

Can you have a baby and a startup? (not easily) - jasonmcalacanis
http://calacanis.com/2010/10/28/my-email-yesterday-about-can-you-have-a-baby-and-a-startup/
inspired by yesterday's thread of babies, i posted this to my email list.
======
wyclif
I'm a few years older than Jason, learning Python, and just had my first child
2 weeks ago.

Calacanis is right about this much: having a kid is not overrated. It's
amazing. However, I would echo another commenter here and suggest that what
I've observed is that I waste less time than I did before the baby. Over the
past few weeks I've been more focused and "in the moment" when I am working,
because I know once my allotted work time is over, it's baby and Mommy time
and rightly so. I've also, in general, been suffering fools less gladly. My
time is worth more now.

The one thing I would disagree with Jason about is waiting until a specific
time (he says 30-something). I think it's a mistake to reduce it all to a
matter of age; it really does depend on the personalities and circumstances of
the parents. Some people are not going to have the energy at age 40 that they
had when they were 20, especially if you didn't take care of your physical and
mental health when you were young. He's right to add that they use up a lot of
your energy. Another reason to consider starting a family early. I'll be 60
when my son turns 18 and presumably starts college. Not everyone wants to do
that, or can!

~~~
dennisgorelik
I'd recommend to have children early too:

1) The wisdom that comes with age does not really help much dealing with kids,
but that wisdom would definitely help to run successful startup.

2) With age it's harder to have healthier babies. Especially for women.

So it's better to slow your start-up development (or even postpone it if
necessary) and have kids first.

~~~
wyclif
I'd modify those slightly: 1) I'd say that age-induced wisdom does help you
parent well. Years of watching other parents have their mistakes and successes
and the vicissitudes of your own life add perspective on human nature and
parenthood. But it's not the be-all, end-all of parenting. 2) It is harder for
women, and that's a major consideration, maybe the biggest one. For men, not
so much. One of the benefits of being male is that you can keep having
children (disclosure: my wife is significantly younger than me).

~~~
alaithea
While men _can_ keep having children longer than women, there are genetically-
based mental health risks (schizophrenia, autism, bi-polar disorder) for
children of older men.

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-
fathers/200901/old...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-
fathers/200901/older-fathers-increased-risk-having-children-autism-
schizophrenia)

------
hugh3
The weird thing about this article is that he doesn't mention his wife at all.
The only mention of wives in general comes at the end ("if you don't do this
you'll have a spouse who is not happy").

It seems to me that whether you can have a baby and a startup depends almost
entirely on what your wife is like. There's no reason your wife can't take
care of the baby on her own with you popping in every now and then to put the
bread on the table; it just depends on how supportive she is.

(Yes, this post is horrendously sexist, no I don't feel like discussing that
aspect of it, so if you feel compelled to stand up for the notion that men and
women are entirely alike then just move on. For the case of a female
entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at
the same time.)

~~~
dolinsky
My reaction to your post wasn't one of sexism, but that I don't believe you
are a parent yourself. Once you are a parent, the most important thing in the
world is (or at least should be) your child. You're asking the wrong question
(and probably not in the right mindset to be a parent yet, which is totally
OK) if you're thinking "Why can't I have my wife be the mom and I can just
show up for dinner?". As a new parent myself for the first time, I find myself
every day thinking "What can I get done in X amount of time so I can go be a
daddy".

~~~
dennisgorelik
I don't think that considering your child the most important thing in the
world is good for anybody (including your child):

1) Your wife is probably more important, than your child: in 20 years your
child would be gone (to have separate life), but you would stay with your wife
longer than that.

2) You can have several children. Would you name one of them as "the most
important"?

3) If you consider you child the most important -- it may spoil the child.

That said -- children are definitely important part of your life.

~~~
araneae
This could be true for humans in general, if humans weren't products of
evolution. Ever notice that anyone who writes blog posts about babies on HN
are absurdly pro-baby? It's because we wouldn't pass on our genes if we
weren't.

It's possible for a father, perhaps, to consider the wife more important
(after all, she can produce more babies!) but I doubt most mothers would agree
that the husband is more important than the child, especially since a growing
number of them don't even have one.

Re: 3, thinking that your child is the most important thing in your life has
little bearing on how you raise them, except perhaps on the tail end where
parents do not care at all and the child ends up being taken away by the DSS.

~~~
dennisgorelik
1) The reason why baby-posters are so pro-baby is not as much about natural
selection, but more about different kind of filter: the one who is NOT pro-
baby is less likely to write about babies.

Not that it matters in the context of this discussion though :-)

2) Wife can not only produce more babies, but also raise existing kids,
support the family (financially and otherwise), and more.

The same is applicable to the husband.

3) Internal thinking affects your behavior. A lot. So if you think that your
kid is THE MOST important thing in your life -- you are more likely to make
mistakes and bad choices.

------
vyrotek
Its definitely possible.

My 2nd child was born just months before I quit my job to work full-time on my
startup. My co-founder also had his first kid at the same time. We worked like
crazy this last summer and just recently closed our first round of funding.

Perhaps we were crazy (our wives definitely thought so) but we pulled it off.
We're also only in our late 20's :)

~~~
ryanelkins
As the co-founder mentioned above, I'll just add that it's important to have
the support of your spouse. It works for us because my wife understands that
I'm only going to see the baby for an hour or two if at all during the week (I
help more on the weekends). My wife doesn't work and she feels lucky to be
able to spend all day with our son. I think it might be harder as a baby turns
into a child and wants a little more attention from both parents.

With the proper support - definitely possible. I think doing a startup as a
single parent with a baby would be near impossible.

------
ThomPete
As a parent myself I would like to turn it around a little.

The question is not whether you should or shouldn't pull of your first startup
after you have a kid, but what you want your kid to know you as.

Many parent's cocoon once they become parents and become very risk averse.

But there is no more risk doing a startup than there is keeping your job.
There is no jobs that are safe. No certain income.

By forcing yourself to become more risk averse (which starting a company
perception wise would be) you are actually making yourself and your family a
favor IMHO. You grab the bull by the horns and build a situation were risk is
an active part of the game instead of being the pink elephant in the room.

Living in Denmark we obviously have many more safety measures than in the US
(and also rather high taxes) but as I said at the end of the day you are not
more secure in a job than you are in a startup.

------
tlrobinson
A lot of people are saying "no, it's possible", but as far as I can tell none
have already built a successful company (by Silicon Valley standards) while
raising a baby; they are all "in-progress".

Has anyone _actually_ done it and care to share their experiences?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
DuckDuckGo -- maybe not as successful as you meant yet, but I'm happy about
where it is.

------
jswinghammer
I hear you but I disagree about not being able to pull off your first startup
with a baby. I'm in the beginning stages of my first startup and I find that
having children has inspired me to use my time as wisely as possible. I'm
better with money now and because my daughter doesn't ever seem to want to
stop moving I'm much more active than I was.

I don't really find myself needing to work a lot of hours to make things
happen so I'm able to spend plenty of time with my daughter. I have another
kid on the way and while I've scaled back my feature list slightly for my next
release I'm not terribly concerned about the impact to the business for a few
months while I wait for things to settle down. I might be the exception to
this though but so far it's been good.

You're 100% correct about how great children are. Children are totally
amazing. My daughter is the happiest person I've ever met. She has no idea
what I'm doing or why but she loves having me around. Part of why I started
this company was to (eventually) spend a lot of time with her as she gets
older. I remind myself of that whenever I get discouraged.

~~~
joemak26
Thats great you are much more focused. I have 3 under the age of 2 and I am
still learning to be more focused.

How are you able to support you and your daughter? Is your startup already
profitable?

------
RBr
I think that the real answer to this lies in the support one has.

If you don't have a strong support network, can't afford for your partner
(wife, husband, whatever) to stay home, can't afford a full-time nanny, or
don't have any other form of dedicated help (parents, etc), the chances of
launching a successful startup decreases with a baby in the mix.

Nothing is impossible. However, your chances of startup success go down if
you're trying to juggle a newborn person with a newborn company. If you don't
have help, I could see it being nearly impossible.

------
abstractbill
I hate to be this negative, but the parenting threads on Hacker News have been
almost uniformly useless to me. The one comment that stood out was: "Most of
the advice you hear will work for everyone else's kids, but not yours".

Only _you_ are the expert on your life. Reading other peoples' anecdotes is
fun, but at the end of the day not often very helpful.

The one piece of advice I would give is to read this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/When-Partners-Become-Parents-
Couples/d...](http://www.amazon.com/When-Partners-Become-Parents-
Couples/dp/0805835598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288286365&sr=8-1)

It's an account of a study that looked at enough couples for actual trends to
emerge. My wife and I found it incredibly useful.

------
Swoopey
To answer the question outright, yes. Popular topic these days on HN. I am a
29 year-old female founder expecting my first child soon, based in Tokyo and I
applied to YC recently.

I have been blessed with an incredible support system. My husband and I both
worked hard and saved over the last four years, my technical co-founder is an
experienced parent of two in his 40s, the community here in Tokyo has been
unbelievably supportive and, not to mention my family and close friends who
are all aware of my YC application and have agreed to help us in both
relocating to the valley and helping us on a rotating schedule to support us
and help with our baby, if we are indeed selected.

We have the resources and the support, as Jason has suggested is most
critical. I personally think this is a perfect time for me to pursue my start-
up, especially in Japan. Women in the workplace and policies here are still
significantly behind those in the US.

I've always taken huge risks and gone after what I wanted. This is no
exception.

[http://takara.posterous.com/resigned-from-my-job-having-a-
ba...](http://takara.posterous.com/resigned-from-my-job-having-a-baby-and-
foundi)

------
shawnzizzo
I'm a new Dad, in my late 30's and I'm starting up a new business. It's not
easy, but I have support. Although my wife and I are a team, she's taking on
most of the work during the day (and in the night). She believes in me and
wants to make sure that I have the bandwidth to do the things that I need to
do. When I'm not working, I do my part to help with my son. We try and give
each other "me time" breaks as much as possible. It's still early, but things
are working out.

The article definitely touches on one thing that is definitely true. Time is
now no longer a luxury, it's a gift. So, you must make the most of it. This is
driving me to be as efficient as possible. Which is something that I really
need and I think it's going to benefit me.

I think the one thing that actually drives me more so than before is that now
when I'm working on my business, I feel a lot more motivated to get things
done and being successful. My calculated risks are a little more calculated
than before. I feel as though this is going to be one of the secrets to my
success.

Bottom line: I see this as an advantage...as long as you have that support.

------
marcamillion
Jason has an interesting style. He takes his experiences and assumes that they
can apply to everybody else that goes through similar situations with the same
results.

I had my first child while I was still working + studying, and yes I agree
that if I was doing my startup then I would have probably gone through major
shock.

Having already had my first child, with the birth of my second and doing my
startup, I knew what to kinda expect for the first few months + delivery. One
of the first things I did, and realized, was that in order to have a good
balance between the two, I had to get rid of the data plan on my phone.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be 'in the moment' with my kids when I needed to be.

The result has been phenomenal. When I only have a few hours to get everything
done that I need to do, I get a lot done. Still could achieve more, but am
much more productive for myself with two kids than I was working for someone
else with one kid.

I have also realized that it is better to do this while they are young enough
to not remember these years too much. While I spend as much time with them as
I can, the reality is that I will have to spend a lot of time working. But the
trade-off is that if I do this now, in the first 5 - 10 years of their lives,
then we can all enjoy more time and life in a different way when I am in my
30s and they are 8+.

Please do NOT interpret that as me neglecting them. I am lucky enough to be in
a situation where there is a lot of support (in-laws live on the same property
and we have a nanny - I live in Jamaica so the cost of living is much lower
than the US, so it doesn't drain my bank account too much) for my wife and she
is VERY supportive. She is being mom full-time, which significantly helps.

That being said, I make sure to bathe them a few evenings for the week and
usually end up putting my eldest to bed 3/7 nights for the week (if not more,
depending on what's happening with the family). Bedtime includes about 1 - 2
hours of dedicated them time - including stories, etc.

I have also agreed, with my wife, that I will take the night shift on our 7
week old. That usually means that I am up until anywhere between 5 - 7am with
her, feeding her and putting her back to sleep in intervals. So I try to do as
much work as I can while she sleeps during the nights.

As a result of that, I wake up about midday everyday and get straight to work.
Usually work until 6pm, where I transition into evening routine. I don't know
how long this will be sustainable for, but my wife is very flexible and
supportive.

Some people might say I am crazy for doing a startup now (with 2 young kids),
while many of my friends are working at bigshot jobs in the corporate world,
but I think this is the more prudent route for the security and stability of
my family in the long term.

------
azeemazhar2
Happen to agree with Jason on this one. So startups prior to marriage, working
on my third when my first child was born. Moved to big corporate jobs with big
perks for three years, then back to startups. We are at 3 kids (one of six
weeks), and clearly the ability to work all night is constrained. And I am
more tired.

However, I can guarantee on most days to have 90 minutes to 120 minutes of
complete joy with my kids, and weekends that take me away from 'office work'.

And, that 36 hour weekend break is a weekly opportunity I have to review,
contemplate, reprioritise--mostly holding this stuff in my head for the
weekend. It was hard work at first and now it's something that I look forward
to.

On the downside the costs of failure are disproportionately higher.

But that said - focus counts for a lot.

------
mmastrac
As the father of a four-year-old and the founder of two post-child startups, I
can say that it's still possible to work on a startup and have a kid.

The biggest change you'll find is that there's basically zero time left for
your personal coding and hacking interests: setting up that home Samba server
or writing an open-source project that isn't startup-related just never seem
to have time to happen.

I highly recommend finding a way to work from home as much as possible for the
early years. The hours you lose on your commute are valuable time. Both
startups (dotspots.com and gri.pe) are both zero-office affairs which meshed
reasonably well with my family life. It also helps to be a Canadian: the
expenses to cover food, utilities and mortgage aren't that hard to meet.

------
yayo
I think it is possible but is really hard, even if you are a dad. 2 years ago
i started my startup here in Chile, but in that time things didn't work and i
had to return to a regular job, i married and had a beautiful little girl 2
days after the Big earthquake here in Talcahuano. This lasts months i have
been constantly trying to go back with my "old" startup, but is difficult.

A lot of time i struggle with the ideas give to my family a better future or a
better present, because as long as my experience says you have to take a lot
of family time in order to success in your dreams and projects, specially when
you are in a "regular" job.

Thanks god, now with the help of my wife we are getting back to work.

------
jread
4 kids and 1 year into a startup here. It is not easy. If you don't have the
support of your wife (and you want to stay married), don't even try. You have
to prioritize very well, and force yourself to take breaks for your family.
You don't want to be absent for a year or more of your kids life, you'll never
get that time back. You'll also need a more income or savings to cover basic
expenses. It is a very difficult balancing act.

------
Mistone
def agree with Jason's bottom line comments: 1\. kids + no resources + first
startup = #fail 2\. kids + resources/support + second or third startup =
totally fine/you’ll be inspired."

For me its all about having resources and support, Jason is quite fortunate
because he is wealthy and can afford all the extras like nanny's, night
nurses, etc, so the load on his spouse is much manageable.

On the flip side if your not wealthy its going to be much harder and puts you
in the position that you need to take a decent salary if your going to go full
time on your startup, which means you need traction and funding or a
profitable business.

Parenting is a fabulous example of bootstrapping - you get much craftier, less
wasteful, and in fact may have more time on your hands because your at home
more. Once the kids go to sleep - start hacking away at your projects.

I would also say that when you have kids you appreciate some of the perks of
normal job more like vacation time, steady income and health care benefits
etc.

We've been bootstrapping our company for 2 years now and I have 2 kids (4 and
2 yrs) and it has somehow worked but not without a lot of extra challenges.
I'm hoping that at this point we have enough traction to take it to an
Angel/VC and get some funding so I can digg in 150%.

------
sudonim
Brandon, the founder at ChallengePost (I work there. @jason is an investor in
us) has 3 young kids... yes, 3! I honestly don't know how he does it, but it
works.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Brandon is a force and the exception to the rule.

... the man doesn't sleep!

------
hendler
Right now, I'm typing with a 4 month old on my lap. I'm into a second year of
my latest startup. My wife works part time. I babysit 20 hours and work 60.

Agree with other comments that fewer all night sprints, some support, and
profitability are more of a prerequisite though.

Maybe YCombinator and a baby are not possible? (Unless you are pg)

------
justinchen
I'm in year 4 of my startup(s) and I just had my first child earlier this
year. It's been very doable for me, but maybe it's because we're profitable. I
can definitely see how it would have been tough in the beginning when it was
all night coding marathons though.

------
k7d
"I've found I'm much more efficient than I was pre-baby" this is exactly what
happend with me too <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1537811>

------
theDoug
It has to be difficult, but everything in life is a choice about your division
of dedication, time, and attention.

Cyril Connolly said “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram
in the hall.”

------
spoiledtechie
Thanks for this all. As a scared soon to be father, I don't know how I will
ever fit my Hobby (coding time) in with kids and my girl. Its hard enough to
make her happy. hah

------
steilpass
As not a side note: Thanks to my wife (and all the other
wifes/husbands/friends) for your support!

------
dxjones
Can you have a puppy and a startup?

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Yes, of this I know what I speak!

[http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/09/jasonheartb...](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/09/jasonheartbulldogs.png)

~~~
dxjones
super cute!

------
maxawaytoolong
This is a SWPL problem. Just take some of the weblogs inc money and hire a
nanny.

------
pshapiro
What if your startup is your baby?

