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I have been involving in a startup since one year ago. Result: I broke one relationship, and missed another. When my mom came visiting me from another state I

I have been involving in a startup since one year ago. Result: I broke one relationship, and missed another. When my mom came visiting me from another state I didn't have the time to bring her around, and not even the time to talk to her. When everyone is enjoying the weekends I have to lock myself in my room and code, code CODE. When everyone is enjoying TVs after coming back from work, I read emails, filter resumes and do other work related stuffs. I don't have personal life; all of my time is consumed by this one little startup which may or may not work in the future. Now you know why relationship won't work for me at this stage of time? So whenever someone told me that they could have a nice work/life balance at a startup, I smiled. And when girls told me that they would support their husbands in pursuing their dreams at all cost, I could only conclude that they didn't know what they wish for. They haven't seen the true cost of startup, yet.

WA 16y ago
There is a difference between "I didn't have time" and "I didn't want to spend time". It is entirely up to you and you decided to not have time for them, but for your startup. Or put another way: You decided for the part in you that wants to work on the startup instead of the part in you that wants to deal with your mother or your girlfriend. When I read something like this, I sometimes wonder what the intention of people of running a startup is. Is it really about creating an app? The app/startup will be forgotten at some point in time anyways. So why are you doing it, if it isn't for the personal freedom that comes along with a startup (eventually) and that enables you to spend more time with the people you care about? I mean, it is just a startup. The people might care to some degree about your product, but they don't care about you at all and you shouldn't care too much either. I know that the "work hard" mantra is ridiculously widespread in the startup culture and especially in the US and I also know the feeling that one's mind always comes up with new ideas, whether you want it or not. However, I prefer to work on my startup 5 to 10 hours a week, just enough to get decent money from it, be ahead of competitors and make plans or delegate the work that needs to be done. I think the real trick in startups is not to spend as much time as possible, but as few time as possible and still get good results. At least, that is how it works for me and how it supports the general idea, why I run a startup at all: to increase my personal freedom.
- nsoonhui 16y ago
  Not everyone has the luxury of not spending every minute of their waking life on their startup.
  - patio11 16y ago
    The 357th time I complained to my brother about salaryman hours, he told me something that stuck with me: "You chose that. Not three years ago, either: you chose it today, because you could have quit but didn't." You are choosing, right now, that the next thirty minutes of work on whatever is more important than calling mom. It may be. Is it always? I'm downright fascist about not wasting time on low-value activities at work and I still leak huge portions of my schedule. Are you sure that never happens? I mean, by the end of a week at 100%, I'm barely mentally capable of evaluating whether coding will be productive, to say nothing of actually coding. You've been doing that for years? How do the metrics look?
  - WA 16y ago
    Why not? I can imagine that there's only one problem with that: You don't have enough money to support yourself so that your startup needs to be done ASAP. Then I would recommend to do some contracting work. This has two nice effects: First, it gives you money to let you support your startup in the long run. Second: It makes you more productive, because the time you have available to work on a startup is reduced. This constraint makes you focus more on the stuff that really needs to be done. Oh and third: Every idea needs time to evolve. I mean, real time. Not time you invest, but time doing something different. Just waiting-time. I believe, if you cannot afford taking a break from your startup, your startup has a conceptual problem.
  - ascendant 16y ago
    This is a pretty intense statement. I think you just may be a workaholic that has found this "must work at all costs" startup mentality as a way to rationalize said workaholism. I started working where I am today and was putting in 80-100 hour weeks for a while. I lost a girlfriend over it, and then one day I woke up and realized that if I didn't hit the arbitrary deadline some executive somewhere dreamed up, the world wouldn't end. Now I rarely put in more than 40 hours a week and I'm happily married. Let me tell you something, if it comes down to my family vs my job, my job will lose every. single. time. Random websites that let you track how many tissues your friend in Utah used when he last sneezed will be dead and gone in a few years and no one will care. When your mother goes, you will definitely wish you spent the time with her.
jasonkester 16y ago
What do you suppose would have happened, had you agreed to have dinner with your mother that night? I assume you imagine some nightmare scenario where you find yourself living on the street begging for change and repeating to yourself over and over "Why did I take that evening off??? What was I thinking???" In reality, it probably isn't quite that critical. I suggest you try an experiment: Work an 8 hour day tomorrow. Don't make up for it by working 16 hours the next day. Work the rest of your week as normal, then look back and see if there is any noticeable negative ramification from that day of slacking. Then try ramping it up. Work a 60 hour week. Work a 50 hour week, god forbid. Living in a ditch yet? Good. Try 45 hours next week. As the people below are trying to tell you, most of this desperation is in your head. Yes, you need to work hard and deliver. But you don't need to kill yourself.
- usedtolurk 16y ago
  Jason's right. I cut back my weekly hours from around 55 to 45 when my daughter was born. I was surprised that my productivity didn't drop and nobody even noticed. I wish I had done that years ago.
theBobMcCormick 16y ago
And yet..... You still seem to have plenty of time for HN? Which would seem to indicate you choose not to spend time with your visiting mother, just like you're choosing to spend time on HN. IMHO, behind most, if not all, of the stories of "herculean entrepreneurs" sacrificing everything to spend 100 hours a week on their startup, you'll find the same false martyrdom. People spend 100 hours a week on their startup because it makes them feel important and makes them feel like their working their hardest. The sad reality is that's only going to be effective if your work is mindless grunt work.

WA 16y ago

There is a difference between "I didn't have time" and "I didn't want to spend time". It is entirely up to you and you decided to not have time for them, but for your startup. Or put another way: You decided for the part in you that wants to work on the startup instead of the part in you that wants to deal with your mother or your girlfriend. When I read something like this, I sometimes wonder what the intention of people of running a startup is. Is it really about creating an app? The app/startup will be forgotten at some point in time anyways. So why are you doing it, if it isn't for the personal freedom that comes along with a startup (eventually) and that enables you to spend more time with the people you care about? I mean, it is just a startup. The people might care to some degree about your product, but they don't care about you at all and you shouldn't care too much either. I know that the "work hard" mantra is ridiculously widespread in the startup culture and especially in the US and I also know the feeling that one's mind always comes up with new ideas, whether you want it or not. However, I prefer to work on my startup 5 to 10 hours a week, just enough to get decent money from it, be ahead of competitors and make plans or delegate the work that needs to be done. I think the real trick in startups is not to spend as much time as possible, but as few time as possible and still get good results. At least, that is how it works for me and how it supports the general idea, why I run a startup at all: to increase my personal freedom.

nsoonhui 16y ago
Not everyone has the luxury of not spending every minute of their waking life on their startup.
- patio11 16y ago
  The 357th time I complained to my brother about salaryman hours, he told me something that stuck with me: "You chose that. Not three years ago, either: you chose it today, because you could have quit but didn't." You are choosing, right now, that the next thirty minutes of work on whatever is more important than calling mom. It may be. Is it always? I'm downright fascist about not wasting time on low-value activities at work and I still leak huge portions of my schedule. Are you sure that never happens? I mean, by the end of a week at 100%, I'm barely mentally capable of evaluating whether coding will be productive, to say nothing of actually coding. You've been doing that for years? How do the metrics look?
- WA 16y ago
  Why not? I can imagine that there's only one problem with that: You don't have enough money to support yourself so that your startup needs to be done ASAP. Then I would recommend to do some contracting work. This has two nice effects: First, it gives you money to let you support your startup in the long run. Second: It makes you more productive, because the time you have available to work on a startup is reduced. This constraint makes you focus more on the stuff that really needs to be done. Oh and third: Every idea needs time to evolve. I mean, real time. Not time you invest, but time doing something different. Just waiting-time. I believe, if you cannot afford taking a break from your startup, your startup has a conceptual problem.
- ascendant 16y ago
  This is a pretty intense statement. I think you just may be a workaholic that has found this "must work at all costs" startup mentality as a way to rationalize said workaholism. I started working where I am today and was putting in 80-100 hour weeks for a while. I lost a girlfriend over it, and then one day I woke up and realized that if I didn't hit the arbitrary deadline some executive somewhere dreamed up, the world wouldn't end. Now I rarely put in more than 40 hours a week and I'm happily married. Let me tell you something, if it comes down to my family vs my job, my job will lose every. single. time. Random websites that let you track how many tissues your friend in Utah used when he last sneezed will be dead and gone in a few years and no one will care. When your mother goes, you will definitely wish you spent the time with her.

jasonkester 16y ago

What do you suppose would have happened, had you agreed to have dinner with your mother that night? I assume you imagine some nightmare scenario where you find yourself living on the street begging for change and repeating to yourself over and over "Why did I take that evening off??? What was I thinking???" In reality, it probably isn't quite that critical. I suggest you try an experiment: Work an 8 hour day tomorrow. Don't make up for it by working 16 hours the next day. Work the rest of your week as normal, then look back and see if there is any noticeable negative ramification from that day of slacking. Then try ramping it up. Work a 60 hour week. Work a 50 hour week, god forbid. Living in a ditch yet? Good. Try 45 hours next week. As the people below are trying to tell you, most of this desperation is in your head. Yes, you need to work hard and deliver. But you don't need to kill yourself.

usedtolurk 16y ago
Jason's right. I cut back my weekly hours from around 55 to 45 when my daughter was born. I was surprised that my productivity didn't drop and nobody even noticed. I wish I had done that years ago.

theBobMcCormick 16y ago

And yet..... You still seem to have plenty of time for HN? Which would seem to indicate you choose not to spend time with your visiting mother, just like you're choosing to spend time on HN. IMHO, behind most, if not all, of the stories of "herculean entrepreneurs" sacrificing everything to spend 100 hours a week on their startup, you'll find the same false martyrdom. People spend 100 hours a week on their startup because it makes them feel important and makes them feel like their working their hardest. The sad reality is that's only going to be effective if your work is mindless grunt work.