I did that in the first few startups, but it's not necessary, and is a sign of a poorly run startup. Good startups may occasionally need that frantic burst of

I did that in the first few startups, but it's not necessary, and is a sign of a poorly run startup. Good startups may occasionally need that frantic burst of "get it done", but mostly, just have a "work hard, play hard" mentality. The other path always leads to burnout, and nothing is more deadly to a startup's prospects of success than a burned-out, demotivated team. If my teams have to work their asses off to get a demo or funding milestone done, I always make sure they get more than that back as time off to decompress and spend time with family. I'm also usually very flexible on hours - as long as they get the job done, I'm OK with almost any working hours they want. This is another benefit of startups - they have the flexibility to do things like that that you can't really pull off in a big co.