
Ask HN: Schedule of a solo founder? - p0d
If you are a solo founder would you share what your week looks like e.g. spend an afternoon on x?<p>I have productive days and days when I feel like I am scratching around for scraps of leads and SEO. I am currently doing 1k ARR so money is tight and I want to make the best use of my time.
======
323454
The most important thing I've learned is that you need to find a balance
between discipline and spontaneity.

For example, it's good to maintain a few "anchor points" each day to break up
your time and help you break out of negative cycles or unproductive moods.
Things like going to the gym, maintaining a fixed wake up time or lunch time.
This is the discipline side, which helps you to train yourself to stay focused
on your goals.

But it's also important to listen to your own body and mind, and do things
that make sense to you in the moment. E.g. if you're feeling too tired to
work, accept it, go home and try again tomorrow. Avoid burnout. If you
scheduled a certain task for 11am but when the time comes you're in the zone
on something else, stay in the zone! This is the spontaneity part.

Discipline allows you to be spontaneous without guilt, because you know you'll
eventually return to the basic system of moving towards your goal that you've
established. Spontaneity allows you to adapt as you go to avoid unforeseen
problems or take advantage of unexpected benefits.

That said, on a work day (M-F) my schedule looks roughly like this:

6.30am - wake up 7.30-8.30am - gym 9-9.30am - write down what i did yesterday,
what i want to do today 9.30-11.45am - on task 11.45am-12.15pm - lunch
12.15-3pm - on task 3.30-4pm - take a break, make a snack, or go for a walk
4-5.30pm - on task. but if i'm tired go home early. 6-7pm - dinner 7-9pm -
relax, read, play music, hang out with my spouse 9pm - wind down, start
getting ready for bed

~~~
ykevinator
Your first sentence is spot on

------
nwienert
Somewhat solo founder for many years: I don’t have a schedule, on purpose. The
more schedule you maintain, the more you potentially lead yourself to burnout.

Each day I feel it out. I definitely load mornings more towards errands,
communication, planning. Depending on contractors or employees I shift
schedules to match them.

Motivation will come and go. If it goes, I’d advise to avoid resisting and
just let it go. Focus instead on “everything else” for a while, relax, and
think over why it may have left.

Just a few insights.

~~~
logicallee
>"Motivation will come and go. If it goes, I’d advise to avoid resisting and
just let it go. Focus instead on “everything else” for a while, relax, and
think over why it may have left."

I don't know if your advice is correct or not but I do want to add to the
discussion the fact that it is 180° opposed to advice I received to the
contrary: don't wait for motivation (which comes and goes); discipline is more
important, and that means just doing it, regardless of whether you're
emotionally motivated at the time.

Again just putting this out there because your advice and this advice are
opposites. No comment on which (or both) are correct.

~~~
muzani
I'm not sure if this advice applies to founders.

As a founder, I was always extremely motivated, to the point it was painful to
take a break. I required heavy discipline to _slow down_. At the point many
founders lose motivation, they have likely been working too hard.

~~~
logicallee
Interesting. So as a founder there was nothing tedious that you weren't
motivated for?

~~~
muzani
There were always tedious things, like refactoring, audits, dealing with
investors (the ones who are tire kicking). But as a founder, the tedious stuff
becomes a kind of high, something to look forward to. Think of it like
grinding in a game or hobby, vs the kind of repetitive grinding you do at a
job.

I think maybe one of the differences is that, as a founder, the more work you
get in, the less work you have to do later. If you were too efficient at a
job, you end up having to do more work at the same pay. Same goes for say,
homework, if you're getting straight A's, you have to maintain that work rate.

But as a founder, if you get this thing done, that saves you work for the
future and also means more money and less trouble in the long run.

------
hermitcrab
Solo since 2005. I don't really have much of a schedule. That is one of the
attractions.

Usually I work 8:30ish to 5:30ish Monday to Friday, taking time off for
errands and exercize. I also do customer support at the weekends. Sometime I
do a couple of hours work late in the evening. Sometimes I take the day off.
Depends on how motivated I am feeling.

You have to keep a balance between the many little tasks that need doing (e.g.
renew the office insurance, check adwords is running ok) and the fewer big
tasks that make the difference log term (e.g. program a major new feature). I
have a visual to do list that tracks tasks in my own software (
[https://www.hyperplan.com](https://www.hyperplan.com) ) so I don't forget
anything.

That feeling of not knowing what is the most important thing t0 work on next
(new feature, improve website, create an explainer video, improve the
documentation, tweak your PPC)? Get used to it. It isn't going to go away.

------
fbelzile
Sure, I've been a solo founder for about 3 years now and found myself most
productive with this schedule:

8:00: wake up without an alarm

8:00-8:30: easy customer support emails

8:30-9:30: go for a run

9:00-10:00: get changed, coffee, difficult support emails, planning what to
work on

10:00-11:30: work on project X

11:30-12:30: lunch

12:30-14:00: work on project X

14:00-14:30: circadian rhythm is at lowest point - break, snack, HN, read the
news

14:30-17:00: work on project X

Project X alternates pretty evenly every few months/weeks between product
development, updating websites, marketing (email updates/brainstorming about
lead generation, etc). I try to focus on one project at a time. The key to
wearing multiple hats at once is to wear one at a time for a while.

~~~
chirau
I am not sure what business or field you are in but your schedule seems very
very laid back. Too laid back if you ask me. You are a solo founder and you
work less hours than a person who works a regular job. Is your venture
profitable?

~~~
mygo
I counted ~5.5 hours per day working on Project X. That’s about the amount of
time someone would spend on a 9-5 when you take away lunch and any downtime at
work.

I think people decide how much time they want to spend on work. Work will
expand to occupy the available space. And with appropriately timed breaks,
even when you’re not working, your mind continues to work on solving the
problem you’re currently tackling.

I’ve woken up with some killer solutions to road blocks after taking a power
nap. Breaks could serve the same function.

~~~
chirau
You are assuming they do not do the same stuff other humans do in the 5.5
hours.

------
ArtWomb
Honestly quite surprised how much work it turns out to be. Would not wish this
on my worst enemy territory. You have to like that it is 24/7/366\. You need
to enjoy wearing different hats on an hourly basis.

Action trumps thought. Let that be your mantra. What you feel needs to be done
in the moment. Let that be the thing you intensely focus on 110%.

Because trying to maintain the Ben Franklin schedule of discipline. Isn't
going to happen in the mobile connected world. And 5pm video chats with
Silicon Valley.

Here it is 10am. 16 degrees outside. Configuring a "hybrid cloud" in my
bedroom. Not exactly 99% of people's idea of a blissful heavenly morning ;)

~~~
cambalache
If you are working 24/7/"366" either you are creating something so valuable we
will know about you sooner than later, or you are doing some things terribly
wrong, or you are lying. Which one is it?

~~~
muzani
I think parent commenter really means that it's a kind of responsibility. You
can't just stop and take a break; breaks become stressful. There are no paid
or sick days.

You can delegate all this stuff to employees, but there's a lot nobody can
delegate. That's also why a lot of founders don't just hire CEOs and live off
the passive income.

------
matchagaucho
In any sort of solo-founder situation that I'd like to eventually scale and
delegate, I've used a quadrant-based time management worksheet to make sure
the balance of sales,marketing,development,ops are all getting attention.

Not necessarily daily or equal attention, but the "key organs to the body" are
getting their minimum viable attention.

A simple spreadsheet works for starters. Put "must do" activities in each
quadrant and review progress periodically.

------
ctas
Solo since 2017. Working from home has a negative impact on my productivity.
Family members and friends assume you're available for smalltalk and other
stuff just because you're at home and not at work. I like working from home.
It's warm and comfy. Food and drinks are a minute away. I consider myself very
productive nonetheless, because I adjusted my daily routine to my environment
and don't try to force it the other way around.

So about a year ago I started waking up at 5 o'clock. It's awesome after
getting used to it. It's quiet, sometimes still dark outside and nobody can
distract you. I can put on my headphones and just hack away. I usually start
by taking a piece of paper and write down a couple of things/features/bugs I
want to take care of that day. The items on the list were usually spread out
across Github issues and projects Kanban boards, but I bring them together one
more time. The goal is to realistically summarise the ideal day on a single
sheet. I then prioritise and guess the time effort of each task. I start with
the most important + least time. I want to look at the list at the end of the
day with 8/10 items ticked off. Helps stay motivated and not get burned out.
It's very likely I'll get distracted or just throw the towel after 5-6 hours
of work. It's much easier to do that if you've already finished a good amount
of work. I mostly optimize towards self-happiness. It's not a war you win on a
single day. I know a lot of people that are unhappy with themselves and their
progress on side projects because they often start with tasks that are too
large and they have nothing to push to prod at the end of the day. In between
of work I eat with my dad and girlfriend, sometimes have smalltalk for half an
hour, but that's about it. I stop working at 8pm and play a round of monopoly
against my girlfriend or watch a movie with her. Good time to talk about how
your day was like and so on. I sometimes struggle with it, but it's important
to dedicate time to your loved ones, even if you think that every minute you
don't work on your project is lost money. They're usually the ones that
support you the most.

I consider solo founding a 24/7/365 job. It's hard and a lot of pressure, but
its one of the few things I enjoy most in life, because each day and every
single item you tick off your todo list fully benefits you and not your
employer.

(Sorry, the comment turned out a bit chaotic.)

------
dvko
Solo since 2010, 35K EUR MRR.

Mornings are for focused work on things I look forward to doing, so that
usually means development work and really moving the needle. If I force myself
to start my day answering support emails or writing a blog post, I usually
procrastinate and end up with less done in total for that day.

Directly after lunch is when I answer support emails, so that I still have
plenty of time for it and not end the day totally stressed out with a non-
empty inbox. Depending on how I feel after that, I finish my day doing low-
effort obligational work or I go back to fun work again.

------
kugelblitz
I have enough MRR to cover about 50% of living costs. But I had once put
enough of a financial buffer and I thought I could just work full-time on my
projects for a few months and make it grow fast enough, so I can fully live
off of them. It didn't work out as I planned, the growth wasn't fast enough.
Some things just take time. Branding takes time. SEO takes time.

So now I work as a freelancer 3-4 days a week and I work on my own projects
the other 1-2 days (and sometimes in the evenings).

I have 2 students who handle 95% of customer support and research and data
entry, so I can focus on developing features.

My freelance projects give me financial stability and also a daily routine,
plus I often get to learn new stuff and also just some time distance from my
own project, so sometimes that gives you a clearer perspective. If I'm
constantly working on my project, I lose focus and sometimes build unnecessary
features.

------
muzani
I think founder is straightforward. I target 5%-10% higher income next week,
or roughly 30% more next month if sales cycles are not weekly (mine was highly
dependent on government paydays). Most people might want to target revenue
instead, or even active users.

What's keeping you from hitting that target? Just focus on that. Would
marketing/sales give you more income? Flying to that conference and making a
talk? Do you need to handle customers better? Should the tech team ease the
burden from the rest of the team? Add another feature? Improve existing ones?
Do you need to spend more time hiring? Do you need to raise money to hire
those people?

Being a founder in tech is incredible - you get to work on only the most
important problems, unlike a job where you do the same thing over and over and
force yourself through plateaus. It's like you have an extra dimension to
maneuver around in.

I'd have weeks where I drive around the city pitching to investors. I'd have
weeks where I'm driving off to another state to meet suppliers. I'd have weeks
where I'm on the floor dealing with excess customers, writing up customer
service scripts for someone else to do later. Weeks where I'm promoting the
company at a career fair, and interview people on the spot or within a day.
One week, I got sick of the app color scheme, looked up designers, got a logo
budget approved, worked close with the designer and got a perfect new logo in
2 days, and then redesigned the whole app scheme around the logo. One
campaign, we had an overwhelming amount of orders (3000 people signed up in a
day), so I hacked in an order/delivery management system overnight.

If you need motivation, I recommend the rock star approach of hanging out with
your fans. Or rather, just look at who is giving you their hard earned money.
We get lots of feedback, reviews, in app, chat, customer messages. Take some
time to write a personal thank you to some customers. Handle some existing
customers yourself, not just the new ones. Thank your suppliers/partners or
have a chat with them. Handle complaints personally; don't expect staff to do
most of them... it's not fun for them as they're powerless, and they don't
pass the valuable data.

------
derrick_jensen
I'm also in college, so its pretty rough. In any given day I work anywhere
from 10 to 14 hours, about 8 to 12 of which is for my startup. I'm sinking a
lot of my time into the backend right now (integration testing, stress
testing, decreasing latency, etc). I haven't launched anything yet, but I
should be at some point before the end of the month. Recently I've been doing
more work on marketing and getting some initial users, which I should have
done a lot sooner.

~~~
kugelblitz
Unless performance is a key component to your service, I would focus on
launching and marketing. Being an engineer, I've often fallen into the trap
that a product has to be technically perfect before launching. Being a
freelancer and indie developer, I've gotten to meet other freelancers and
founders, and got to work for agencies and startups.

There's so many products that are technically crap, but they provide value to
some people. Thus people are willing to pay for it.

There was one startup guy, who outsourced development to this one guy in Asia.
I thought "this product will not last long, if that's the way development is
done". He went on to get funding from an investment arm of a big company
within the sector. I thought, "ok, this will be as big as it gets". A year
later he's got a deal with a major national retailer.

This is one of the reasons I focus on providing value, not a technically
perfect product.

~~~
derrick_jensen
I'm not concerned about performance nearly as much as regressions and
breakages post-release. Not sure if this is for better or worse, but I'm the
only one actively working on this, so I'm trying to streamline the develop-
test-publish so I focus more of my time on delivering value when this company
properly starts.

~~~
kugelblitz
It will often be about a balance of speed of development vs stability. And it
will be impossible to create something bug free.

I focus more on backups and monitoring. So I might not prevent all bugs from
happening, but in case they do - a) I find out very early (error monitoring +
uptime monitoring) and/or b) I can roll back very quickly to a very recent
version.

I'd rather deliver 6 imperfect features quickly and getting feedback from
users early (feedback can mean tracking which features are being used most)
and iterating early, than investing a lot of time into 3 technically great
features, then finding out 2 of them people aren't really using.

I know it's scary, because it's sort of like going out onto the field without
enough training. But focus on the added value you can deliver and listen to
your customers, and it will be fine.

------
dasil003
Although this is a great question and the answers will be broadly useful for
lots of folks reading, I'd like to suggest a reframe for yourself:

It's impossible to know what the right schedule is without knowing where you
time needs to be spent, and there's not really enough context in the post for
us to help with that.

At $1k ARR you've passed the hurdle of getting someone to pay something, which
is great, but you still have a ways to go to sustain yourself which means you
should take a hard look at your runway and product.

Is the product adequate to grow or is it still somehow short of MVP? Is the
biggest problem lead gen, conversion or retention? Who is the target audience
and what's the thin end of the wedge?

Overall at this stage I'd be spending a ton of time talking directly to
customers (or prospective customers) and trying to uncover the flaws or
opportunities for your product that will validate whether it can be
successful. Good luck!

~~~
p0d
You make a good point. My main challenge at the moment is lead gen. Part of my
frustration is spending time on things like marketing that have no quick
feeback loop.

------
Mave83
I do what I want and where I get progress done. It won't help me to focus on
writing some code if my mind decides to be in an optimize something else mode.
I tryed force, but it is a waste of time and reducing fun.

Money was always tight in the beginning, but after a while it grew to
something that does not affect me or my decision anymore.

