

 How to balance a startup, family and a full time job - iamyoohoo
http://endorseyou.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/how-to-balance-a-startup-family-and-a-full-time-job/

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gscott
I too have a startup, family, and a full time job. I found limiting the job to
8 hours 5 days a week has been the most important thing.

I make enough money to make sure my wife does not work so she can take the
kids to school, pick them up, and help them with there homework. One important
thing I do is to make sure our kids are in activities Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,
piano, guitar, church group, and a few other things. I believe these things
help make a person capable of fitting in (unlike myself!). I spend time with
the kids before they go to school, before they go to bed, and I put them to
bed every night talking over there day and motivating them for tomorrow.

I skipped the partners part but at the sake of speed of development. If I had
a partner I would be making money now. I am winding down how much I am working
at the job I have and focusing on making money from my startup.

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pchristensen
Unfortunately, the phrase "startup" has two meanings. Generally, it means the
big, world-changing, swing for the fences type of startups that consume all of
your time (and then some). Fail fast or prove your idea so you can get
investment to grow it rapidly. It would not be a good idea to try and do one
of these while you have a full time job and family.

The other meaning is sometimes called a "lifestyle business" (I dislike this
term). The scope is something you can handle in nights and weekends which
limits your ceiling somewhat. There's a full-time job providing income which
takes away some of the hunger for success that comes with working for free.
But the time constraint and income requirement means that you will probably
seek profitability sooner and have that in mind from the outset. If it can be
comfortably run on the side, then a home run isn't necessary (an extra 40K/yr
would be a welcome success for this type of startup). This kind can be done
with a family and day job, and I think this is the type of startup he is
talking about.

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mrtron
I want to ask a slightly separate question along these lines.

/rant

As a hacker/startup junkie, do you find yourself becoming judgmental of others
and their work habits? A friend of mine was talking about their 'long workday'
since they had to stay half an hour late, and I ended up ranting about how
thats not a long work day. I felt a bit like a jerk after, since I hardly want
to tell people how to live their lives, but it seemed like this talented
individual is wasting their skills and lacks motivation.

I suppose what I am asking is does anyone else find that most people they know
seem relatively unmotivated? Another situation I find common is a friend and
my brother both talk about quitting work and starting their own thing, but
when I actually worked briefly with both they seemed to average only a few
hours of work a week into the project. How do you politely suggest that with
that level of effort that they may not be suited to a startup?

I like to think of myself as open minded and non-judgmental, but for people I
care for that seems to get thrown out the window.

/end rant

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llimllib
My girlfriend works 90+ hour weeks in the hospital, when she's limited by law
to 80 per week.

I don't get to complain.

~~~
mrtron
I suppose there is another side of the coin where people work a lot and then
you want to complain they work too much too :)

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llimllib
I don't have kids, but I do have a fiancee.

The trick has been that she goes to bed early. So I work 9-7, hang out with
her 7-10, hack 10-2, rinse and repeat.

It's definitely forced me to improve my work habits. I say as I'm
procrastinating on it.

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bayareaguy
Many people are encouraged to just "go for it" because if they fail they can
always go back to an ordinary job and try again. However the risk equation
changes when you have young children you care about since (in most cases)
you're the only parents they have and they are only young once. Even if your
startup is successful you'll never be able to get back the time you miss with
them.

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iamyoohoo
True - but what I'm saying is that there is still time to balance it. Only if
you try hard enough ....

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ranparas
I think what you outline is the steps that would maximize one's chances of
continuing to be in the situation that you're in. Your actual "success" would
depend on how fast you get out of this situation. It seems in general it would
be really heavy on one to deal with all three at at time and would prevent him
from focusing on any of them.

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mattmaroon
In a nutshell, don't.

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iamyoohoo
In fact, exactly the opposite. Do it - just be aware of how to handle it.

Don't be afraid. Go for it. I did.

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davidw
Makes sense to me. Know what you're getting into, discuss it and get the
approval of your partner, but if it's what you're set on doing, you can
probably find a way. Tim O'Reilly started his company after the birth of his
first child, if I'm not mistaken. I don't suppose it qualifies as a "startup"
in the sense of Google but he seems quite successful to me.

~~~
mattmaroon
Did Tim O'Reilly also have a full time job? And even if so, does one data
point show anything?

I've nothing against startup + family. It's startup + full time job that I
think is a bad idea, and adding a family makes it worse.

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davidw
I would agree that startup, family and full time job is untenable in the long
term, but everyone's situation is different. I think it's pretty evident to
most people that it's not an easy road, but what I disagree with is your
blanket "don't". I'd simply say "it's rough, and you're not going to be able
to do it for long without cutting corners somewhere".

Here's the article about O'Reilly:

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.10/oreilly.html>

It's fuzzy on the timing, and I guess my memory is off, but it seems as if his
company was his job at that point, but it still hadn't hit the big time.

~~~
mattmaroon
I tend to think in terms of EV. Your hours would probably be better spent
working at Wal-Mart. And there are much better ways to attack the problem,
such as saving enough to not have to work, then starting up.

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edw519
As soon as I read the word "cannot", I stopped reading. I get that word from
everyone else. I don't need it here.

