
Internet Entrepreneurship: How to Avoid Becoming a Stressed-Out Loner - Red_Tarsius
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MichaelGnade/20140107/208141/Internet_Entrepreneurship_How_to_Avoid_Becoming_a_Stressed_Out_Loner.php
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regal
Am I the only one who spends 16 hours in front of a computer (mostly) working
6 days a week, managing staff exclusively through email and oDesk, and loves
it? Maybe it's because I view the entrepreneurship stage as the filling
between two sides of the cookie sandwich, with tons of partying, debauchery,
and socialization in the years before I got into it, and tons of it on the
other side once the damn thing's finally making enough money to hire a real
management team to watch the stables for a while, while I go out and take a
years-in-the-making vacation to end all vacations... then come back and get to
work until I don't feel like working on business anymore.

I also don't use Facebook, Twitter, or anything else along those lines... if
you want to reach me, you can email me, and I'll respond when I check email
once every few days, or if you're one of the very few people who has access to
my phone, you can call or text me and we can chat or grab dinner. No
cyberstalking or hours lost to staring at social media inanity wondering why
I'm not a part of all the pretend-excitement people portray themselves as
engaging in for me. Wonder if this vicarious living through people's puffed up
social lives on social media isn't a big part of why the author feels so left
out.

~~~
thraw
_16 hours in front of a computer (mostly) working 6 days a week_

This is not sustainable no matter how much you love it. There is simply not
enough time left to live healthy life - rest, exercise, be in a good
relationship. Please do not do the same mistakes I made. I used to say what
you say and I used to love my work. But I burned out. Love turned into hate. I
had to quit - I just could not do it anymore. And I was left with severe
depression, anxiety attacks, health problems and worst of all - loneliness. I
did not have time for social life and now I have no love in my life, no sex,
no intimacy, no meaning, nothing worth living for. I wasted few years of my
youth that I will never get back and I just hope that somehow (with a lot of
help from my therapist) I will be able to recover and enjoy life again... but
it seems almost impossible now. I am in a really bad place right now... and I
see you going there as well and loving it.

~~~
freakadelic
I completely agree. I'm just 23 and I burned out, last year I decided going on
my own, freelancing and launching own products. That was a hard year, a lot of
stress, anxiety attacks. I made a huge mistake. Hopefully I'll try to change
this.

~~~
MyNameIsMK
This thread hits home with me. Its been a year since I went all into building
my product. Its taken some time since I'm a solo founder and I am willing to
accept that. It sucks. Sometimes you start questioning what you're doing. I
started getting sudden anxiety attacks late last year. Abnormally long
work/coding hours take a toll on your health. My most recent anxiety attack
lasted 3 hours. Anyway, if any of you are in the sf/bay and want to hang out
talk about product or whatever, I think there's a lot we can relate to. There
needs to be more positive encouragement in our community.

mk

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jborden13
Beautiful post. Abstract out the gaming aspect, and throw in a couple of kids,
and I would've believed that I had written it. In my experience, it only gets
harder once you start reproducing. All that kick ass time you have to
decompress (hot Yoga, etc.), is now replaced with home stress (which is >=
work stress) - and it only compounds everything.

I find that I increasingly crave human interaction (besides screaming children
and agro SO), and really appreciate human connection more and more, when it
does happen. But sometimes that human interaction comes at a cost of
productivity and therein lies the rub.

My cutoff for work is supposed to be 11pm (shutdown all devices and decompress
for at least 30min befor bed), but eventually things flare up - I'm up until
2am for a few weeks and forget all about my 'cutoff'. A few months later, I
realize that I need a cutoff again. Vicious cycle.

Sorry, I'm rambling. I guess what I'm ultimately trying to say is that you are
not alone - I think it's the price we pay, but it's always good to be smart
about our approach.

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danneu
I'm 25 and live precariously off of the meager income from my own projects.

My goal is to grow my income so that I can "finally do what I want", but
sometimes I wonder if I'm squandering my life in a delusion.

Recently, my safety-net project suffered a catastrophic collapse out of
nowhere and now I'm quickly trying to rebuild it.

Over time, an increasing amount of my energy is spent warding off the specter
of self-doubt.

~~~
mercer
I'm moving towards doing more of my own projects, but for the past two year's
I've been quite happy with contracting three to five days a week. It's harder
to work on your own stuff when you're working for someone else in an office
for more than three days, but it's a good way to save up some money and it's
nice for a change.

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kermal
"The Struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first
place.

[...]

The Struggle is not failure, but it causes failure. Especially if you are
weak. Always if you are weak."

So untrue. You are not weak if you quit ! And conversely, you are not strong
if you don't quit.

Sometimes, you should quit, and it takes courage to do so: when you gave so
much to your project that quitting breaks your heart.

~~~
31reasons
It was kind of funny to read the whole "Struggle" part. My response is, Nobody
is forcing you to go through the struggle. Live in Bangladesh for $1/day and
you will know Struggle. Whoever wrote it is seriously need to get some
perspective.

~~~
mercer
And while the author is at it, he should stop complaining about anything
because there is always someone worse off than him!

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dclara
No lonely, no focus. No focus, no productivity.

Programmers are a different creature from other people. But enjoy.

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BryanB55
This is something I've thought about a lot and I think a lot of the loneliness
comes in the early stages of being an internet entrepreneur, the times when
you don't need to / can't afford to hire full time employees and open an
office. For me at least, my ideal working environment would be something like
the way 37Signals is setup. When you get to the point where you can hire a
handful of employees and open an office but only go to the office when you
feel like it.

Another option that also sounds fun is to startup a small retail company,
maybe related to one of your hobbies, something that at least requires some
foot traffic at a physical location. Find someone to run it and go there to
manage and check on things whenever you feel the need, or better yet, grab
your laptop and work on your internet startup from there.

It seems that all my ideas require you to have some extra cash and time on the
side though so they're not always possible for a 1 or 2 man bootstrapped
startup. If you can get to the point where you've got things running pretty
smoothly with your internet company and are making decent money, these options
might be something to look forward to.

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Kiro
> Few or no colleagues

> Working remotely is lonely

Both pros for me.

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lowglow
We created tribes ([http://tribes.techendo.co/](http://tribes.techendo.co/))
to basically combat this while expanding your network and resources. If you're
in SF, you should join us. If you're not in SF you can take our guidelines
([http://tribes.techendo.co/rules](http://tribes.techendo.co/rules)) and help
create a tribe in your area.

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city41
People with experience with this, what do you think of coworking spaces? They
seem like a great solution to the loneliness and can even yield some nice
networking. Any downsides to them?

~~~
chrisduesing
They are loud. Then again I am a programmer, so headphones can solve the only
real downside for me. I don't have to make calls all day.

But to more specifically address your offering a coworking space as a solution
to meeting other people. It probably comes down to personality, but I am an
introvert and find it very difficult to just start talking to someone. So, it
ends up a bit like being at a party full of strangers. You are pretty sure
there are some cool people around, but have no idea what the first step is for
locating them and then breaking the ice. There are sometimes happy hour type
events, but people tend to group up with people they already know and give you
the 'what do you want' look if you start the slow awkward approach. Again,
there are lots of people who are good at this, I am not one of them.

To summarize, it can be a good solution or not depending on your personality.
My solution is to schedule lunches with my friends and people I have met who
were interesting. That lowers the burden of meeting new people at the
coworking space, which can then happen a little more organically.

~~~
jotm
What if it was a coworking space that first introduced the members, what they
do and what their plans are, etc (as an ice breaker). Being able to gather
many entrepreneurial minds in one building is quite powerful, many
opportunities there...

~~~
andy_boot
Many coworking spaces have 'after work talks' or work with local meetup groups
so they end up doing this kind of thing.

They are loud though - I worked in one once which was full of recruitment
people who yakked on the phone all day, not nice.

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cpursley
Interesting. I also graduated with a degree in Real Estate at about the same
time as you (bad timing) and have since moved on to the software industry
(self-taught).

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darklrd
Very beautiful put and aptly said. And, yes in the end, it's worth the reward.

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bryan_rasmussen
Too late, voice of wisdom, too late!

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jaiball
another casualty here.

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mumbi
does it bug anybody else that the alt text is in the stress level screenshot?

