
We work a 4-day week and just raised $4.75m - ryancarson
http://ryanleecarson.tumblr.com/post/21708810513/4-day-week
======
edw519
Nice post. Proactive work. Thinking outside the box. Getting things done. Very
encouraging. Sounds like a place where I would want to work.

Just one major nit...

(This is directed not only to OP, but to _everyone_ in our industry.)

Raising funding != success.

As inspiring as this post was, it would have been so much better with a title
like:

"We work a 4-day week and just satisfied 10,000 new customers."

or

"We work a 4-day week and just realized $10m new profit."

Great work, guys. But please don't allow this "success" to let you take your
focus away from the real metrics. I assume you already know this, but every
once in a while, it still nice to say that which should go without saying.

~~~
pclark
Getting to profitability isn't as noteworthy (from a startup POV) as raising
an A-round from working 4 days a week.

~~~
raverbashing
Humm... no

Profitability is more important.

There are examples to the contrary (Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, etc) but if
you're profitable this means you are providing a worthy service (unless you're
in the 'Nigerian Prince' business), and people are willing to pay you!

Never underestimate the power of people actually paying you.

~~~
csallen
Well, for one, he isn't saying that fundraising is more important. Just that
in Startup Land, the culture seems to find it more "noteworthy". For better or
for worse, that seems to be the case.

As for the age-old debate of profitability vs fundraising, it's not a black
and white issue. And I don't know why people so often feel the need to try and
turn it into one.

Profitability is great. You're right -- it's a signal that you're providing a
valuable service. But as you pointed out, there are many examples to the
contrary, and rightly-so: because achieving profitability is not the _only_
way to build a valuable business. And even for companies who do focus on
charging customers rather than, say, getting tons of users, raising money is
often an important step on the path to eventual success.

~~~
tomgallard
I disagree.

It is not possible to build a valuable business without achieving
profitability. Over a long-enough time period, the value of a non-profitable
business will revert to zero.

If a business is valuable, it is because the market (or investors) believe
either

a.) It is going to make profits at some point in the future. b.) It is going
to be an attractive acquisition for another company (who are presumably only
going to buy it if they believe it will enhance their long term
profitability).

Of course there is c.) , which is when investors buy into something because
they believe someone else will come and buy it off them in the future for a
greater amount of money. If we've reached this point, it is a sure sign of a
bubble (cf Tulip fever in the Netherlands).

~~~
csallen
I agree with (A). In situation (B), the company being acquired was not
profitable and may not have been on a path toward profitability, and yet was
of value to another company, which seems to go against your thesis. And
situation (C) is literally the prime motivation of every investment ever made
for reasons other than charity.

~~~
Silhouette
_And situation (C) is literally the prime motivation of every investment ever
made for reasons other than charity._

It really isn't.

Some of us invest in things because we expect that in the long run the pay-off
will be greater than the investment. In business terms, that means that the
cost of buying into a company is less than the profit you are expecting to
realise through dividends over the long run.

The idea (modern trend?) of having companies that pay no dividends, whose
shares are valuable only because someone else might buy them for more money
later, seems to me to be exactly what tomgallard said: a sure sign of a
bubble.

I've often wondered why we allow companies, particularly publicly traded ones,
to sit on an ever-growing war chest rather than paying out their profits to
investors as dividends. I don't know enough grown-up economics to appreciate
the realistic consequences of regulating that kind of behaviour, but the zero-
dividend, war-chest approach seems to promote all the wrong behaviours in
terms of markets and investors, assuming your goal is to have a healthy
economy that promotes making useful products and providing useful services.

~~~
stephencanon
> I've often wondered why we allow companies, particularly publicly traded
> ones, to sit on an ever-growing war chest rather than paying out their
> profits to investors as dividends.

Because we believe that a large, successful company has investment options
available to it that are not available to Joe Average, and can achieve a
better return on that capital for its investors than they would be able to
achieve themselves if it were returned immediately as a dividend. If you
disagree with that analysis, you can easily vote with your investment dollars.

~~~
Silhouette
I appreciate that large companies do have other options today, for better or
worse.

What I'm asking is whether we should allow them to exercise those options.
Doing so, as you hinted in your own comment, means that large companies have
to become skilled investors, and this will inevitably become a significant or
even the dominant part of their existence instead of actually making useful
things or providing useful services.

As we've observed all too recently, not all of those extra investment options
are quite as effective as they were supposed to be. Moreover, any investment
option that _is_ legitimate could probably offered to (now richer) individual
investors if large companies were not allowed to use it. So I'm not sure where
the big downside is of restoring the natural links between companies that do
socially useful things like make good products, companies that make profits,
and companies that are attractive to outside investors when they need extra
funding to grow faster.

Alternatively, if these companies are going to be allowed to invest their
profits on behalf of their own shareholders, perhaps it's about time they were
regulated as financial institutions. If nothing else, shareholders should be
protected from senior management who are erroneously convinced that they can
do a better job gambling^Winvesting their shareholders' profits than the
shareholders themselves can do of choosing where to spend a legitimate return
on their investment.

~~~
stephencanon
I was thinking more in terms of investments related to the company's business
(e.g.: Apple pre-paying billions of dollars to lock up massive amounts of
flash storage or to fund new factories for suppliers) that often have a much
higher ROI than any investment you or I might reasonably make in any
investment available to us.

Large companies carrying trading/gambling departments not related to the rest
of their business is, as you say, probably not a good thing.

~~~
Silhouette
Sure, if the money is being spent on things like stock and operating expenses
that are a normal part of the business, I have no problem with that. If it's
being done on an industrial scale and there are economies that go with that,
it makes perfect sense. I'm just not convinced that (for example) certain
large tech companies -- particularly those that are in the software or
services businesses rather than in manufacturing -- need reserves on the scale
they are holding for the kinds of purposes we're talking about here, which
leads me to ask why the rest isn't being paid out in dividends to
shareholders.

------
adrianhoward
There is something deeply broken about equating hours to productivity.

It's been my experience that folk are _very_ good at deceiving themselves
about their productivity (myself included :-)

One team I worked with had a serious problem with overtime. They were putting
in stupid hours and it was showing in the quality of work going out. So I ran
an experiment where we all agreed to work "normal" hours for six weeks.

I was "only" working about 45 hours a week at this point, when other people on
the team were regularly working 50-60. I was relatively young, didn't have any
family pressure, enjoyed my work and felt very productive doing those hours. I
wasn't one of the people with a "problem" as I saw it. We were running the
experiment for the other folk on the team.

In the experiment we dropped to a 40 hours week (6 hours coding per day, 2
hours for breaks, meetings & lunch). After a couple of weeks adjustment my
productivity went _way_ up. I also felt a lot better in myself - generally
sharper and more on the ball.

People seem to have quite a wide bad of "this feels okay" that subsumes the
much narrower "I'm performing at my best".

Also people don't jump from a 35 hour week to 60 hours a week. It creeps up a
few minutes at a time as pressure increases on the team. People have enough
time to adjust to it being "normal" and don't notice the drop in productivity
that goes with it.

Currently I work roughly 25-30 hours a week and am just as productive by all
metrics that I have available to me as when I worked 40-50.

I would _strongly_ urge people to experiment. Pick some metrics, try working
shorter hours for a month, see what happens.

(The only caveat I would add is that with folks doing silly hours - anything
over 50 I would say - there is often a couple of weeks where things go to hell
as the body adjusts. On the team from the story practically everybody caught a
bug and felt crap for the first week or so before productivity rose again).

~~~
coenhyde
It's funny how the body adjusts. At my last company (I was a director. 1 of 4)
we had a MASSIVE problem with working long ours. At the end I was working 100
hour weeks (I only ever had time to eat sleep and work). I pulled the plug
after a few years of these self imposed insane hours. You would assume all
would be well then but what happened next was completely unexpected.

I fell ill 3 times in the following 3 months, and I was on holidays!
Previously I hadn't been sick for years. After a bit of researching I
discovered after a period of intense stress, it's pretty common to get sick
once you remove that stress.

~~~
siculars
That true. My bro, a doctor, actually said that mortality rates dramatically
increase during a short time (3yr) after retirement. Rapidly removing stress
can be as bad for your health as prolonged exposure to it.

~~~
dhbanes
Meh.. wouldn't you expect mortality rates to increase dramatically as one
approaches the end of their life? Correlation ≠ causation.

------
fascinated
Thanks for trolling, Ryan.

It's easy to think this is impressive, but the reader forgets about the number
of years Ryan has worked on creating businesses. He has made awesome stuff,
but all that time can't be ignored. The suggestion that others can easily do
it too if only they were less "messed up/caught up in old manufacturing ways",
is some smug shit.

These crazy hard-working Americans are trying to figure out their first
startup, with very limited resources. It's a different game, and they are in a
different place in the food chain.

I am sure if they too have sold multiple companies and worked in the industry
for 10+ (?) years, they too would adopt all kinds of relaxed ways of working
and running firms. I agree that if they still work long hours after that, it
is misguided as you point out.

But lets not get carried away with how the 1% works. How many days a week did
you work on your first company?

~~~
ryancarson
We've been working the 4-day week since 2006, when I hired my very first
employee. I distinctly remember us hitting £10,000 in our bank account. It was
huge.

This proves it's possible, even when you're young, stressed and unprofitable.

~~~
antidaily
So you were around 28. I completely agree with your post and it hits home for
me. But to a hustling 21 year old, who is super passionate and has nothing
else going on and really, doesnt quite know what he/she is doing -- I think
that 5th day would just be spent playing video games or being hungover.

~~~
adrianhoward
_I think that 5th day would just be spent playing video games or being
hungover_

You say that as if it was a bad thing.

People need fun. It makes them feel better. People who feel better work better
and are more productive. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that an
extra day of fun makes the four days more productive than the five days of
work.

Hours worked is a lousy way to measure the contribution a person makes to the
organisation.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I believe the proper metric should be "profitability delivered per # of
hours". If I can be more profitable, in less time, that should be more
valuable than how many hours as a whole I've worked.

------
PeterMcCanney
The first startup I worked for was cash poor and I agreed to lower wages in
return for a 4 day week. Bear in mind that this was in Ireland in the late
1990's and there was never any mention of shares etc. There was however a very
competitive market for anyone who could turn on a computer.

At the time three other companies wanted me to work for them doing web design
& development. And each of them had the 60hr a week, no overtime attitude that
they were emulating from American companies. However they were not emulating
the benefits of these American companies, at no point was a shareholding or
options mentioned.

The money was good but I don't think i would have had the time to spend it.

So the smallest company offered me less money but agreed to four days a week.
And I agreed. The 2 years I spent represents one of the most productive
periods in my working life.

It also gave me time to develop my own ideas on the side while gaining great
start-up experience.

Since then I've worked for other companies and myself sometimes pulling 80-100
hours a week. And after a couple of prolonged periods of this I Burned out.

Twice in the past decade.

No amount of cash, shares or experience was worth being burned out.

Now-a-days I do about 4-4.5 days a week, on a contract basis and once again
I'm more productive and creative than I have been in 15 years.

~~~
mattm1
Kellogg's went to a 30 hour work week and found productivity vastly improved -
[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697784/)

'After five years of six-hour work days, the company brass concluded that the
"burden (or overhead) unit cost was reduced 25% . . . labor unit costs reduced
10% . . . accidents reduced 41% . . . the severity of accidents (days lost per
incident) improved 51% . . . [and] 39% more people were working at Kellogg's
than in 1929."'

------
moconnor
I spent two 12 month periods working exactly 17 hours a week (German paternity
leave is _incredibly_ progressive).

Both times, it worked. When I tried tracking various arbitrary metrics of
effectiveness (bugs fixed, commits made, files touched etc.) I found no real
difference to working full-time.

I also spent one month working one day a week. During that month my
effectiveness also stayed roughly constant, although I sacrificed almost
everything that wasn't communication or coding for that month.

My focus during the working times was _much_ higher. I never wasted time
writing HN comments when I only had 4 hours to get my work done.

It was _also_ more stressful than working full-time. Everyone else in the
company still spent 35 hours a week generating email and commit traffic, which
meant I felt I was always playing catch-up with that aspect.

I'd be interested to see what it's like when everyone in the company works a 4
day week.

~~~
igouy
> I never wasted time writing HN comments when I only had 4 hours to get my
> work done.

Sounds like you never were doing more than 4 hours work.

~~~
oe
How many actually do more than 4 hours of work in a day? Installing a
monitoring tool like RescueTime can get you some interesting results about how
many hours you are actually being productive. RescueTime says I'm currently
doing about 56 hours of work a week, of which 60% are productive.

------
jaggederest
That's cute, but why do I have to be in the office? If you're discarding
useless traditions, start with that one. It leads to wonderful things like:
flexible hours, goal-based performance rather than time-based performance, and
other nifty things like not having to move across the country to change jobs.

Also, why 9-6? Is that a magic number? What about 10 to 5? Is that worse
substantially? I doubt it. There's another 22% of your time with your kids
back.

I'm pretty sure that we're going to look back at office buildings and the idea
of commutes in general as being a huge waste of time.

Unless you're physically manipulating things, there's no reason for it, and it
wastes an immense amount of society's resources maintaining millions of square
feet of office space. Think of the number of people you could house in the
average office building.

~~~
Silhouette
I think you're understating the potential downside of telecommuting.

I'll be the first to agree that requiring bums on seats, just because, isn't
helping anyone. Likewise, holding all-hands meetings where most people have
better things to do and only 25% of the room cares about what is being
discussed at any given moment is rarely a good investment of time.

On the other hand, having live interactions with colleagues and real face time
is _vastly_ more productive in some contexts than having everyone call into a
Skype conference/available on IM/screen-sharing. Communication is simply much
more efficient face-to-face than over any remote channel. If you have more
than two or three people who need to work closely together, then body language
really matters, and the ability to do simple things like scribble a diagram on
a bit of paper or have a couple of guys step out for a minute to work through
some details without holding up the rest of the group is indispensable.

(I have similar views on flexible hours, BTW. If you allow complete
flexibility, to the point where you can no longer rely on the "early" guys
overlapping with the "late" guys for more than a token amount of time,
communication because a significant burden.)

This doesn't mean everyone needs to be in the office full-time, of course, and
I'm all in favour of allowing telecommuting and flexible hours when there's no
reason not to. But having people who need to work closely together in the same
place for a significant chunk of the working week can have a lot of benefits,
and IMHO is not a useless tradition at all.

~~~
rwallace
I find face-to-face communication is often highly inefficient. Responses are
expected at reflex speed, in a fraction of a second, which means those
responses necessarily consist of whatever came to mind first, regardless of
whether it's correct or useful. Communicating by text, even instant message,
means you have time to think about what you're saying. Sure, it may take a
little longer per word, but being able to reply more thoughtfully often means
better conclusions can be reached in a tiny fraction of the number of words.
Big-O speedup beats constant factor slowdown for nontrivial problems.

~~~
Silhouette
Isn't what you describe more of a cultural problem, or simply a lack of basic
communication skills among the participants?

If I'm talking face-to-face with a couple of other guys, or sitting at my desk
with a colleague looking over my shoulder to give me a second opinion on
something I'm working on, we don't need one of us to be speaking 100% of the
time. The advantage is that you _can_ have instant feedback when it's helpful,
which I find is quite often.

If there's a larger meeting going on with a whole group of participants, then
hopefully those participants were given enough information to prepare properly
in advance, and hopefully someone is in the chair to moderate the discussion
and ensure that the pace is sensible and everyone is able to contribute.
That's another thing that becomes very much harder when phone lines and
network connections are involved, IME.

Your point seems to be that smarter people tend to spend more time listening
and thinking and less time talking. I completely agree. I just don't think
meeting face-to-face necessarily prevents that. Sometimes you want to
compare/evolve ideas at high speed or explain/learn something interactively,
and being in the same place helps with that IME. Sometimes you want one person
to consider an issue deeply and then report their findings, and maybe a formal
document that other people can read, at their own pace and wherever they
happen to be, is a better choice in that case. But working in the same
location doesn't prevent that either.

------
pclark
If I were an investor and someone said to me "We are only going to work 4 days
a week since we can do 5 days work in 4." I'd challenge with "so why don't you
do 6 days work in 5 days?"

I am mostly playing devils advocate: I think having a 4 day work week is a
fantastic recruitment tool. I do wonder though if a young startup raising it's
seed financing said "oh, we only work 4 days a week" an investor may raise
eyebrows. Regardless, this is a fantastic example of Ryan Carsons' culture
resonating throughout the company.

~~~
adrianhoward
_I'd challenge with "so why don't you do 6 days work in 5 days?"_

I can imagine a few good answers:

* We need to keep the team: A four day week is a major reason they don't get poached. It's a benevolent lock in. Almost nobody else does this. Just reducing team churn to practically zero probably pays for the extra day in of itself (recruiting is time consuming and expensive).

* We need to grow the team: We need to get more people in a very competitive hiring market. Having three days of your own each week is a major USP for the company. It lets us attract and recruit the best.

* In my experience productivity actually drops if a team works longer hours. I've had teams produce _more_ after moved from about 50 hours coding to about 30 hours coding a week. People suck at estimating how productive they are.

------
hkarthik
They have revenue, but at just $3MM in revenue, it still looks like they are
operating at a loss.

Doing some quick calcs: $3MM Revenue / 34 employees = $88,235 per employee.

In most major US cities, that wouldn't even cover the base salary of an
skilled employee. Not to mention benefits, payroll taxes, etc. Add this to all
the equipment costs, office rental space, etc. and they must be operating at a
loss.

I've heard that most VCs/Angels consider a company profitable only if they're
making an average of $200K/year per employee.

Under these circumstances, it's clear why they took funding because it
provides some breathing room for another year or so till they reach true
profitability.

Even so, it's still commendable that they're able to hold on to their ideals
of a 4-day workweek given their current circumstances.

~~~
elliottcarlson
_I've heard that most VCs/Angels consider a company profitable only if they're
making an average of $200K/year per employee._

VCs are looking at their ROI, so their view on profitability is based on what
they might have in the company - that shouldn't skew the fact that a company
might actually be profitable, and with time and growth they will meet those
numbers as well.

------
Produce
I've also been working a 4-day week this year and it's done me a lot of good.
Gone are the days when I sat in the office and wanted nothing more than to run
out and never come back. Now, there's plenty of time to rest and programming
is fun again. I would recommend this to anyone.

If you're wondering how to get a job like that, here's what I did. Apply for
job adverts intended for a rank lower than you're currently at. If you have
senior level experience, apply for mid-level positions and say that you can do
the same amount of work in less time. Explain that you bring more value, pound
for pound, than a less experienced developer.

------
_delirium
Interesting, I've heard of 4-day weeks at some large companies, but they're
usually 4x 10-hr days, so same total amount of work, just a way of reducing
time wasted commuting. Perhaps more common is alternating 5/4-day weeks of
9-hour days (every other Friday off). Making it 4-day weeks of regular-length
days is more of a real change.

~~~
rmc
Henry Ford was one of the first to change. Instead of a 6 day week, he made
his factories have a 5 day week, and was willing to pay the same for less
work.

We (as a society) need to start changing to a 4 day week.

~~~
PawelDecowski
> Henry Ford was one of the first to change. Instead of a 6 day week, he made
> his factories have a 5 day week, and was willing to pay the same for less
> work.

Doubling the minimum wage at the same time, apparently. Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#The_five-
dollar_work...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#The_five-
dollar_workday)

------
nulluk
I think this article hits the nail on the head regarding 4 day weeks.

I currently work a 4 day week (4x10 hour days) allowing a whole extra day to
focus on external activities and interests that i dont get to fully peruse at
work due to contraints and/or conflict of interest.

It's such a big change in life style and as Ryan mentioned in the article it
fosters such good energy and a totally refreshed feel come a monday morning.

And again just like the employee mentioned in the article it's such a benefit
that I wouldn't even consider a move in companies unless it was matched like
for like (or better).

------
andrewingram
I'd prefer to take Monday off than Friday. Going to work places me
conveniently in the middle of the city, perfectly placed for some post-work
socialising.

The problem with taking Friday off is that it would make my social life
incompatible with the people who are aren't. I'd be off doing my weekend
things whilst everyone else would be hitting the bars and clubs. Having Monday
off would let me finally make better use of my Sundays, and losing Monday
night isn't a big deal because it's not normally a big night anyway.

~~~
wahnfrieden
I could see that fitting less well with company processes though. You're more
likely to ship something on a Monday than a Friday so that you can be around,
so not being there Fridays might not be as big of a deal.

~~~
andrewingram
True, but I've always found that despite my insistance that we never release
on a Friday, it always seems to end up happening.

------
TamDenholm
Does anyone else wonder why if you're profitable on a $3MM a year revenue with
34 staff you're off raising money?

Ryan Carson is a very well seasoned businessman which i assume is more than
financially capable of putting money into a business and clearly has what
you'd easily define as a successful business, to me it seems like theres some
kind of weakness somewhere if based on those very advantageous circumstances
you need to go out and raise money.

~~~
btucker
Cashflow. You need a lot of extra profit to be able to hire 10 new people.
Clearly they don't want to expand organically over time, but perceive a near-
term opportunity, and are using outside investors to allow them to grow the
company to the next phase.

~~~
ryancarson
Exactly.

------
jack7890
How many days per week did you work on your first company, before you were
internet famous?

~~~
ryancarson
When I was an employee (developer at various web shops in London) I worked the
normal 5-day week.

When I started my first company, I worked 5-days a week for the first year or
so, when it was just me. Then before we hired our first employee, we switched
to the 4-day week.

------
ValeriuWL
Actually, the society as a whole has already passed the point where people
have to work 40 hours a week. It's the monetary system that doesn't allow us
to enjoy our time here without working ourselves to death.

------
villagefool
You are profitable, and have a large base of users. So what is the funding
for?

------
mbesto
Ryan, fellow American in the UK here...

I totally agree with this mentality, but unfortunately it doesn't work for
everyone's business model. Furthermore, I would be willing to bet that a
majority of my time beyond the 4-day week I currently is the extra time I
spend having to deal with inadequate colleagues (whether they be clients or
co-workers).

This model works if you have a group of very smart and talented individuals.
Finding this 'zen' is extremely difficult...not because it doesn't take hard
work, but rather there is a small dosage of luck around it. It also doesn't
scale very well, as communication overhead begins to seep into that additional
'hour' of work.

That being said, work-life balance is much more tolerable in Europe/UK, and
people are generally more productive here. The US is a purely service-based
model now, where soft skills (which are largely time-unmanageable) are king.

Congrats on the funding. You must be chuffed :)

~~~
ryancarson
It's definitely harder to work 4-days a week (from a management perspective).
More planning and intensity, but I think a lot of businesses could do this if
they really wanted to.

------
robforman
"I get to spend 50% more time with my kids"

You've made a good trade. Time is one of the few things we can never get more
of once its gone. And the short 10 years or so of prime time with young kids
is especially unique. As almost any parent of grown kids will say, its gone
before you know it.

------
meterplech
I think these posts are something like productivity porn for life hackers or 4
hour work week people.

I definitely agree that 4 truly productive focused days of works beats 5
lackluster uncreative and unfocused days and I applaud creative work/life
balance ideas. But, I think 5 truly productive focused days of works beats 4.
As PG says, if you think of a startup as a chance to compress your whole
working life to just a few years, you can probably attain that prolonged
productivity at least for a few years. Yes, worry about burnout, give yourself
time, etc... But one of the things startups do to beat big companies is
outproduce them.

Obviously for lifestyle businesses and probably a variety of industries this
may not apply. YMMV

~~~
ryancarson
I love how whenever you say the words "4-day work week" on HN, people roll out
the old "lifestyle business" stuff.

------
mibbitier
"I get to spend 50% more time with my kids then almost all other dads (three
days versus two). Fifty percent. It’s insane."

Why not 'work' at home? I've worked at home for the last 5 or 6 years, and get
to spend pretty much all my time with my kids. Now _that_ 's insane.

~~~
dsr_
If you're working from home and you're spending all your time with your kids,
you probably aren't working much.

I have two kids. I work from home about 10% of the time. When I'm working from
home, I have more time for the kids first thing in the morning and when I come
home, since the commute is just opening the door. But when I'm WFH, it's not
kid-time.

~~~
mibbitier
90% of this job is "thinking". You can do that while you're playing with your
kids.

You can be looking after kids, whilst designing in your mind what you need to
do next, planning out what code needs writing and how to solve problems.

Sure, every so often I'll take myself away to a separate room if I need to
work on something with my full attention, but that's rare.

I don't feel the need to separate my life into "work" and "not work". I just
do things when they need doing and when I feel like I want to do them.

(Just my 2c, YMMV).

~~~
otoburb
I wish I had your ability to do multiple conscious tasks at once. I find that
when I'm playing with my newborn child I miss certain interaction cues unless
I'm fully engaged with him. I've certainly tried to do what you said as I used
to think it was easy to think and play, but I often found myself distracted
and ending up doing an injustice to both.

Since I work remotely most of the time, I also try not to separate "work" and
"personal" time. However, in order to stay productive, more often than not I
need to sit in a separate room because being productive (mainly for pushing
out deliverables) requires me to be sitting away from my child.

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sparknlaunch12
Ryan - Thanks for sharing. Wish more people would appreciate the work ethos
you write about.

It is about working smarter and more efficiently. Diminishing costs are often
forgotten. Working smarter also empowers your staff.

Now, where do I send my CV?

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mrbgty
Interesting that they point out a 9-6 hour work day the other 4 days. If you
believe in being flexible and not forcing employees to work so much then why
enforce 9-6 on the other 4 days?

------
zobzu
I find it interesting that everyone brings up working less / earning more as
necessary _because_ they've kids.

As if, when you have no kids, you've _obviously_ to work more and earn less.

In general, you have no kids _because_ you realized that you wouldn't have
enough money for them to get everything they need / it's too risky.

And that doesn't mean you don't work as well. In general it means you've taken
more morally adequate decisions and less financially adequate decisions in
your life.

------
JohnnyFlash
We had a post the other day about how important a name is. Here is another
example of the name not being important. I mean what has "team treehouse" got
to do with learning or web development?

To the article I am glad to see them get funding. I use the service and think
its great.

I think a 4 day work week can definitely work, especially with motivation and
guarding against burn out. Main issue is that the rest of the world works 5
days a week which in many sectors can create problems.

~~~
ryancarson
Our name is Treehouse but the owners of treehouse.com wanted £1m+. We decided
teamtreehouse.com was close enough :) Our name is "Treehouse" though.

------
gawker
Thanks for this post. I think it's really great that you pointed out that
working 24/7 does not guarantee success but rather how well you use your time.
4-day work weeks can be just as effective as 5-day work weeks. At some point,
everyone will suffer from the lack of sleep or because you're pigeon-holed
into a particular environment, the lack of diversity in your environment might
hamper your ability to think creatively.

------
Gormo
The 4-day week is a great idea, and can probably work well in most vertically-
integrated businesses. Ironically, it's probably _most_ suitable for
manufacturing work, especially if you're building to stock and not to order.

But if you have a lot of external dependencies, and need to interface with
suppliers and customers on a regular basis, a 4-day workweek can really into
the amount of time you have available to do so.

------
jasonwilk
We do the same thing at 140Fire. 4 days in the office, 1 day at home. There is
just not enough time for people to get things done on Saturday and Sunday, nor
should they have to spend their 2 days off trying to accomplish personal
tasks. Friday is the perfect day to take for completing personal things. It
also makes them work harder and more efficient for the 4 days in the office.

------
ssn
The piece doesn't answer the most important question -- how?

Side note: I wish there was a site like "The Setup" focused on the next phase
-- "how do I work".

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goatcurious
Did you consider taking Wednesday off instead of Friday? Breaks the workweek
nicely. 2 days of high burst and relax.

~~~
franciso
Something I never thought of. Have you tried this approach yourself?

~~~
goatcurious
Not yet but do plan to in future when I have more control over my paycheck. In
theory it sounds as if it will cure the productivity loss coming from Monday
morning blues and early Friday - would be interesting to test it out.

------
amix
I think this sounds great for people with families. But being 26 without kids
this does not really appeal to me. Without girlfriend I would probably work 6
days pr. week as I think one day relaxing is sufficient, especially if you
don't work too many hours pr. day and exercise regularly (like 3 times a
week).

~~~
stdbrouw
So why would you want to work more than four days a week? Because you'd feel
more productive, because you could (maybe) earn more money, because you'd be
bored on your time off, because you'd feel guilty for not working? There's
tons of things you can do on a weekend aside from just relaxing and mindlessly
watching tv, is there absolutely nothing you'd prefer to do instead of
working?

~~~
amix
Because I love my work and I want more of it :)

------
zoltarSpeaks
I wonder if Ryan started doing business with this culture in place or if it
was something he adopted. I'd be interested to hear how he converted to a 4
day working week if it wasn't something that he started out doing. I think
it's that initial changeover that would be the hardest thing to stick to.

~~~
ryancarson
We've been doing the 4-day week since 2006 so I can't speak to doing the
switch. Sorry.

------
driverdan
Why not 5 day weeks with shorter days? I much prefer shorter work days to
working fewer days. It gives you a lot more flexibility. You feel less burned
out / tired on days you work. You can get more done in the morning or night or
sleep in later.

------
andyouthink
First off, this is great. I applaud the fact that you can be profitable
working fewer hours, and hopefully paying more than competitive salaries with
good benefits.

But, that said, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned here that M-Th, 9-6
isn't a 4-day week, unless you include a required lunch hour, which most
don't. So, since you didn't mention that, and I'm fairly sure that you work
through lunch as many do including myself, then 9-6 M-Th is 36 hours, which is
4.5 "normal" 8-hour workdays.

I challenge you to be profitable working 32 hours a week (the equivalent of 4
8-hour workdays), preferably using flex time (so people can work those hours
whenever they wish) and allowing telecommuting whenever the employee desires,
and still be profitable.

~~~
commondream
I'm on the product team at Treehouse and wanted to comment on a few of the
things you mention here. Not everyone at Treehouse takes a lunch hour, but
most of us do. I usually spend 30-45 minutes on lunch every day. A lot of our
team at the office in Orlando goes to lunch together each day. I was at lunch
for an hour and half yesterday with a big group of our product team and it's
not like Ryan came and yelled at me afterward. In general I don't think anyone
on our team cares too much how long you take for lunch or what your exact
hours are. We care way more about what we're getting done than hours.

We also don't all work 9-6. It's a guideline that we use to help us know when
we should be available for collaborating with others on the team, but I
generally start at 8 AM and end at 5 PM each day.

A whole lot of our team works remotely or at least has the option to, but our
video production generally requires that we be on site to produce our videos
at the quality we want. Even with the people who need to be in the office
there's a decent amount time spent away from the office, though. All of our
developers and designers who work on the site work remotely.

~~~
andyouthink
Great to hear that. So you say most of you take a lunch hour, and then say you
only take 30-45 mins. So, some work 32 hours, some work 33.5-34 hours a week,
and others work 36, so that's 4 to 4.5 days a week, depending on who you talk
to on the team. When I'm talking about flex time, I'm not talking about a long
lunch, I'm talking missing hours in the morning or afternoon because your wife
or kid is sick or is in a play at school and making up those hours on Friday.
My point is not that Treehouse isn't a great place to work or that a 4 day
work week can't work, but that there are a ton of startups that have flexible
40 hour weeks that allow telecommuting, and that flex time and telecommuting
add to the complexity, which makes it just as much if not more of a feat to be
profitable- and that is my point: it is laudable, but just isn't that big of a
difference. If everyone in the office did 32 hours with no extra time and have
flexibility to take care of their family as needed and work from any location
they want as much as possible if they desire as long as they get the work
done, and still be a profitable startup, then that would be impressive to me
personally.

------
joedev
Ryan,

How did you convince your VCs that it's okay to work 4 day work weeks when the
Valley famously continues to call for startups to work non-stop night and day?

------
newobj
Ryan, do you have any problems with the business being located in Florida? In
terms of attracting talent, even in light of a 4 day work week?

------
bizodo
No need to brag. Haha. We do something similar at bizodo where we work a
little later on Thursday and then half day on Friday.

------
mweil
What about the founders, especially at the beginning of the company's life? Do
they have the same work week as employees?

~~~
ryancarson
Each company is different but I think the way you start a company is usually
the way it continues. You can't work 100 weeks then suddenly switch to
something sane.

------
rralian
So... ummm... do you have any opening for a developer (vs a teaching
developer, which you mention on your website)? :-)

~~~
ryancarson
Always hiring :) Hit up support at teamtreehouse

------
EGreg
Wow, highly upvoted. And spot on :) Wish there were more companies like this
in our field.

------
paraschopra
How do you handle customer support that can arise any time (including
weekends)?

~~~
ryancarson
Our Support Team currently works M-Th 9-6 and then three hours a day on Fri-
Sun.

We're going to scale this part of the Team soon so they can switch to a real
4-day week.

We're also going to find people to join this Team who are in Austra-lasia so
we can cover those hours as well.

~~~
paraschopra
Great! So, your support team works any three hours on Fri-Sun?

I'm too wondering if we should hire people in US to handle support (to cover
those timzeones), but I'm afraid if they will _get_ the company culture, and
feel part of the team. Your thoughts on having a remote team?

------
its_so_on
"I get to spend 20% more time with my kids then almost all other dads. TWENTY
percent. It’s insane. For those on the Team without kids, they get to spend
this extra 20% on their hobbies or loved ones."

The reason the author SHOUTS the TWENTY percent is that it's actually 50%! (3
days off versus two). The only thing that's 20% is the number of your old days
that you now don't work. (You also used to work 25% more days than now).

~~~
ryancarson
Thanks for pointing that out. Updating now ...

------
89a
Could have done with a less smug profile pic

~~~
ryancarson
That's just my default pic :)

------
drivingsouth
If the implied correlation works why don't you work 2 days a week?

------
dblock
France has been working 4 days a week basically. All the fundamentals in
France seem the same as Germany except the working hours, yet Germany is doing
economically much better.

Switzerland has school 4 days a week. Its students are doing better in various
subjects than schools in the rest of the world, but not better than Northern
Europe which has much heavier school schedules.

The point is, the number of days you work just doesn't matter.

