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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 w

by jasode 11y ago

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 11y ago
>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 11y ago
  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.
EliRivers 11y ago
"successful startups" as that phrase is understood by the HN readers I think that might be the problem here. I went to school with a guy who founded a taxi company; he never worked silly hours, but that's not a "successful startup" as understood by HN readers.
mtmail 11y ago
This reads like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman argument. There are plenty of startup entrepreneurs who don't have that singular focus or obsession and can still create a successful company.
- jasode 11y ago
  >There are plenty of startup entrepreneurs who don't have that singular focus or obsession and can still create a successful company. Who would that be that HN is familiar with? HN is familiar with startup founders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, M Zuckerberg, etc. Their ability to outwork everyone else with 80+ hours/week is well-known and constantly repeated in business reporting. Who are the 40-hour a week startup founders that HN can use as role models? If there are "plenty", I don't know a single one. (The original HN question asker apparently doesn't know them either because he wouldn't ask the question if he did.) I would hope HN posters don't speak abstractly. Instead, speak concretely and tell us who those real people are so we can emulate them.
  - mtmail 11y ago
    It seems you define successful startup as companies who IPOed, became household brands and made their founders billionaires. A company can already be seen as success if it makes good profit and keeps the stakeholders happy. The founders of those might not be role model material you're looking for. Personally I already exclaim success when I hear a solo founder is sitting on the beach while making profit. I can't name a startup founder of a now NASDAQ company that didn't work 80hr/week (although Bezos prides himself at sleeping 8h day who knows what he did in the early days), but here's a founder who rather works 4 days a week than 5 https://signalvnoise.com/posts/902-fire-the-workaholics https://signalvnoise.com/posts/902-fire-the-workaholics possibly because there weren't VCs answering to. (That's funny: the blog post links to another post titled "Can you have a life and work at a startup company?" http://calacanis.com/2008/03/07/can-you-have-a-life-and-work-at-a-startup-company/ http://calacanis.com/2008/03/07/can-you-have-a-life-and-work...) (I didn't downvote your post BTW if that was a concern)

by jasode 11y ago

tim333 11y ago

>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 11y ago
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.

EliRivers 11y ago

"successful startups" as that phrase is understood by the HN readers I think that might be the problem here. I went to school with a guy who founded a taxi company; he never worked silly hours, but that's not a "successful startup" as understood by HN readers.

mtmail 11y ago

This reads like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman argument. There are plenty of startup entrepreneurs who don't have that singular focus or obsession and can still create a successful company.

jasode 11y ago
>There are plenty of startup entrepreneurs who don't have that singular focus or obsession and can still create a successful company. Who would that be that HN is familiar with? HN is familiar with startup founders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, M Zuckerberg, etc. Their ability to outwork everyone else with 80+ hours/week is well-known and constantly repeated in business reporting. Who are the 40-hour a week startup founders that HN can use as role models? If there are "plenty", I don't know a single one. (The original HN question asker apparently doesn't know them either because he wouldn't ask the question if he did.) I would hope HN posters don't speak abstractly. Instead, speak concretely and tell us who those real people are so we can emulate them.
- mtmail 11y ago
  It seems you define successful startup as companies who IPOed, became household brands and made their founders billionaires. A company can already be seen as success if it makes good profit and keeps the stakeholders happy. The founders of those might not be role model material you're looking for. Personally I already exclaim success when I hear a solo founder is sitting on the beach while making profit. I can't name a startup founder of a now NASDAQ company that didn't work 80hr/week (although Bezos prides himself at sleeping 8h day who knows what he did in the early days), but here's a founder who rather works 4 days a week than 5 https://signalvnoise.com/posts/902-fire-the-workaholics https://signalvnoise.com/posts/902-fire-the-workaholics possibly because there weren't VCs answering to. (That's funny: the blog post links to another post titled "Can you have a life and work at a startup company?" http://calacanis.com/2008/03/07/can-you-have-a-life-and-work-at-a-startup-company/ http://calacanis.com/2008/03/07/can-you-have-a-life-and-work...) (I didn't downvote your post BTW if that was a concern)