Ask HN: Must you have no life, at least early on, to run a successful startup? - jimsojim
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jamescun
I was co-founder of a (YC-backed) startup for 4 years until we were forced to
close, so I don't know if you can define us as "successful".

Anecdotally speaking, I started off working with no life. There is a lot to be
said for time periods where you shut out all else and just focus on your
business, in fact the YC programme gave good impetus to only "write code,
speak to customers or exercise". However doing this for extended periods is a
great way to burn out.

Initially any time I took off I felt incredibly guilty about. I however came
to the realisation that stepping away, even just for an evening to see
friends, allowed me to recharge my batteries and I was able to recoup the lost
time and then some.

A company is only really the sum of its people, and if those people aren't
firing on all cylinders then it will become apparent. In short, lead a
balanced life.

~~~
rcarrigan87
The guilt when you do take a break is definitely one of the hardest things to
get past. Very hard to truly unplug even if you've stepped away from your
computer to go out with friends.

~~~
danmaz74
Why on Earth would somebody downvote this? Unfortunately, this is how many
people feel when you have lots of responsibilities to many other people.

------
patrics123
Just read this and I think it matches quite well:
[http://plumshell.com/2016/03/10/work-for-only-3-hours-a-
day-...](http://plumshell.com/2016/03/10/work-for-only-3-hours-a-day-but-
everyday/)

We are running our business for ~3yrs now and just realized in the last few
months that none of the all-nighters or skipped holidays actually made a
difference in the end. So just from my personal experience I'd say you should
actively plan and maintain a private life from the get-go - If you don't you
are not "better" then another person who is just working to finally reach
retirement...

~~~
Tempest1981
It's hard to have balance when you feel that you're changing the world... and
when everyone around you is just as crazy/passionate.

------
onion2k
There aren't any rules. You can have a life outside of your startup if you
want one. Plenty of people do.

The reasons _why_ people say you can't have one are two-fold. There's a very
good, very valid reason, and there's a very bad, toxic-to-your-business
reason.

The bad reason is that people who start companies are _very_ competitive. This
means they feel they have to be seen doing _more_ , whether it's working
longer hours, making more calls, writing more code, going to more networking
events, and so on. Sometimes this produces value for their business, but more
often it's just "busy work" that isn't actually adding anything useful - going
to a networking event and only talking to people you already know is a good
example. People who do that sort of thing are the ones who brag about putting
in 80 hours a week. Don't emulate those founders.

The good reason to cast your life aside is that very often a startup is doing
something ambitious that takes a lot of work to get off the ground, but only
has funding to last 6 months. Consequently _everything_ has to be done in that
time, which leads to putting in loooooong days. If you have a low burn rate
and a long time you can afford to go slowly.

If you take an honest look at the hours people are putting in and realise that
half of it could have been done better, or automated away, or just not have
been done in the first place, then you'll understand why "number of hours
worked" is a pretty awful measure of effort.

~~~
thenomad
Also worth noting that most people haven't read the various studies on
productivity against hours worked, and thus just assume - reasonably enough,
but usually incorrectly - that over six months, you'll get twice as much work
done on 80 hours a week as 40 hours a week.

And working that much _feels_ like you're being very productive.

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mdnormy
Define "successful startup"?

Countless of people have started small and stayed small. I think it always
been like that traditionally. You start a business, you grow it till its big
enough to serve your niche market, and you pull in few million every year for
the rest of your career life without much effort.

I used to work in manufacturing industry and this model is more prevalent in
their whole supply chain. You could own 1 factory with less than 20 staff,
producing 1 type of component(bolt/glue/bracket etc) and be done with it.

However, if you define successful startup, as multi-million dollar revenue
organization, that's another story.

~~~
charlesdm
Seriously, what is better than that? Having a cashcow that will generate you a
few million a year, so you can actually live/enjoy life?

~~~
paulasmuth
Revenue != Income. Gross profit (before paying any taxes) will probably be a
fairly small percentage of turnover in manufacturing - you have to pay
employees, purchase supplies, etc...

EDIT: just looked it up and most of "industry weeks"'s Top 50 manufacturing
companies seem to have profit margins in the 10% range:
[http://www.industryweek.com/resources/iw50best/2015/48](http://www.industryweek.com/resources/iw50best/2015/48)

~~~
charlesdm
I'm talking about a few million in after tax profit, not revenue.

~~~
rmah
Say $3mil in net income means a company doing between $20mil to $40mil in
revenues. Which typically means between 100 to 200 employees.

This is not "stay small".

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muzani
I think there's a saying in this community - work on a startup that a few
people really want, rather than something a lot of people kinda want a little.

That would also apply to having a "life". Live your life in a way that a few
people will greatly love you and miss you. Rather than spend time with a lot
of people who kinda enjoy your company a little.

There's certainly enough time in an early stage startup to treat your closest
people well. I have a great lunch with my wife all the time. I bathe my
daughter, play bubbles, and dance with her. I mentor young entrepreneurs.

Do things that people will remember you for after you're dead. Or at least the
things they'll remember 5 years from now.

------
lazyjones
Short answer: it depends on your personality and the type of startup.

Long answer: My startup (founded in 2000, sold in 2014, still going strong)
took a huge toll on my personal life, but it was a 24/7 operation (a website),
I was both CEO and lead programmer/CTO and I'm terrible at delegating work and
inspiring responsibility in people. Also, web technologies did tend to fall
apart more easily back then and my experience with that was limited.

In hindsight, all of these factors contributed to the (largely unnecessary)
100-hour-weeks I pulled in the first couple of years. So, brief advice: if
your startup is a 24/7 operation (it doesn't have to be, there's plenty of
other opportunities), you will likely be putting out fires around the clock.
If you can, hire reliable people early on who can do this for you and put your
mind at ease. You will be thinking about your startup a lot either way, but
you can surely do that while enjoying your weekend trips or whatever.

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normalist
Well there is nothing glamorous about startups. It might seem this way
initially, with fixie bikes hanged on exposed brick walls, and programmers
somehow managing peak states in a noisy open plan office. (They should be
hermetically sealed off). Employees apparently multitasking to look
busy...Multitasking is an illusion propagated by the media, and it's actually
impossible to multitask without performance suffering. Also see: banning
mobile phone use whilst driving. A more ample question is: "must you have a
life to...". It starts making sense when the natural rhythm of your own life
is carried on into the startup. Ottherwise you're falling victim of the great
illusion of startup glamour...

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chuhnk
I'm building something at the moment. I previously worked at a couple startups
and a large tech company. I'm the kind of person who goes all out until burn
out. Not really healthy behaviour. I've realised that building my own thing is
a decade long journey and as much as I want things to be done yesterday I
cannot forget to live my life. I don't want 10 years to pass by and have
missed out on all the other experiences I could be having. It took me a while
to figure it out, to spend time reading, go to the gym, meet friends for lunch
and even take days off writing code. It really is a marathon and while it's
important to be focused the worst thing would be to look back and regret not
living.

------
bliti
One thing that improved quality of life was for me to define success. Ask
yourself: What do you want? I wasn't smart enough to come up with that
question, it was a friend who asked me point blank. Took me about a year to be
able to answer it. But things are now much better and I have a more positive
outlook for the future.

Businesses come and go. So does money. But you are not eternal. Figure out
what you want and then work backwards from the end goal to the present. Set
yourself small goals. Be patient. Learn to forgive yourself for mistakes l.
And above all, just try to be happy.

Must you have no life to run a successful business? No, but you must make sure
to have a life. Whether you have a business or not.

Best of luck OP!

~~~
erikstarck
Yes! Me and my cofounder ask each other two questions each day:

1\. What did we learn today?

2\. How do we (as a company) want to grow?

The answer to the last one means asking "what type of company do we want to
build?" and that in turn means asking the much deeper question "what life do
we want to design?".

An old friend said that becoming an entrepreneur is all about taking control
of your own life. This is true. As an entrepreneur, you have it in your hand
to not only design the way the company you're building will work but also what
your own life should be like.

~~~
bliti
It is definitely taking control of your life. That does mean that you and only
you are responsible for all events. Not everyone is ready to deal with that.
It is sometimes difficult. Being forgiving towards yourself goes a long way.
Also, when you take control of your life you also take control of the life of
others. People will depend on you. Defining how much is really important.
Don't have people depend solely on you. Work with them to softly nudge them
towards independence.

------
AndrewKemendo
Probably depends on what you are trying to do.

The reality is that if you are a small team trying to take on a huge market
and maybe creating new technology while other major companies are trying to so
the same then you need to get a better solution into the market faster.

So can you do that and also have "a life" however defined?

On the other hand if you have some niche of a niche kubernetes plugin for
WebGL and are a team of two college students with no overhead. Yes you
probably can.

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yesimahuman
The difficult, and often brutal reality of startups is that success isn't a
direct result of how hard you work. There are no rules.

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rl3
While I can't speak to the successful part, I'm just over two years into my
current project and haven't launched nor applied to YC yet.

If I had more money I'd definitely maintain way more of a life than I do now
while continuing to work on my startup. Granted, I didn't really have much of
a life prior anyways (remote job coupled with high expenses), so maybe that
makes it easier since I'm used to it.

The timescale might seem crazy, but it's incredible what time does for your
ideation and strategy. When I first started, my plan was basically a mid-sized
SaaS business. Over the years both internal and external forces evolved that
into a methodical blueprint for a company on the order of Magic Leap. Six
months in I figured out trying to charge money for the product was probably
suicide. Six months after that came the start of a radical shift to a far more
ambitious plan that built off the original in a very natural way. Had I
artificially constrained myself to a fixed time window, or otherwise quit, I'd
have never discovered any of that.

The whole thing is very much like an obsession, something that occupies
virtually all of your idle thought. Kind of like a nagging splinter in your
mind's eye where you can see precisely what you want, the only challenge being
to make it manifest.

Taking a fat paycheck as a software developer and everything that comes with
it has always been tempting, especially with hindsight—but I know that the
second I do it will be the end of my project. Giving up on that would be
unbearable, worse than death—at least until I've seen it through regardless of
the outcome.

Melodramatic narrative aside, to answer the OP's question—no, I don't think
you _must_ have no life to do a startup, and it's even preferable that you
have one. For most people, the reality is just that time or financial
constraints conspire to ensure that they don't.

~~~
sethammons
How long until you had any mentionable cash flow? Or are you still floating on
savings? Two years of lost cash flow for me would be impossible, not to
mention, if somehow entirely saved, would more than pay off my mortgage

~~~
rl3
Mostly savings with a bit of freelancing on the side. The upshot of no life is
it's at least compatible with cheap living.

------
freyr
When giving or seeking career advice, people want to frame things in terms of
absolutes.

There are many paths to a successful business. Some successful people
sacrificed their families, health, relationships, etc., and others didn't.
Some unsuccessful people also sacrificed their lives in pursuit of success.

------
pmoney
It's tough. You want to work all day and all night. You think that if you take
just a moment away from it that it will falter. Not the case. I started out
that way, but I have found that even if you take the time to eat dinner with
family, it's that time that helps you recharge and regroup. That is the most
important time as it allows you to reflect. Without it, you work tirelessly
and arguably are less efficient because you haven't taken the necessary
breaks. Your brain can only process so much. Take the breaks. Go get ice
cream. Go run. Go lift. Go to a bar. For God's sake, go do something that's
not work-related. Then, come back and work. Unless you're drunk, then sleep.
Just take time away from it.

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jkot
No life? You work on what you love, I would say thats pretty good.

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WA
If you mean startup in the sense of _VC-backed with the goal of maximum growth
and market penetration_ : Probably yes.

If you rather want to do your own thing, I always liked the rule of thumb from
the book "Start Small Stay Small". Put 100 hours into the product and 100
hours into marketing. You can do this in a month or two and then you'll see if
it works or not – and more importantly: You will see if you like working on
this thing or not.

------
jasode
You may not realize this but you're asking a question a "true" startup
entrepreneur doesn't think to ask.

Or to put it another way, a passionate entrepreneur would ask the _opposite_
question in some zen philosophy forum, _" Must I spend time away from my
startup so I appear to have a balanced life?"_

The true entrepreneurs are _obsessed_ with their startup. They _don 't want_
to spend time shooting the breeze drinking beers with their buddies. They _don
't want_ to sit still on the beach staring at the ocean. (At least at the
early stage, but maybe later when they're Bill Gates' age.) They'd rather
program one more feature on that web page. The startup work is not an
"obligation". The business startup work is _who they are_. These types of
passionate people are rare and most people really can't relate to the startup
founders' focus.

The obsession and singular focus on startup work is similar to musicians'
obsessions with composition, athletes with sports, etc.

Sure, you'll want to hear an answer of _" no you don't have to give up your
life"_ and many people will give you that answer but realize that you're
competing with entrepreneurs who don't even ask it. The startup _is their
life_ and therefore, there is nothing to "give up" when they're working on it
all the time.

EDIT to the downvoters: can you list examples of "successful startups" as that
phrase is understood by the HN readers where the founders work 40 hours per
week so they could have a "balanced life" outside of their business? Is there
a YC company in the portfolio where founders are working just 40 hours? Did I
misunderstand what the poster is asking? Isn't he asking about _founders_ who
run the startup and not the line employees?

~~~
tim333
>examples of "successful startups" as that phrase is understood by the HN
readers where the founders work 40 hours per week

Plentyoffish "In 2008, Frind told The New York Times that his website's net
profits were about $10 million a year and that he worked only about 10 hours a
week." Sold for $575 million.

Fog Creek "We believe that the way to be most productive is to work normal
40-hour weeks." Built Trello which I think would count as an HN startup.

~~~
jasode
I'm familiar with Plentyoffish and his 10 hours/week. However, one has to be
careful with Markus Frind's self-reported "hours worked" because many people
who are passionate about their projects don't count _all_ related tasks as
"work". He's probably not lying but outsiders auditing his time with a hidden
camera may not conclude it to be just 10 hours. Also, his "10-hours" seems to
describe his steady-state at the 5-year mark and not what he was doing in his
first 6 months learning ASP.NET.

To put 10 hours a week in perspective, think of creating a web startup and
trying to discipline yourself to work less than _five 2-hour days_ because the
Plentyoffish guy did it. It's not hard to imagine that a single SSL
misconfiguration or typo in an XML config file could have you chasing a
mystery bug like that for 12 hours straight. Or an unexpected spike of traffic
has you scrambling in the AWS control panel but the issue cascaded to a bunch
of other processes that takes days to get things back under control. Or your
initial customers want a new feature but your "programming budget" is 10 hours
of programming time. Stack just a few of those unexpected crisis together and
all of a sudden you're already at 50+ hours for the week. A startup is an
endless barrage of those unexpected fires hitting you relentlessly.

As for Trello, as far as I know, it's not profitable yet (which some folks
consider a factor for "success"). Also, the "we believe 40 hours" may be a
sentiment J Spolsky espouses for his _workers_ but he (the founder) may not be
necessarily constraining himself to that.

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iolothebard
Depends on how much capital you have and how paranoid you are about failure.
So, yes.

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meritt
Define life.

You absolutely need to work hard and devote yourself but that doesn't mean you
cannot have a _life_.

It might not be the 9-5 "life" all your friends are enjoying but how about
sacrificing 5-10 years of hard work building something amazing in exchange for
an early retirement while everyone else settles in for next 40-50 years?>

~~~
forgetsusername
The number of people who get to retire after five years because of startup
success is minuscule, dominated by the number of people who work hard for 5-10
years and end up with not much more than grey hair to show.

