
Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work? - zaidf

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zaidf
I know sitting in the apartment coding all day, eating cookies while watching
the Daily Show sounds like a dream moment. But it was one of the first lessons
I learned when I entered college: it doesn't work for me.

I like to take each morning as a new work day--shower, hit the library, make
calls, hit a class or two, continue work on start-up.

I'm assuming YComb doesn't provide office space. So I'm curious if there have
been YC companies that came together to get some space to create a collective
work environment away from their apartment?

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drusenko
This past session (w2007) several of us have been working from home (Weebly,
Zenter). OTOH, the crystal towers situation is quite nice, it beats any office
i know of hands down. Several other startups chose to go to an office b/c they
were used to that (heysan), so i think it goes both ways.

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BrandonM
I find that even though my desktop environment is geared toward productivity
(i.e. I can switch quickly between vi, the shell, firefox, etc), I actually
get more work done from on campus when I VNC to home. That is, I waste less
time doing things like reading random posts on this site, and actually do what
I set out to do. Even now, I have a homework assignment due in about 10 hours
that I can't bring myself to work on.

So I must agree that at least having some sort of separate workspace must help
somehow. I think the real root problem, however, is to layout a schedule for
yourself and follow it. Going to an office forces you to do that; writing a
schedule down and being committed to following it could feasibly accomplish
the same goal.

Note to self: make a schedule.

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bigtoga
I don't know how long you guys have been working from home but I'll provide a
little insight from someone who's been doing it mostly for about 12 years.
I've been working at home with various projects/jobs since I was about 24 (36
now). For the first 2-3 years, it was all part-time of 2-4 days a week but,
for the past decade, it's been full-time.

I tell you - even 12 years on, it is still hard to do. I do a lot of traveling
as a consultant and trainer and these are usually Monday through Friday gigs.
When I get back to the "office" and start to work again on Monday, I've
totally lost the groove lol. That's it - it only takes a week of me getting
out of the mindset of working at home to lose it. When I come back to the
office on Monday, I want to read reddit, catch up on all the stuff I missed
and I almost always find that Mondays have a lot of wasted time in them lol.

It took me probably 2-3 years initially to get the mindset down and learn how
to separate work from play. Distractions are huge at home but, for a
20-something with no significant other, they are less so. Now, I have a spouse
and a fun little three year old at home - those are more distracting than all
the strip clubs and PS3s in the world lol. But you manage.

Last bit - I would suggest that, when you are looking for a spouse/significant
other, make sure that person is okay with a comment like, "Honey, I'm going
into work now. I want you to think as though my office is 30 miles away from
you and you can't just walk in and ask me a question. Send me an email or
phone me if you have a question. Also, don't ask me stupid shit during the day
because I'm dealing with complex stuff and inane prattle takes me out of the
mindset I need to work." If you have a great spouse who understands this,
you'll be able to work from home much more efficiently.

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danielha
At such an early stage, I think an apartment works quite well. My cofounder
and I share an apartment (with a couple other friends) and things get done.
Integrate your startup with your life because the startup _is_ your life if
you're serious. But it really depends on you as a person. If it's just that
you're somebody that needs to be supervised/forced in a specific environment
to be productive, then you might reevaluate your ambitions in starting a
company.

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zaidf
I don't see it as black and white. Everyone has their conditions under which
they work at their optimal level.

Identifying those conditions and finding a way to make it work I think is more
important than forcing yourself to work under difficult conditions SIMPLY
because you are a start-up. There is a huge misconception that just because
you are a start-up you HAVE to make your life difficult. It already will be
difficult; if you can find ways to make it easier you absolutely should!

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brett
I'd agree. The more environments you can work in the better, but often will
power is as much about being smart enough to give yourself the ambient
conditions you need to succeed as it is about just mandating how you are going
to behave.

This only goes so far though. Daniel's probably right that you're in trouble
if you require _another person_ to motivate you to do work, but I don't think
that's what you meant in the first place.

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harlune
I can't work effectively from home. To many distractions to devote large
blocks of time. I'm up in Seattle so I ended up renting out some industrial
space from ActivSpace (<http://www.activspace.com/)> for $250 a month. It's
not a large space but it serves my needs nicely. Two desks, couch, fridge,
white boards, and we can paint on the walls if we get bored.

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Harj
This really is a personal choice. We were lucky with our startup because we
got desk space at the Obvious corp building in South Park (Obvious are the
guys behind Twitter, Evan Williams et al). It's a fantastic working
environment with lots of smart people around and great productive atmosphere.

However there were certain days when I actually found myself getting into the
zone of productivity just sitting on the couch and working my laptop. If you
find yourself in one those zones is it worth breaking it just because you've
programmed yourself to think you're more productive in an
office/library/wherever? I don't think so.

While there are just a couple of you working on your startup, I think you
should just work wherever you think you'll be most productive that day. The
majority of the time I work at Obvious, sometimes I work on my couch and
sometimes in a random coffee shop or bench somewhere nice. I can only do this
for so long before we start hiring and then we all need to be in the same
place so I may as well make the most of it now.

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jsjenkins168
I get where you're coming from. I just recently graduated and moved into an
apartment complex with fewer college kids which definitely helped as things
are quieter. I think whats ideal is to work out of a small house where you can
live just with your co-founders. But the issue is cost.. Renting a house is
usually considerably more which will increase your burn rate.

I think it is pretty key to work out of the same place where you live though.
Separation of living and work is not ideal for a startup, and PG even talks
about this some. Your life needs to BE your work; They need to coexist.

As far as distractions go, I think this is another reason why living with a
co-founder is so important in the early stages. Its kinda like a checks and
balances. You both keep each other in check and on track.

~~~
zaidf
I can see pg's point about making startup your life. But I think you can still
have startup as your life even while you work out of your office until 11pm,
come to the apt, grab some food over some TV and work few more hours before
hitting bed.

That's how it is for me anyway and it has been more productive than staying in
apartment all day.

Again this is something that must vary from person to person. So I'm not
necessarily out to do a philosophical debate about whether one is better than
the other.

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vinit
An apartment works well _if_ your co-founders are around (as roommates, or in
the living room with a big table)

But it's important to have the right kind of crowd around. If you are hard at
work and all your rommie does is play XBox all day (no fingers at you pranav!)
then it gets crazy.

So definitely depends on the roommate situation.

I'm doing this right now ... have a 1 bedroom and getting work done on the
dining table! And it works great!

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Readmore
I've found that too. Sometimes it's hard to get into the flow while 'working
from home.' An office that is seperated somehow can really make it easier to
work.

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inklesspen
I know I found (during my Summer of Code work last year) that I had to get out
of the house to get any real work done. It's well-known advice to have a
separate "work" area of the house if you want to succeed at working from home,
and I'd have done that if I had a spare room.

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kogir
The first thing that comes to mind is cost. You're already paying for the
apartment. If you can avoid it, why pay for office space as well?

