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Does this really happen? I've been involved in startups for the last 9 years (the last 4 as a technical founder). I can count on one hand the number of times I'

by enjo 16y ago

Does this really happen? I've been involved in startups for the last 9 years (the last 4 as a technical founder). I can count on one hand the number of times I've pulled an all-nighter or even really worked through a weekend. Sure I work a bit more than the average person, but it's nothing like this. I've had bugs popup on the weekend or during a vacation (and I do travel with my laptop everywhere I go). 99% of the time they fall into the 'we can live with that until Monday' category. My relationship with my wife and friends is simply too important to let something as trivial as a startup get in the way of it. I just can't help but feel like we're continuing to romanticize this workaholic culture. That somehow to be a 'real' entrepreneur you have to turn your whole life over to it. This is one place that I agree with the guys from 37 signals. You don't have to kill yourself to make a business go. You don't have to work 80 (or 120) hour weeks. Starting a business is a marathon, and like all marathons it requires pacing. A large part of that is learning to separate the real emergencies from the perceived ones. Just because something isn't working, it doesn't mean that your business will fall over if it continues not to work for 48 hours. That sort of triage is really important if your going to maintain your sanity to get to the fourth year. Just how I see it at least. My wife would certainly write a very different article than this one.

haploid 16y ago
Some of us actually enjoy creating and producing. It seems that you are suggesting an irreconcilable dichotomy between work and enjoyment of life with your phrase "turn your whole life over to it". In point of fact, many people do this as part of living, and don't count it as work. Most children, when building novel( to them )structures with legos, lincoln logs, blocks, etc, are not "turning their whole lives over to it". They are living, and they are enjoying themselves.
- alex_c 16y ago
  There's a difference between creating and putting out fires, though. I enjoy creating, but I can also set it aside long enough to spend some time with someone. I DON'T enjoy putting out fires, but it is usually a necessary evil towards a more significant goal. It's amazing to have a SO who understands and accommodates that, but the two shouldn't be confused - it's the difference between having to fix an emergency, and enjoying coding more than sharing a meal with your SO.
  - franimal61 16y ago
    I agree with you, I just want to point out the fact that he (the startup guy) DID go to brunch with his SO. I'm sure that it would have been easier for him to just stay home and work, and go out "some other time" or something like that. I really like that it seems like they both compromised on brunch that day. He joined her for brunch, and she was alright with him doing work at brunch. Seems like they have a really good relationship.
- swift 16y ago
  Thanks for posting this comment; though I agree with the poster you're replying to, you provide a good counterargument that gave me some insight. I greatly enjoy creating and producing, so count me in your camp on that issue. And yet I can't see the appeal of diving so deep into the creative process that you lose touch with other important things in life. As time goes by I increasingly view the opportunity cost as too much to bear. Your friends and family grow and change over time; they may move or die or drift away. If you don't spend quality time with them now, it may be prohibitive or impossible to make it up later. The places you've always dreamed of visiting may be very different when you come up for air (consider how New Orleans has changed). The bands you always wanted to see live may have broken up; the bands you wanted to play in may never have formed. You won't have participated in that historic march or rally, you won't have seen that rare animal before it went extinct, you won't have climbed that mountain and seen that glorious landscape before it was marred with suburbs and smokestacks. The world we live in is ephemeral, always changing, and you can never go back. That doesn't mean you can't create and produce and have a great time doing it, but it does mean that it's worthwhile to carve out enough time to experience as much as possible of the beauty this world has to offer. When I'm lying on my deathbed, I want to look back and remember a life lived to the fullest, full of experience and laughter and love. I do not want to look back at a lifetime spent staring at a laptop screen, regardless of how much I created or how much money I made. I think a person's stance on this subject is probably determined by the kinds of experiences that they value. If there are only a few types of experiences that really excite you, it probably makes sense to traverse life depth-first, and get as much out of those kinds of experiences as you can. That might mean that long hours and single-minded focus over long periods are the best way to achieve your goals in life. If you are excited by a wide variety of experiences in many different areas, a breadth-first traversal of life is probably more suitable.
- enjo 16y ago
  It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's that I try to balance my life around it. I really enjoy playing video games as well, but I'm not going to sacrifice the most important relationships in my life so that I can play a few more rounds of Call of Duty.
robryan 16y ago
This may be true for a subscription web app, maybe there is a bug and the customers can deal with not having a particular feature working correctly until Monday, you have a relationship with them and this is a mare annoyance. Thinking in terms of an ecommerce or affiliate site, you have no relationship with those visiting your page. They're likely to close the browser or it the back button for the most inane reasons, you also have large adwords spend driving them to your site. Especially around Christmas time any issues could be a large potential revenue loss so yes I certainly would be dropping everything to fix any issues that arise.
- enjo 16y ago
  Which is interesting because my business falls much more into the latter category.
schammy 16y ago
The article is not talking about "bugs that can wait til Monday" or all night coding sessions. It's talking about emergencies that affect your customers that must be dealt with immediately. You've been with at least 5 startups in 9 years. That suggests to me that none of them were terribly successful, in which case I suppose just about any problem could wait til Monday. My startup has almost 20,000 paying customers and if something goes wrong, you bet your ass I'm on it immediately, whether it's 3am and I had more than few drinks earlier that evening, or I'm in Hawaii on my birthday and 7 servers lose power and I have to spend the next 5 hours dealing with that mess. Did I mention it was my birthday and I was in Hawaii? These scenarios are rare, but they do happen. I would never actually take my laptop to a restaurant, but if something bad happens it needs to be dealt with pronto. In the example from the story, I would have either delayed going out, or if it happened when I was already out, then I would leave as soon as possible. In general I don't put work before family or fun but every once in a while you have to if you want to run a successful business.
- enjo 16y ago
  I'm not sure were you got that. I've been with 3 startups in 9 years. One of them continues to this day (and has been quite successful), one flamed out (1 year), and the current one (3.5 years old) is doing tremendously well (well into 7 figures yearly revenue). I can't help but feel like you didn't really read my comment. It's a matter of triage. It's knowing the difference between a true emergency (the site is down and we're spending money to drive traffic) vs something that can wait (feature X has stopped working). Far too often the workaholics in the startup world are panicking to fix issues that can truly wait. It may be ugly and it may slightly torque off your customers, but it's not the type of issue that needs my immediate attention. In those cases (which are far and away the majority cases) I'm not going to stop my life down to fix those.
  - LiveTheDream 16y ago
    From original comment: "I've been involved in startups for the last 9 years (the last 4 as a technical founder)." He read the last part as the last 4 companies instead of years. FWIW that's also how I originally read it.

by enjo 16y ago

haploid 16y ago

Some of us actually enjoy creating and producing. It seems that you are suggesting an irreconcilable dichotomy between work and enjoyment of life with your phrase "turn your whole life over to it". In point of fact, many people do this as part of living, and don't count it as work. Most children, when building novel( to them )structures with legos, lincoln logs, blocks, etc, are not "turning their whole lives over to it". They are living, and they are enjoying themselves.

alex_c 16y ago
There's a difference between creating and putting out fires, though. I enjoy creating, but I can also set it aside long enough to spend some time with someone. I DON'T enjoy putting out fires, but it is usually a necessary evil towards a more significant goal. It's amazing to have a SO who understands and accommodates that, but the two shouldn't be confused - it's the difference between having to fix an emergency, and enjoying coding more than sharing a meal with your SO.
- franimal61 16y ago
  I agree with you, I just want to point out the fact that he (the startup guy) DID go to brunch with his SO. I'm sure that it would have been easier for him to just stay home and work, and go out "some other time" or something like that. I really like that it seems like they both compromised on brunch that day. He joined her for brunch, and she was alright with him doing work at brunch. Seems like they have a really good relationship.
swift 16y ago
Thanks for posting this comment; though I agree with the poster you're replying to, you provide a good counterargument that gave me some insight. I greatly enjoy creating and producing, so count me in your camp on that issue. And yet I can't see the appeal of diving so deep into the creative process that you lose touch with other important things in life. As time goes by I increasingly view the opportunity cost as too much to bear. Your friends and family grow and change over time; they may move or die or drift away. If you don't spend quality time with them now, it may be prohibitive or impossible to make it up later. The places you've always dreamed of visiting may be very different when you come up for air (consider how New Orleans has changed). The bands you always wanted to see live may have broken up; the bands you wanted to play in may never have formed. You won't have participated in that historic march or rally, you won't have seen that rare animal before it went extinct, you won't have climbed that mountain and seen that glorious landscape before it was marred with suburbs and smokestacks. The world we live in is ephemeral, always changing, and you can never go back. That doesn't mean you can't create and produce and have a great time doing it, but it does mean that it's worthwhile to carve out enough time to experience as much as possible of the beauty this world has to offer. When I'm lying on my deathbed, I want to look back and remember a life lived to the fullest, full of experience and laughter and love. I do not want to look back at a lifetime spent staring at a laptop screen, regardless of how much I created or how much money I made. I think a person's stance on this subject is probably determined by the kinds of experiences that they value. If there are only a few types of experiences that really excite you, it probably makes sense to traverse life depth-first, and get as much out of those kinds of experiences as you can. That might mean that long hours and single-minded focus over long periods are the best way to achieve your goals in life. If you are excited by a wide variety of experiences in many different areas, a breadth-first traversal of life is probably more suitable.
enjo 16y ago
It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's that I try to balance my life around it. I really enjoy playing video games as well, but I'm not going to sacrifice the most important relationships in my life so that I can play a few more rounds of Call of Duty.

robryan 16y ago

This may be true for a subscription web app, maybe there is a bug and the customers can deal with not having a particular feature working correctly until Monday, you have a relationship with them and this is a mare annoyance. Thinking in terms of an ecommerce or affiliate site, you have no relationship with those visiting your page. They're likely to close the browser or it the back button for the most inane reasons, you also have large adwords spend driving them to your site. Especially around Christmas time any issues could be a large potential revenue loss so yes I certainly would be dropping everything to fix any issues that arise.

enjo 16y ago
Which is interesting because my business falls much more into the latter category.

schammy 16y ago

The article is not talking about "bugs that can wait til Monday" or all night coding sessions. It's talking about emergencies that affect your customers that must be dealt with immediately. You've been with at least 5 startups in 9 years. That suggests to me that none of them were terribly successful, in which case I suppose just about any problem could wait til Monday. My startup has almost 20,000 paying customers and if something goes wrong, you bet your ass I'm on it immediately, whether it's 3am and I had more than few drinks earlier that evening, or I'm in Hawaii on my birthday and 7 servers lose power and I have to spend the next 5 hours dealing with that mess. Did I mention it was my birthday and I was in Hawaii? These scenarios are rare, but they do happen. I would never actually take my laptop to a restaurant, but if something bad happens it needs to be dealt with pronto. In the example from the story, I would have either delayed going out, or if it happened when I was already out, then I would leave as soon as possible. In general I don't put work before family or fun but every once in a while you have to if you want to run a successful business.

enjo 16y ago
I'm not sure were you got that. I've been with 3 startups in 9 years. One of them continues to this day (and has been quite successful), one flamed out (1 year), and the current one (3.5 years old) is doing tremendously well (well into 7 figures yearly revenue). I can't help but feel like you didn't really read my comment. It's a matter of triage. It's knowing the difference between a true emergency (the site is down and we're spending money to drive traffic) vs something that can wait (feature X has stopped working). Far too often the workaholics in the startup world are panicking to fix issues that can truly wait. It may be ugly and it may slightly torque off your customers, but it's not the type of issue that needs my immediate attention. In those cases (which are far and away the majority cases) I'm not going to stop my life down to fix those.
- LiveTheDream 16y ago
  From original comment: "I've been involved in startups for the last 9 years (the last 4 as a technical founder)." He read the last part as the last 4 companies instead of years. FWIW that's also how I originally read it.