

Single People Should Not Do Startups - davidcrow
http://startupnorth.ca/2011/07/21/single-people-should-not-do-startups/

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mindcrime
What a load of shit. So the argument basically reduces to:

"You can't be a startup founder and date, therefore it's better to do a
startup if you're already in a long-term committed relationship."

Ummm... how about "I'm single and I'm willing to forgo dating for 'x period of
time' until my startup is established and running" OR, even better, "I'm
single and I'm willing to forgo dating for now, until my startup exits, I'm
rich, and I can live the billionaire playboy lifestyle and take my dates on
exotic trips to fun places, etc., etc. yada yada."

Doing a startup means making sacrifices whether you're single or not, this
article contributes nothing to value to the discussion of who should and
shouldn't be running a startup, IMO. Then again, my take on this discussion is
that there really isn't anything to discuss to begin with: You should run a
startup... _drumroll_ If you want to run a startup.

~~~
rudiger
Even better: "I'm single and I'm willing to pursue meaningless one-night
stands and shallow two-week flings until my startup is established and
running." This has the benefit of keeping you physically satisfied while being
100% emotionally connected to your startup.

~~~
diolpah
* This only applies to the nontechnical founders.

~~~
wh-uws
Not true. Technical people can do it too. Its a learned skill like everything
else

~~~
dlikhten
Its also a very time-consuming skill to master at 11am+ at which point you
have enough brain power to drool over an ugly girl at best.

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stochastician
I'm sorry, I have been single throughout the majority of my time in a startup,
including part of the time being CEO. So I feel like I'm speaking with some
authority.

Dating forces you to go out and meet people of the sort that you won't meet in
your office. It ends up having a substantial sales component, too -- keeping
track of leads, worrying about which ones run cold, trying to close deals,
etc.

Dating is an excellent distraction, and besides -- as a smart ambitious male,
I'm seeking a smart ambitious female to be a partner in crime. And guess what,
she's probably spending her 20s pouring her heart and soul into her career
too.

We circle-jerk so much about "OMG being in a startup is SO INTENSE" but have
you ever talked to law students? first-year associates? Med students? Students
getting PhDs in super-competitive experimental science fields, like molecular
biology? they're all putting in crazy hours too.

And we all love our work, and if we're intellectually curious people, we LOVE
hearing about others' work. So no, you're not BORING on a date -- boring on a
date is talking about how you and your friends got SO DRUNK last weekend.
Boring is "yeah, then I watched back-to-back seasons of 30Rock". Boring is not
"here is my plan for total world domination".

Working all the time at your passion makes you, female or male, _more_
attractive to potential mates -- if you're looking for the right sort of
person.

~~~
ohashi
It's that last line that bugs me, you've made a sweeping statement about what
you want being right. You've decided what everyone should want and how their
relationship should work. You speak authoritively for yourself.

~~~
stochastician
I didn't mean "right" as in "this person is more correct than others", I meant
"compatible".

------
Shenglong
_Having kids adds to this – all your problems melt away and disappear as you
chase your kids around or play some silly game_

Why are kids a better distraction than sex? o.O

~~~
sliverstorm
One lasts significantly longer than the other?

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jawngee
This is the dumbest article.

A) Knee deep in a startup and can't date? That's what Korean massage parlors
are for. Not to mention that dating sharpens your social skills that would
otherwise languish while fighting with your spouse about having to do a week
of 18 hour days and all the stress related with that.

B) I did a startup married and it contributed to the divorce I got after I
left it.

C) I've gotten more play using the startup angle then I can even care to
count. It's all about packaging and presentation my friend.

~~~
Hisoka
Any Korean massage parlor recommendations?

------
Skillset
Working on a startup was one of the contributing factors to the decline and
failure of my relationship.

When we were supposed to be spending "quality time" together on weekend
afternoons, I kept thinking about how much work I could be getting done. I had
to bail on vacation or event plans to spend more time on my project. I kept
saying "just another couple weeks, then we launch." But the project dragged on
and by then, it was too late.

At the time, I wasn't single, but I wasn't married or cohabiting with kids
either. Not sure if that's considered "dating" or not. Anyway, I'm sure many
people are capable of balancing their work and their romantic life, but in my
case it as untenable. Depending on what kind of relationship you have, what
your personalities are like, and what kind of work you're doing, it can really
hurt you.

------
dpmorel
Hey all - I am the writer of this piece on startupnorth - my name is Dan
Morel, I am at @dpmorel. Annoyingly I caught it on Hacker News probably too
late to have an impact on the comments.

Probably all of you folks complaining below find the arguments absurd and
abnoxious because they discriminate against you (being a single, young, male
doing a startup).

Well, guess what, most of the entire startup eco-system is discriminatory and
proclaims similar absurd arguments against people with family... and its
doubly so against women.

So if you don't have the mental capacity to appreciate irony, than go f
yourselves.

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kakaylor
All of the listed factors also apply to marriage. While I am single, it seems
like marriage is HARD all by itself. It takes time, effort, communication, and
patience. Adding a start up on top of this is going to make it more difficult
(although I would never say impossible).

What's more, running a start up is a formative experience that will likely
change you. It would be challenging, though by no means impossible, to have a
successful marriage while the character of the two people who form its basis
are changing.

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dlikhten
How true. I must say, if I had to date right now, I think I'd want to hang
myself. And sometimes just having to take care of my daughter forces me to
just stop doing work and focus on life for a minute.

Ah sleep, the mythical two headed unicorn with golden hoofs for ents.

------
hagyma
hold on a minute... same thing happened to me. my little girl was running
around until 11pm, when we both felt asleep and i woke up at 3am. :)

also funny to mention that i had to run home this afternoon too..., but i have
to say... many missing pieces are coming to my mind when i play or watch my
kid... and not when i'm fighting a tech related problem.

you do have to manage your time anyways...

i recently stopped working for clients and do start up something. until now i
say startups and families do work together. i'll keep you guys posted! :)

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pgroves
While I agree with the part about being a boring date and working too much to
be interesting, he totally left out the part about being unattractive due to
being completely broke.

~~~
orangecat
Money is overrated in terms of attraction. Perceived status is what matters
(for men), and money is often correlated with status but doesn't directly lead
to it. A socially skilled entrepreneur who's broke but confident will do far
better than a highly paid socially inept geek.

~~~
pgroves
"Socially skilled" is similar to "good at picking up girls," so I guess I
would agree because that's close to a tautology.

I'm just saying that when a girl figures out you work 12 hours a day and live
off of $25K a year, much of which comes from credit cards, it is a bit more of
a "con" than a "pro" in their mind.

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cynusx
it's always fun to see one unbased broad generalization about startups
countered by yet another unbased broad generalization about startups...

~~~
davidcrow
It is even better when using anecdotal evidence to support an unbased board
generalization. It was designed to be a sarcastic humourous post.

------
Hisoka
Yes, the boring drones who work in regular 9-5 jobs are more interesting than
people trying to impact the world

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ChuckFrank
Single Person Start-ups. Two - Founders Start-ups. Three - Person Start-ups.
etc. It's all about context. Are you a rock and roll band? With or without a
drummer? Are you making a film? Are you starting a cricket team? Are you
opening a restaurant? Are you starting a media group? There is no magic
number, never was, never will be. It's a simple equations of what skills are
needed to start, and how many people at a minimum are needed. Are you Evils,
The White Stripes or the The Beatles.

So while I do appreciate the anecdotal stories, I'm not sure the unequivocal
conclusions are really warranted or necessary.

~~~
kgrin
You may be right, but it would be nice if you'd actually read the article
rather than just the headline.

The OP wasn't talking about a startup founded by a one-person team - he was
making the claim (defensible or not) that single people - that is, people not
in relationships - shouldn't do startups.

Whether that's a good claim or bad one - and I happen to think it's debatable
at best - your commentary would be much better received if it actually
addressed the point of the article rather than the headline.

