

How a Founder Turned a Slow Burn Rate into a Big Exit - relaunched
http://firstround.com/article/This-Founder-Turned-a-Slow-Burn-Rate-into-a-Big-Exit

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sz4kerto
"The people who stayed longer are the ones who stayed with the company."

Oh, I have seen that couple of times. People who stay longer are the ones who
stayed with the company -- but what's the reason? The implied reason is that
because that people who stay longer do more, feel better, etc. However, in
many-many cases people who go home earlier are pushed out by others who stay
later -- not based on productivity, etc. At [insert big company here] I knew
teams where everybody stayed until 10 pm every day, because that was the team
culture. Other teams went home at 5, 6 pm. Were the former more productive?
Not at all, just that became the norm.

"To this day, I fight any budgets for any part of the company. If you don't
have one, then people's default is to be more conservative. It's like
limitless paid vacation policies — people end up taking less vacation."

Etcetera. This writing is about 'how to burn out employees'. It might work out
well for founders though.

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SomeCallMeTim
That was the same gist I got.

"We needed people who would be with us at 2 a.m. committing code so that we
could have it in front of AT&T the next day."

That's not about _good_ employees, that's about employees with no lives
outside of work. _Of course_ the ones whose job _becomes_ their life will stay
longer. It's far more traumatic to leave if you don't know anyone outside of
work.

I'll take the four-day workweek start-ups any time over the death march start-
ups. And I'll put my own short-week productivity up against anyone's 80-hour
week.

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anatari
Sorry, but I just don't buy this wishful thinking of low hour high
productivity. Personally, I probably hit peak productivity around 60 hours
although I rarely work for longer than 4 hours without taking a break to eat
lunch/dinner or play with my daughter. People who hit peak productivity at 30
hours probably just don't like what they're working on as much and so of
course founders select for the former. That said this only relevant if you're
trying to be highly productive. I have nothing against people who choose to
spend their energy on other things.

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marktangotango
That's interesting, how do you define 'productive'? What can you do after 60
hours you can't do after 30?

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anatari
I can get more things done in 60 hours. I'm looking at productivity over the
long term. If I work 60 hours/week for a whole year I will accomplish a whole
lot more than if I worked 30. But if I work 80 hours per week, I will only
accomplish marginally more than 60 hours and maybe even less if I burn out.
Everyone has different priorities and different breaking points, but I find it
disingenuous when people claim more hours doesn't allow for more productivity.
I'm certain there are people that can sustain much longer periods of
productivity than myself and as a result accomplish more things.

Of course spending time alone does not mean you'll be productive, but assuming
equal intelligence, someone who is able to sustain concentration over a longer
period of time will accomplish more than someone who concentrates for a lesser
amount of time.

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hickorydock
I worked at Location Labs. I feel what this article doesn't capture is how
Location Labs also takes care of its people. Like, there was one guy who was
working crazy hours to get a product launched. So Tasso basically forced him
take a good chunk of time off and paid for his ticket to go see his family
(who lived abroad.) Nowhere is the perfect place to work, but I had a
wonderful time working with these guys.

~~~
joezydeco
How was he taken care of, equity wise?

Something tells me even though that guy got a magical plane ticket home he
also probably wasn't a participant in that "big exit".

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lmg643
I like this call out quote:

"“When you're all working in one big room, everybody can see each other come
and go. It becomes obvious who the outliers are.”

Doesn't make it sound like we are pretending that the open office plan is
really about productivity maximization.

~~~
untog
Yeah, that struck me as especially stupid. That guy who leaves at 6pm might
have been more productive than everyone else goofing off all day.

And besides, if you expect me to stay incredibly late then unless you're also
going to give me a huge, huge chunk of equity (or, hey, pay me overtime), then
I'm out.

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chrissnell
While I don't agree with the founder's decision to not hire people with prior
management experience, I do like his approach to conservative spending. This
is something that often feels forgotten about in these days of spacious SOMA
offices and massive refrigerators stocked with Japanese soda.

As long as my salary is not skimped on, I get a lot of satisfaction from
working for a thrifty company. In my domain (infrastructure and ops), learning
to do more with less is a lot more challenging than having a blank check for
everything you want. Some of my best workplace accomplishments were made when
we simply didn't have the cash to buy the big, expensive gear or software.

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grimlck
Except what do you do if you have venture backed competitors who are willing
to spend and lose huge amounts of money in the land grab for marketshare, and
thus have far larger sales teams and development teams?

More 2am nights?

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rajacombinator
Interesting view on not hiring people with previous management experience -
seems clearly wrong to me. There's a difference between career middle manager
MBA types, who might be deadweight at a startup, and other people who have
management experience as a result of competence and natural career
progression. Someone with experience managing a team should always be
preferable, all else being equal.

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DrJosiah
> Because we were so capital efficient we were able to focus all of our energy
> on finding a profitable business model

This is the real secret. Lean is how they lasted long enough, but a profitable
business model with actual customers is how they exited.

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vanessa98
This reads like a Burnout Cookbook.

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Amorymeltzer
Damn, I was hoping this would be about orbital mechanics in Kerbal Space
Program.

