the night with the
power of some caffeinated cola drinks, easily doing 12h hackathons. When I was
16 to about 20 years old, that is.

Nowadays it's a bit different. My body just can't take the sitting in front of
the computer for so long. Maybe it's a good thing though, but it really makes
me want to think about how I spend my time on the computer and seek those
creative hours when I am able to get into the zone and just code.

Usually I find myself doing from anywhere to 2 to 4 hours of concentrated
creative work a day, and that's it.

~~~
willurd
After speaking with a couple of people that have ADHD (I've never been
diagnosed, though I probably would have been with my behavior and
inattentiveness during my school years), I've worked up a pet theory that so-
called "ADHD" or "ADD" is what allows people to hyper focus like this.
Granted, of the people I've talked to, including myself, that hyper focus
really only extends to things they are truly interested in, but it's real
nonetheless. I found this out for myself when I got into programming (as
stated above).

As for me, I've noticed the amount of time I can focus on something go down a
little over the years as well, though I still occasionally get inspired and
hyper focus like I used to.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
That's not just your pet theory, it's commonly accepted by psychiatry.

One of the defining characteristics of ADD/ADHD is ability to focus for
extended periods. The main reasons ADD gets a bad rap is that people (often
children) are either focusing on something that adults don't want them to
focus on, or there is nothing interesting that holds their attention so they
become easily distracted.

~~~
willurd
300 years in the future kids will be in school, uploading into their brains
the story of how in the early 21st century leading psychiatrists and willurd
independently discovered the fact that ADHD is actually a super power. Or so I
imagine...

------
andrewljohnson
My start-up is also not a grind. My wife and I are the founders, and we put in
our hours early on, but now we work a very regular 9-5 schedule. At least one
of us has to leave around 5:15 to pick up our son.

Our employees are also not asked to work crazy hours - we don't rush to get
releases out, we're profitable and growing, and we're not concerned about
flipping the company tomorrow. Our employees are also now in their late 20s,
and we expect them to have children and normal lives too, and we want them to
stick with us through that.

~~~
stephenhuey
Our founders have been true to their promise of work/life balance, and I
believe this contributes greatly to our team's success. We're quickly
expanding around the country without any VC breathing down our necks and
growing at a quicker pace than competitors who try to emphasize the usual work
hard play hard mantras. Some of the other comments on here ring true when they
suggest that certain kinds of investors benefit most from employees burning
themselves out. I think our well rested team with plenty of time for friends
and family tackles problems with healthier vigor than our tired competitors!

------
steven2012
I work at a YC startup, and we don't work a 24/7 grind. The VP of Engineering
believes that it's not sustainable to work like that, and you can't build a
successful company by burning out your engineers. Sure, when there are site
issues, it's all-hands on deck, and if you need to get something in for the
next push, then definitely you need to work your butt off, but that's just
being professional. For the most part, the pace is really great, and we are
all very productive.

~~~
jes5199
You know, there exists a technique that makes "get something in for the next
release" obsolete. Basically: have the marketing and sales people sell and
market the thing your engineers wrote last week, not the thing you hope they
will write next week.

~~~
matwood
That works once you have discovered your customers and market fit. Until then,
you need to sell first, then build.

An acquaintance of mine built her company by selling her idea all over town.
She got a few local businesses to sign on, and told them it would be a month
of set up time. Over the course of a month she got the business setup, hired
employees, bought computers, etc... 5 years of hard work later she sold the
business and is currently vacationing at some random place in the world.

------
swampthing
I'm all for not burning out, but I feel like there's something missing from
all these articles admonishing people to work less.

It's great that people can work 5-6 hours a day, no weekends, and still build
a great business. But if that's truly more efficient, should we expect to see
some massive billion dollar companies run that way? How much did Bill Gates,
Larry & Sergey, Jeff Bezos, etc. work when they were getting their companies
off the ground? When they look back, do they feel the time was wasted, or do
they feel it was necessary?

Or to the Metalab example, who's to say that the success Andrew experienced
when he cut back on his work was not due in part to the long hours he had put
in previously?

Not trying to admonish people to work more - just saying there's some missing
analysis here!

~~~
ebiester
We think of productivity as "how much can you get done in an hour" * "how many
hours you work."

Unfortunately, as humans, we need recharge time. If I code 80 hours this week,
the first twenty hours will be very productive, the next 20 will be slightly
less productive, the next 20 will be significantly less productive, and the
last 20 might be hurting more than helping.

After a day of rest, I might be back at the same productivity as I was for the
middle 40 last week, and degrade from there.

The irony is that the more hours I work, the less I get done, the less
difficult problems I can tackle.

Meetings take less out of people, be we still make poorer decisions by tiring
our brains rather than taking passive time to rest, and using spare cycles to
reflect on how we can squeeze more productivity out of the time we can work.

This, of course, ignores that some people burn out easier than others, and
some have higher peaks than others. Working a truly focused 20 hours is more
exhausting than 50 hours of semi-focused work for many people, and isn't
rewarded in many corporate cultures. Find your own personal style.

~~~
swampthing
Yea, I get the theory - my point is just that we need more than anecdotes when
it comes to posts like this.

------
russelluresti
I think the difference is what you're building the startup for.

Many startups aren't built to last. They're built to get to a certain size and
then sell off their product and make a decent profit from it all. In this
case, burnout isn't a worry because, if you get to the point where you're
burnt out, your startup failed anyways (in that it didn't achieve the goal of
attracting the attention of a larger startup-eating company). It's in these
environments that the 24/7 grind is most apparent. Or companies that started
with this model and then realized they couldn't sell and now have to try to
turn their quick-buck idea into something that lasts.

Some startups, though, are built to last. These are places where burnout is a
concern because they plan to be around for 10 - 15 years and they don't want
to have to replace their entire staff every two years. In these companies,
getting a good work:life balance is important for attracting and retaining
talent.

People tend to think that if you're passionate about what you do (or love what
you do), then you want to spend every waking hour doing it. But this kind of
behavior is self-destructive. Even if you think you want to do it now, it will
eventually wear you down and be unsustainable. Everyone needs to take breaks
and have other interests and activities. And sometimes you have to force
yourself or your employees to strike that balance.

------
eah13
I've always admired people who get more done in less time. We're in hustle
mode in our startup right now but I still try to block out time that feels
wide open to keep an eye on where we're headed and wind down a little. No use
in racing ahead if it's a dead end road.

To continue the vehicular metaphor, it feels like hustle culture advocates
burying the needle in the red zone, even though that's the least efficient
point on the power curve. And even though that's less a predictor of success
than what direction you're headed in.

There are absolutely times when you and your team need to live in the red zone
of your tach. But really that's a temporary solution to being caught in the
wrong gear. Amazing opportunity, can't upshift = gotta floor it anyways. But
curves ahead = can't floor it. All depends.

Hmm. That metaphor actually did OK.

~~~
purplelobster
It's also better to drive slowly towards your goal than to speed in the wrong
direction and never look at your map to get your bearings. After a few side
projects that never went anywhere, I spend more time taking walks and just
thinking about the direction I'm going and I'm spending less time doing
unnecessary work as a result. Sometimes you need a break in able to come back
to the project refreshed with a new outlook on things.

~~~
eah13
I've also found walks to be super valuable. They're times where you can't get
distracted because there's nothing else to do but think, like in the shower
(which is why so many great ideas happen in each). They also get a little
physical activity into your day which helps the brain work.

When I take walks with my wife we have great convos that won't happen on the
couch when we're exhausted. We walk this circular path around Duke's East
campus, which is about 2 miles. Having a defined path like that helps too- you
don't have to get distracted by where you're going or be temped to end it
early.

------
casca
TL;DR: not if you work for Groove, a pre-profitable startup that's received
$1.25M in seed funding[1]

<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/groove>

~~~
flog
Absolutely.

If you haven't been paid in 6 months, and you've got a 2 month runway you're
going to be working long hours.

------
jennyjenjen
This is exactly what Mike Alfred of BrightScope tells entrepreneurs,
particularly the young ones just going through school and figuring out where
they want to be in the scope of things. Until reading this, I'd hardly heard
anyone speak out this way. I think it's particularly important to put this bug
in kids' ears early; it's not sustainable to live and work like that, and
eventually it destroys friendships and relationships and takes a toll larger
than initially perceivable.

If it happens that 24/7 weeks exist for a little while, it happens. I get
that. But I think what bugs me most about this "24/7 grind" attitude is that
it's not a magic pill for a product that doesn't work or isn't destined to
become profitable (and I'm using 'destined' lightly here). I've seen plenty of
entrepreneurs go all-in on something and fail not because they didn't put the
work into it -- but because it wasn't a product that could succeed, even with
a tough grind.

------
segmondy
It doesn't, but it does too. Time is 24/7 and never stops even if you do. If
you have a great idea and you believe that in it, you will be fueled to go
24/7. If you are afraid other's might beat you to it, you will have no choice
but to go 24/7. The worst feeling in the world is having a great idea, slack
at it, and having others thoroughly beat you and stomp you to the ground.
While they are gaining traction, you are playing catch up. And you never catch
up. No founder wants to experience that, this is why startup life for most is
a 24/7 grind.

Because the prize most are after is the highest level. If you want to start a
business making $500k a year. You don't have to grind. But if you want a
chance at millions or billions then yes, you do have to grind. You are
competing at the highest level. It's like preparing for the Olympics.

In everything in life, there are exceptions. But such are not the norm or the
rule.

~~~
mindcrime
Not sure why you got downvoted for that. I can see how a reasonable person
could disagree, but your position is certainly not outlandish. In fact, I - by
and large - agree with you. Especially this bit:

 _If you want to start a business making $500k a year. You don't have to
grind. But if you want a chance at millions or billions then yes, you do have
to grind. You are competing at the highest level._

Yeah, if your ambitions are that grand, you can't really expect anything to
come easily... personally I feel like you have to be willing to scrape, kick,
scratch, claw, bleed, hustle and basically battle your ass off if you're going
to get there.

------
curt
Can't recall the study but a researchers analyzed optimal work behavior. They
found that the most/best work is produced when an individual works 7-9 hours
per day. The more creative the task (ie coding) the more skewed the optimal
time is towards 7 hours/per day. You also want to break the day into 2-3
segments with breaks in-between.

------
mindcrime
Well, that depends. For those of us doing the "bootstrap while working a
dayjob" thing, yeah, it basically does become a nonstop grind. Well, nearly
nonstop. Everybody has to take a break sometime.

For me, I allocate damn close to every hour I have outside of my dayjob to
working on Fogbeam Labs. Take out sleep time, and time to eat (plus occasional
diversions like grocery shopping, etc.) and it's basically:

1\. get up and go to the dayjob

2\. leave the dayjob and drive to Starbucks or Panera Bread

3\. sit there and work on the startup for 4-5 more hours

4\. drive home, eat, sleep

5\. lather rinse repeat

6\. Except Sat. and Sun, which is pretty much:

7\. work on the startup all day

Fun? In some ways yes, in some ways no. Healthy? Probably not. Necessary?
Well, I think so or I wouldn't be doing it.

My cofounder, on the other hand, doesn't go to quite the same extremes I do,
which is fine. I tend to be a little extreme by nature, and I don't really
expect anybody else to do the crazy shit I do. :-)

~~~
kayoone
Thats sounds like a good plan to self destruction. No Social activities at all
? No other hobbies?

~~~
mindcrime
Well, that depends. Right this minute, basically no, but that's because I'm
working on the road for my dayjob, and when I fly in for the weekends, I don't
get home until around 1:00am Sat. morning, which inhibits me from getting up
early enough for what would otherwise be my regularly scheduled mountain bike
group ride.

But, yeah, when I'm in town fulltime, I do about a 2 hour MTB ride on Sat.
mornings, weather permitting.

And, during football season, I do take out time to go to a sports bar and
watch the Dolphins game on Sundays. But even then, I take my laptop so I can
work during the breaks, or if the game turns into a blowout.

Beyond that, though, not a whole lot. I'm almost 40 and I'm running out of
time to achieve some of my dreams... so it's pretty much "nose to the
grindstone" right now.

But like I said... everybody needs a break every now and then. I will
infrequently just take a random day off and do no startup work at all,and just
kick back and watch movies, or go to the hackerspace and tinker with some
Arduino stuff or something. I don't do it very often, and I feel somewhat
guilty when I do, but I usually feel a bit recharged after one of those days.

~~~
jbooth
So your relaxing time is spent rooting for the dolphins? Now _that's_
unsustainable.

~~~
mindcrime
_sigh_ Tell me about it. _sigh_

------
SurfScore
At the end of the day it's just not one size fits all. Kobe Bryant sleeps 4
hours a night (he just tweeted that a couple weeks ago), and plays a
ridiculous amount of basketball every day. If I tried to do that I would end
up in the hospital. There's some people that will be able to work 12-16 hours
a day, and there's some people that can get things done in 6. Execution is ALL
that matters. Get it done in 6 hours or 15 minutes, just get it done.

The (original) article references Aaron Levie of Box, and how he works all day
long and doesn't take vacations. Box is valued in the billions, MetaLab is
not. Is there some correlation there? I'm not sure, but most of the "famous"
founders encouraging long hours tend to have had larger companies.

------
macinjosh
Yes, how else will founders gain their smug sense of superiority?

------
spoiledtechie
Fuck yes you do.

This is retarded. Ya, you can start relaxing a bit when your company is 50+,
but when you startup is just beginning, before profit, then fuck yes.

~~~
untog
Fuck no, you don't. Or maybe you do. How about we stop making universal rules?

You can bootstrap a startup quite successfully just using a few hours a week.
But not all startups. Depends what you're doing.

~~~
mindcrime
_You can bootstrap a startup quite successfully just using a few hours a week.
But not all startups. Depends what you're doing._

I guess that's true, when you consider something like patio11 and his BCC. It
doesn't sound like he was pouring 60+ hours a week into that (or maybe he was,
somebody correct me if I'm wrong, please).

But I'm also guessing that the set of startups that you can build with that
small a time investment, is pretty small. Especially if you're talking about
something that's intended to be a scalable startup, something that can be a
billion dollar business someday.

~~~
jes5199
if time was fungible, then working 40 hours instead of 60 hours would only
make it take 50% longer in calendar-time to get the thing done. And if you
have some other income stream, then that extra time might not matter much. And
if getting enough sleep and seeing your family makes you mentally healthier
the calendar-time penalty might be less than 50%. Maybe a lot less.

