

Ask HN: Do you have a startup spouse? - startup_spouse

Hi everyone :)<p>My husband introduced me to HN a long time ago and I always enjoy the stuff you all post, but I've never commented on anything before.<p>I decided to start a blog about being a startup spouse and was wondering if I could get your feedback. How many of you are married (or in a relationship, startup spouse is merely a title that sounds nice because of alliteration)? Does your significant other have any funny stories or advice they'd like to share with other startup spouses?<p>Any feedback, constructive criticism, stories, advice, etc. from you or your startup spouse is appreciated :)<p>www.thestartupspouse.com
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mikeleeorg
Nice idea :)

A friend once gave me this advice:

"I work all the time. Day, night, weekends, all the time. Sometimes my wife
will want some time with me, just to talk. But since I’m always busy, I’m
usually at my computer when we have our conversations. What she’s noticed is,
I only half-listen when I’m doing that. I’m splitting my attention between her
and my laptop.

"This hasn’t been good. I could tell it was affecting our marriage. So I
resolved to shut the lid of my laptop whenver she wanted to speak. And I’ve
been doing that. It hasn’t been easy, let me tell you. But I’ve been trying."

I'm getting married soon and have been conscious of this issue as well. I've
also found Meg Cadoux Hirshberg's column in Inc. Magazine to be insightful:

<http://www.inc.com/author/meg-cadoux-hirshberg>

Good luck!

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startup_spouse
That is great advice. We've noticed the same half-listening thing. I'm just as
guilty if my husband tries to speak to me when I'm working on any writing or
translation projects. Or even if I'm engrossed in a Twitter convo ;)

A startup marriage takes effort (from both sides) but it really is worth it
and so much fun :)

Thanks for the link and the feedback!

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vyrotek
My co-founder and I are both married with small children. We were both full
time developers before founding our company. We started working on a side
project at night for a few months and then heard about a local Utah version of
YCombinator called <http://www.BoomStartup.com> (We're IActionable.com). We
were accepted, but there were many late night discussions with my wife as we
tried to figure out a plan to survive on the little investment money we would
get. (compared to the nice comfortable salary I once had!)

Our wives are very supportive. It does take a special and patient person to
support someone starting a company. But I do think my wife is somewhat excited
to see me actually follow through and finish a project for once :)

I showed her your blog and maybe she'll comment with some experiences or
thoughts sometime. She went through the list of roles you had and agreed that
she plays many of those.

Good luck with the blog!

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csmeder
Wow, you guys have a great looking idea!

I feel like the usability mantra circa 2000-2010 was "Don't make me think" and
I hope the usability mantra for the decade of 2010-2020 will be "Don't make me
unsure". Using inspiration from games, I hope UI developers will make sure to
give instant feed back. When a user makes a mistake the user will be informed,
when a user does something correct the user will be informed.

Thus using software will be more like a fun video game rather than a
frustrating experience.

I plan to write a blog post on these thoughts. Let me know if you guys have
any input.

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carbocation
<http://www.thestartupspouse.com>

^Clickable.

~~~
startup_spouse
Thanks ;)

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tyrelb
Read it to my spouse as she lay in bed... she loved it!

And her first comment was can she have a business card... with the title
"Startup Spouse"...

Awesome!

Just add a Facebook share link... so I can share on Facebook. :)

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startup_spouse
Thanks so much. I'd love to hear any stories she'd like to share.

The business card idea is brilliant! Maybe I should offer those? lol

I've added a share widget to the sidebar, thanks for the suggestion :)

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anguslong
Good post. Another way to put it?

"Hitched to Someone Else's Dream"
[http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/hitched-to-someone-
else...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/hitched-to-someone-elses-
dream.html)

"I got sucked into his enterprise -- our livelihood now depended on it -- and
though I had little input into its direction, I stood to lose everything if it
failed."

Article echoes much of what my wife has dealt with in 15 years I've been
building companies.

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staunch
I'm assuming you've seen this, but if you haven't: <http://ea-
spouse.livejournal.com/274.html>

~~~
narrator
Why anyone would stay at a job like that is beyond me. 12 hour days 7 days a
week? That's just stupid. Much rather program mind-numbingly boring business
apps and go home at 5.

~~~
wglb
Ah, but perhaps you have never had the opportunity to be in a Reality
Distortion Field. And your choice is certainly better for family life.

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exception
Luckily my wife and I are both developers. We've always worked together from
corporations to a number of startups that we were involved in.

I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for a spouse who has to put up
with a significant other working in a startup... Crazy hours, the highs, the
lows, lack of sleep, bad moods, wondering where cash is going to come from.

On the other hand, doing startups together has been an immensely rewarding
experience. Through our shared experiences we've become closer than I could
possibly have imagined. So, for us, it has all been worth it - at least
emotionally.

I really feel for people who aren't able to spend enough time together, or are
finding empathy for a partner hard to muster. I can hardly begin to imagine
how bad it must have been for the poor EA wives - awful.

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MJ23
Interesting topic-I love and have worked at startups for the past few years
and my soon-to-be spouse has worked at a big corp. for an equal amount of
time. We both work in tech,and he is sympathetic to my crazy hours and
understands why I have to work on a Saturday, midnight, and "have to answer
this email right now."I think as long as you unplug and have devoted time to
your personal life, everything works out. In the past, I let work dominate my
life which diminished my personal life. I think I am engaged today b/c I set
time aside to grow in that way. It's all about boundaries and understanding,
that's been my experience.

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KateKendall
Nice first post and like how you've written it in a gender-neutral tone. It
kind of depresses me as I envy people who have supporting partners, and feel
as an entrepreneurial woman those attributes are harder to come by in a male
partner. I know it's generalising, but most guys want to take the centre
stage. Do they want to hold the home and emotional front together? Probably
not. Sigh... :-)

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startup_spouse
Thank you. I tried to be neutral without sounding stuffy, as a lot of lit with
"s/he" tends to sound (in my opinion). Plus it really annoys me when people
assume all entrepreneurs are men, or that no entrepreneurs are gay. I may not
always remember to do the "s/he" thing, but I wanted the first post to
establish that neutrality.

If you want a supportive partner, you will find one. It may not happen right
away and it'll probably be when/where you least expect it, but it'll happen.
In the meantime, don't be any less than 100% happy just because you haven't
found him yet :) You know that saying about smiling all the time because you
never know who could be falling in love with your smile at that moment? Yeah
it sounds cheesy but it's true ;)

It would be great if there was a study done about whether those attributes are
more common in women. I'm sure there are some great men to be found that would
gladly give up centre stage to a strong woman :) I'll keep my eyes open ;)

Wait, did I just add matchmaker to my list of duties? lol

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enjo
My wife and I have been married my entire start-up career (going on 8 years).
I think she'd more or less describe it much like me having any other job. I've
never worked particularly long hours. I probably carry a bit more stress than
others, but that's really it (and I've gotten pretty good at managing it).

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nbauman
Thanks for commenting. I have found the same.

At the outset as an entrepreneur there was a lot of calibrating and learning
what was reasonable. We have a very sane and wonderfully paced life despite me
founding and working on a startup for the past three years.

Entrepreneurs have a lot to prove - to investors, to the market, to customers.
Time put in does not prove anything to anyone. Especially not your spouse.

Working reasonable hours (to me) is a sign of a healthy work environment, be
it a startup or large corporation. Working under conditions of extreme
uncertainty to offer a new product or service doesn't necessarily mean that
all those hours together are going to be lost.

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smokey_the_bear
My co-founder and I just got engaged :)

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Chirag
Me and my wife work on the startups together. She is good with people and I
good with systems, so it makes a good team. It make more sense as all the the
dynamics are already in place.

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modsearch
Very cool concept. My wife could probably write a book about what she puts up
with... a supportive spouse makes all the difference. I'll tell her to follow
the blog :)

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startup_spouse
Thanks so much. I'm sure she has many entertaining experiences she could
recount :) Please tell her to share some!

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ahoyhere
No offense but, I read your list of "who will...?" and immediately thought:
HELL NO, NOT ME.

That's what an assistant is for.

We hired two assistants (one on the way out) to do things like pick up things
from the post office, sort out paperwork, fetch food, and naturally, learn a
lot about business/our code.

And we work together!

If you love your wife/husband and want to keep that relationship happy, seems
like you either have to marry a martyr... or protect those bonds by not
turning your no doubt equally intelligent, equally valuable spouse into a go-
fer.

Support is beautiful and all, but there are limits.

