
Single Founders Shouldn’t Put Marriage Off - CanadaKaz
https://medium.com/@kaz_63659/the-case-for-marriage-8ad9bf699fa0
======
Kinnard
Contrasts starkly with Ron Conway's advice at Startup School:
[https://youtu.be/qvHhhIfu7Lo?t=4m21s](https://youtu.be/qvHhhIfu7Lo?t=4m21s)

"Paul Graham: So how can they tell? How can these people, you know it would
save them a lot of trouble if you tell could tell them now whether they are
going to succeed in starting a startup. How can they tell if they are driven
enough?

Ron Conway: Well I mean are you willing to work 24/7\. The really great
entrepreneurs are 24/7\. The word moonlighting is not even in their
vocabulary. I mean if they are dating somebody or they are married, they warn
their spouse that they are not first in line. That this company dream is first
in line and that you have this vocation. It's like being a priest or a nun
that your duty is to your company. No, it has to be that fanatical and if you
look at all the successful entrepreneurs they are that committed about it.
That is a hard commitment, but once you are willing to make that commitment
then it solves the work ethic check off. If you have that commitment then your
passion is probably infectious. It probably means you can in fact find other
people and make them as excited about your idea as you are."

~~~
cabaalis
This is so awful that I'm sad to see the word "advice" being used. I lost my
wife due to my commitment to my startup. I'm still at a startup, but the one
that I loved and dreamed about so much which cost me so dearly ultimately
failed.

Before you take this kind of advice, take a good long look at what you want
from life. Before you take a vow to support your business you should remember
the vows you've already made.

~~~
JeanMarcS
18 months ago, I almost lost my wife because of a project I joined at the
beginning of 2015 to which I dedicated all my time, hoping it starts rising
quick (when I joined they were working on it for already 2 years, and it was
"a matter of months, one year top, to finish").

Turns out it didn't, and when my wife pronounced the word "divorce", I dropped
it all (the tension was anyway rising between me and the team for some months)
to save my marriage.

I was lucky enough that it ended well on my personal life. And that's the last
time I make this mistake. Wealth is cool, loved ones are what matters (at
least for me).

On a side note, they're still struggling to finish their app.

------
warcher
Couple things briefly.

The only time to do something important is right now. If you found the person
you want to spend the rest of your life with, marry them. Today. Life won’t
wait.

Secondly, the culture of startup Uber alles is real dubious and I question the
wisdom of dedicating yourself 100% without question to a group of venture
capitalists who are, bluntly, counting on most of you to fail. Trust is
reciprocal. Don’t get too far out over your skis- this is business and
managing resources and risk is your job. I’ve been doing this long enough to
know that you are costantly triaging your time and energy, and without a
strong sense of priorities and boundaries, you will be totally consumed by the
endless cycle of other people’s wants. There are a lot of people who will tell
you to go all in and sacrifice everything for the company. I think most of
those people have an agenda that is serving their interests over yours.

Lastly, man, I work real hard and have for a long time. You have a ceiling
where your hours are going to get real soft efficiency wise on a consistent
basis. You can go 60 hours a week with a family. Very few people can put more
than that number of hours in at their job without experiencing a real sharp
productivity dip in their per hour output. I would submit that most of the
folks going 80, 100, 120 a week for sustained periods of time are getting
nothing they couldn’t have with a disciplined, 100% focused schedule and a
family. They’re selling out the only life they’ve got for a handful of sloppy
meetings or ugly code. Go home and have dinner with your kids. Hug your
husband. Get a couple hours in on the weekend. Delegate more stuff, better.
Focus on finding and executing what’s going to move the needle, and cut out
the rest.

------
williamstein
I am a single founder and married. I work much harder and more effectively
with my wife around and supporting me. And I also feel much better as a person
supporting her. Plus she’s really smart. If anything, being married is an
especially good idea of you are a solo founder!

------
marcelluspye
I'm not sure I understand the message of this article. Is it just that people
in a (good) marriage have better (emotional, financial) support systems, and
are therefore happier? The subtitle would lead me to believe that the article
is encouraging founders who are single to seek out a marriage just so they can
strain it in the name of their startup. Treating your spouse like a weird type
of employee is all kinds of unethical.

Like, who is this article for? Are there single founders in committed
relationships who aren't taking the next step because they fear they'll break
the ranks of stereotypcial single founders? Founders in bad marriages (which I
would believe make up a decent portion of them) know that their work isn't
helping their relationship, and those in good marriages already know this.

~~~
rayiner
There is nothing unethical about it. Marriage was an economic arrangement long
before it was a romantic one. And it still serves that function: it
diversifies peoples' income sources, changes their risk profile (as the
article points out), allows amortizing many fixed expenses, etc.

For most of history, society has told young men to get married so they can
form households. There was a good reason for that (aside from propagation of
the species): it's very difficult for a single man to, for example, run a farm
by himself.

~~~
jiggliemon
Why does anyone need to be married to do any of the above?

~~~
rayiner
The article is talking about "married" as the opposite of "single." Whether
you're legally married, or "functionally" married is somewhat besides the
point. (Although, as a pre-packaged set of rules governing economic
partnerships between two people, marriage still has a lot to offer. _E.g._ if
you keep a 9-5 to pay for health insurance while your spouse throws herself at
a startup; you'd be daft not to have some sort of arrangement in place to
share in the upside if she is successful.)

------
jondubois
Sometimes you just need stability in your personal life in order to take risks
in your professional life. It's not necessarily about financial stability, it
could just be about emotional stability.

Having a genuine relationship with someone is a good way to stay grounded in
your perception of all other human relationships.

Too many times in life, people just want to exploit you; if you don't have a
model of what a healthy relationship looks like then soon enough you will be
surrounded with the wrong kind of people and you won't even realize it.

------
soneca
I assume all advantages of being married (being healthier, happier, even
richer) depend on marrying the right person for you. I also assume that if a
single founder already found the right person he/she is not single anymore.
And I assume at last that finding the right person is not just a matter of
wanting to do it.

All that to say that the article shouldnt have being framed as _" advice for
single founders"_, but as just a commentary of this social aspect of founders.

------
xutopia
I'm recently divorced. Now I have an article telling me I'm going to be more
unhappy and more prone to heart attacks.

~~~
bryanlarsen
A large part of that is the filtering effect. Married people are happier than
single people because the really unhappy married people get divorced. And
health is correlated with happiness.

------
horsecaptin
Many successful companies have been started by people who were family-people.
Some of them also worked only 8 hours per day. Of course, some days are
longer, but most are not.

It comes down to setting boundaries, doing the right thing for yourself and
your customers and believing in yourself.

If the reason your startup failed is because you weren't 24/7, then trust me,
there were many other reasons why your startup failed.

------
squozzer
While I've heard the married = happier + healthier arguments for some time,
are we sure that the cause is marriage, or some other trait heavily correlated
with marriage, or that we've not reversed cause and effect?

~~~
pentae
Agreed. Whats the chances that happy, healthy, stable single people are more
likely to want to get married, and attract people that would want to marry
them?

~~~
Thetawaves
The implication is that you're innately more sickly/feeble if you can't
attract a mate? Yeah that sounds about right.

------
jiggliemon
Everybody, regardless of profession, should put off marriage.

A marriage contract is the worst – often wildly lopsided – contract people can
enter into. Family courts are corrupted by the revolving door of judges and
divorce lawyers.

------
PatientTrades
Having a significant other is one of the best things an entrepreneur can
obtain. It saves countless hours and money on weekends. No need to go out to a
club or bar hoping to get lucky. When you have someone at right at home you
can focus more on your business and getting work done.

------
45h34jh53k4j
I'll keep it short and sweet. Family, religion, friendship. These are the
three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. When
opportunity knocks, you don't want to be driving to a maternity hospital or
sitting in some phony-baloney church. Or synagogue.

~~~
s3cur3
This is a very narrow view of success.

~~~
45h34jh53k4j
Mr Burns is a very successful man!

GP Quote from:
[http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Lisa/Quot...](http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Lisa/Quotes)

~~~
LeifCarrotson
A lot of people are missing the quote and the sarcasm.

Which is interesting, because the point of sarcasm is that it's so obviously
phony that it's funny...and yet this one fails because some people actually
advocate this. Look at the exchange quoted in the top comment:

> _Ron Conway: Well I mean are you willing to work 24 /7....I mean if they are
> dating somebody or they are married, they warn their spouse that they are
> not first in line._

That was, as best I can tell, completely genuine.

