11 ms·

We work a 4-day week and just raised $4.75m

452 points by ryancarson 14y ago

joedev 14y ago
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?
zoltarSpeaks 14y ago
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 14y ago
  We've been doing the 4-day week since 2006 so I can't speak to doing the switch. Sorry.
_delirium 14y ago
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.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  I think the permanent commitment to 4-days is important. It clearly communicates to the Team.
- rmc 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    > 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_workday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#The_five-dollar_work...
- jedc 14y ago
  A friend of mine worked in the aerospace industry in California. It's apparently pretty standard there to work a 9/9/80 schedule. 9 hours a day, for 9 days over two weeks. It means that everyone gets a three-day weekend every other week. He loved it!
  - philbarr 14y ago
    And he was getting conned out of an extra hour every two weeks!
    - _delirium 14y ago
      I think that's usually accounted for by making the non-day-off fridays be 8 hours, so it does add up to 80 hours over two weeks.
- listrophy 14y ago
  We're a small consulting company, and we have 5-day work weeks, but the last day is spent on personal growth rather than client work. It basically gives everyone on our team no excuse to not contribute to open source, work on side projects, etc. It's still a pretty new initiative for us, but we're seeing big benefits already internally.
pclark 14y ago
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.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  One of our Seed Round investors decided to not participate pro-rata in the A Round because of our 4-day week.
- k00k 14y ago
  I would respond to the investor with, because it's not about quantity, it's about quality - quality of work AND quality of life. In 2-5 years time, I can't imagine the product would be any better due to that extra day every week.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  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.
- wccrawford 14y ago
  They're actually working 40-hours weeks still. They just do it in 4 days instead of 5. They've only shifted the hours, they haven't added to them. If you redefine a workday as 1/6th of 40 hours, then I do 6 days worth of work in 5 days. The number of days isn't really that important when talking numbers. It's only important when talking psychology. You're more rested after a 3 day break, etc etc. After a little longer at this company, I may suggest it here. I'd make it clear they're getting the same number of hours, but I'll be happier and more refreshed each week (and more productive), so everyone wins. I don't think it's quite the right time yet, though.
jaggederest 14y ago
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.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  9-6 is really just a guide. I'm pretty sure our Team works all sorts of random hours M-Th. Also, there isn't a requirement to come in to the 'office' unless you're on our Video Team (which requires you to be at the Studio to shoot video).
  - jaggederest 14y ago
    Well, I stand corrected. I took a look at your hiring specs and they seemed pretty office oriented. Being on the other side of the country, it makes me somewhat skeptical when I see that kind of thing - years of 'ass in chair' performance metrics :)
  - commondream 14y ago
    I'm late to the party, but I figured I'd share how I work as a member of our product team to give a quick example of the flex in our schedule. I work 6-6:45AM (usually answering email, including personal email and catching up with what happened overnight on Twitter). It borders on being difficult to call that stretch of time work since it's general communication stuff, but it's a really useful span of time for getting the day ahead of me figured out. At 6:45AM I help my kids get ready and take them to school, and then work 8AM - 5PM with lunch in there at some point. There are usually hugs and conversations with the kids about their day around 3 when they get home from school. In general on the product team at Treehouse we try to keep any real-time interaction (IM, video conversations on GoToMeeting) in those 9AM - 6PM hours just to help everyone have some predictable time for collaboration, but overall things are super flexible.
adrianhoward 14y ago
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).
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Great comment - thanks. The only area we're currently battling the non-4-day-week is with our Support Team. They're currently working 4-day weeks plus about 3 hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We're hoping to scale that part of the Team so they can get on the 4-day week as well.
  - nicksergeant 14y ago
    Why not hire a support person for Thursday -> Sunday? I know it's not an ideal schedule for someone, but think of the entire restaurant business...
nulluk 14y ago
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).
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89a 14y ago
Could have done with a less smug profile pic
- ryancarson 14y ago
  That's just my default pic :)
- s_henry_paulson 14y ago
  Nothing wrong with being happy.
- deleted 14y ago
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paraschopra 14y ago
How do you handle customer support that can arise any time (including weekends)?
- ryancarson 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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?
PeterMcCanney 14y ago
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.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience. Really appreciate it.
- mattm1 14y ago
  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_53697784/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697... '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."'
edw519 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Getting to profitability isn't as noteworthy (from a startup POV) as raising an A-round from working 4 days a week.
  - drewmclellan 14y ago
    Which in itself is sad. Profitability, providing employment, and creating a better quality of life for all those involved. Funding is great, but the above sounds like a better measure of success to me.
    - tomgallard 14y ago
      after all funding is just a way of saying 'we persuaded some people to lend us some money'. (I know- equity finance is different in some respects) Is 'the Bank just lent us $ million' as impressive as 'we reached profitability? It certainly shouldn't be.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    To whom? I'm just a regular guy and I'm not impressed at all by raising money, I've seen utterly incompetent people do it. I am supremely impressed by someone getting 10k paying customers.
    - 14y ago
its_so_on 14y ago
"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).
- alexchamberlain 14y ago
  Yes, that particular part made me doubt the Author's credibility.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. Updating now ...
goatcurious 14y ago
Did you consider taking Wednesday off instead of Friday? Breaks the workweek nicely. 2 days of high burst and relax.
- franciso 14y ago
  Something I never thought of. Have you tried this approach yourself?
  - goatcurious 14y ago
    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.
- masonhensley 14y ago
  Everyone on my team works remote one day a week at their choosing. We just have one Wednesday guys who swears by it, but im a Monday remoter and it's my jam. To each his own. Ryan mentioned employee retention and even though I work from home during my non office day, it's definitely a huge factor when other opportunities come knocking at my door.
villagefool 14y ago
You are profitable, and have a large base of users. So what is the funding for?
TamDenholm 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    Exactly.
- davidmr 14y ago
  $3MM with 34 mouths to feed and families to insure, an office to maintain, and infrastructure to build out doesn't exactly seem like a lot of money.
mweil 14y ago
What about the founders, especially at the beginning of the company's life? Do they have the same work week as employees?
- ryancarson 14y ago
  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.
sparknlaunch12 14y ago
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?
amix 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    Because I love my work and I want more of it :)
mbesto 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
Produce 14y ago
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.
fascinated 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
    - alexpenny 14y ago
      You're describing someone who's lazy, not a 21 year old. The point is to give that person more time to do whatever they want. If you hire the right people they wouldn't be the type that play video games and drink all day.
      - homosaur 14y ago
JohnnyFlash 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Our name is Treehouse but the owners of treehouse.com wanted £1m+. We decided teamtreehouse.com was close enough :) Our name is "Treehouse" though.
- flurdy 14y ago
  FYI: Article refered to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3874872 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3874872
andyouthink 14y ago
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.
- stdbrouw 14y ago
  Lots of assumptions here. Why wouldn't they include lunch hour?
- commondream 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
meterplech 14y ago
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
- ahoyhere 14y ago
  It's a mistake to think that a startup's goal is "to beat big companies." Especially by "outproducing them." Obviously Treehouse is doing fantastically on the revenue front. What big company are trying to "beat" or "outproduce" exactly?
- ryancarson 14y ago
  I love how whenever you say the words "4-day work week" on HN, people roll out the old "lifestyle business" stuff.
jack7890 14y ago
How many days per week did you work on your first company, before you were internet famous?
- ryancarson 14y ago
  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.
andrewingram 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    True, but I've always found that despite my insistance that we never release on a Friday, it always seems to end up happening.
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mibbitier 14y ago
"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_ 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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.
ssn 14y ago
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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hkarthik 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  In most major US cities, that wouldn't even cover the base salary of an skilled employee. Only if by "most major US cities" you mean San Francisco and New York exclusively. The vast majority of the United States would still be happy to make $88,000/year!
robforman 14y ago
"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.
moconnor 14y ago
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 14y ago
  > 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 14y ago
    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.
ValeriuWL 14y ago
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.
bizodo 14y ago
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.
driverdan 14y ago
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.
drivingsouth 14y ago
If the implied correlation works why don't you work 2 days a week?
dblock 14y ago
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.
rralian 14y ago
So... ummm... do you have any opening for a developer (vs a teaching developer, which you mention on your website)? :-)
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Always hiring :) Hit up support at teamtreehouse
cancelbubble 14y ago
Pretty sure I recently read where Treehouse was moving to Portland. You going to be hiring any front-end developers in Portland?
zobzu 14y ago
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.
mrbgty 14y ago
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?
newobj 14y ago
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?
EGreg 14y ago
Wow, highly upvoted. And spot on :) Wish there were more companies like this in our field.
jasonwilk 14y ago
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.
gawker 14y ago
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 14y ago
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.

452 points by ryancarson 14y ago

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?

zoltarSpeaks 14y ago

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 14y ago
We've been doing the 4-day week since 2006 so I can't speak to doing the switch. Sorry.

_delirium 14y ago

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.

ryancarson 14y ago
I think the permanent commitment to 4-days is important. It clearly communicates to the Team.
rmc 14y ago
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 14y ago
  > 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_workday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#The_five-dollar_work...
jedc 14y ago
A friend of mine worked in the aerospace industry in California. It's apparently pretty standard there to work a 9/9/80 schedule. 9 hours a day, for 9 days over two weeks. It means that everyone gets a three-day weekend every other week. He loved it!
- philbarr 14y ago
  And he was getting conned out of an extra hour every two weeks!
  - _delirium 14y ago
    I think that's usually accounted for by making the non-day-off fridays be 8 hours, so it does add up to 80 hours over two weeks.
listrophy 14y ago
We're a small consulting company, and we have 5-day work weeks, but the last day is spent on personal growth rather than client work. It basically gives everyone on our team no excuse to not contribute to open source, work on side projects, etc. It's still a pretty new initiative for us, but we're seeing big benefits already internally.

pclark 14y ago

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.

ryancarson 14y ago
One of our Seed Round investors decided to not participate pro-rata in the A Round because of our 4-day week.
k00k 14y ago
I would respond to the investor with, because it's not about quantity, it's about quality - quality of work AND quality of life. In 2-5 years time, I can't imagine the product would be any better due to that extra day every week.
adrianhoward 14y ago
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.
wccrawford 14y ago
They're actually working 40-hours weeks still. They just do it in 4 days instead of 5. They've only shifted the hours, they haven't added to them. If you redefine a workday as 1/6th of 40 hours, then I do 6 days worth of work in 5 days. The number of days isn't really that important when talking numbers. It's only important when talking psychology. You're more rested after a 3 day break, etc etc. After a little longer at this company, I may suggest it here. I'd make it clear they're getting the same number of hours, but I'll be happier and more refreshed each week (and more productive), so everyone wins. I don't think it's quite the right time yet, though.

jaggederest 14y ago

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.

ryancarson 14y ago
9-6 is really just a guide. I'm pretty sure our Team works all sorts of random hours M-Th. Also, there isn't a requirement to come in to the 'office' unless you're on our Video Team (which requires you to be at the Studio to shoot video).
- jaggederest 14y ago
  Well, I stand corrected. I took a look at your hiring specs and they seemed pretty office oriented. Being on the other side of the country, it makes me somewhat skeptical when I see that kind of thing - years of 'ass in chair' performance metrics :)
- commondream 14y ago
  I'm late to the party, but I figured I'd share how I work as a member of our product team to give a quick example of the flex in our schedule. I work 6-6:45AM (usually answering email, including personal email and catching up with what happened overnight on Twitter). It borders on being difficult to call that stretch of time work since it's general communication stuff, but it's a really useful span of time for getting the day ahead of me figured out. At 6:45AM I help my kids get ready and take them to school, and then work 8AM - 5PM with lunch in there at some point. There are usually hugs and conversations with the kids about their day around 3 when they get home from school. In general on the product team at Treehouse we try to keep any real-time interaction (IM, video conversations on GoToMeeting) in those 9AM - 6PM hours just to help everyone have some predictable time for collaboration, but overall things are super flexible.

adrianhoward 14y ago

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).

ryancarson 14y ago
Great comment - thanks. The only area we're currently battling the non-4-day-week is with our Support Team. They're currently working 4-day weeks plus about 3 hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We're hoping to scale that part of the Team so they can get on the 4-day week as well.
- nicksergeant 14y ago
  Why not hire a support person for Thursday -> Sunday? I know it's not an ideal schedule for someone, but think of the entire restaurant business...

nulluk 14y ago

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).

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89a 14y ago

Could have done with a less smug profile pic

ryancarson 14y ago
That's just my default pic :)
s_henry_paulson 14y ago
Nothing wrong with being happy.
deleted 14y ago
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paraschopra 14y ago

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

ryancarson 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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?

PeterMcCanney 14y ago

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.

ryancarson 14y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. Really appreciate it.
mattm1 14y ago
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_53697784/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697... '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."'

edw519 14y ago

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 14y ago
Getting to profitability isn't as noteworthy (from a startup POV) as raising an A-round from working 4 days a week.
- drewmclellan 14y ago
  Which in itself is sad. Profitability, providing employment, and creating a better quality of life for all those involved. Funding is great, but the above sounds like a better measure of success to me.
  - tomgallard 14y ago
    after all funding is just a way of saying 'we persuaded some people to lend us some money'. (I know- equity finance is different in some respects) Is 'the Bank just lent us $ million' as impressive as 'we reached profitability? It certainly shouldn't be.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  To whom? I'm just a regular guy and I'm not impressed at all by raising money, I've seen utterly incompetent people do it. I am supremely impressed by someone getting 10k paying customers.
  - 14y ago

its_so_on 14y ago

"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).

alexchamberlain 14y ago
Yes, that particular part made me doubt the Author's credibility.
ryancarson 14y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. Updating now ...

goatcurious 14y ago

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

franciso 14y ago
Something I never thought of. Have you tried this approach yourself?
- goatcurious 14y ago
  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.
masonhensley 14y ago
Everyone on my team works remote one day a week at their choosing. We just have one Wednesday guys who swears by it, but im a Monday remoter and it's my jam. To each his own. Ryan mentioned employee retention and even though I work from home during my non office day, it's definitely a huge factor when other opportunities come knocking at my door.

villagefool 14y ago

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

TamDenholm 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Exactly.
davidmr 14y ago
$3MM with 34 mouths to feed and families to insure, an office to maintain, and infrastructure to build out doesn't exactly seem like a lot of money.

mweil 14y ago

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

ryancarson 14y ago
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.

sparknlaunch12 14y ago

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?

amix 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Because I love my work and I want more of it :)

mbesto 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.

Produce 14y ago

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.

fascinated 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
  - alexpenny 14y ago
    You're describing someone who's lazy, not a 21 year old. The point is to give that person more time to do whatever they want. If you hire the right people they wouldn't be the type that play video games and drink all day.
    - homosaur 14y ago

JohnnyFlash 14y ago

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 14y ago
Our name is Treehouse but the owners of treehouse.com wanted £1m+. We decided teamtreehouse.com was close enough :) Our name is "Treehouse" though.
flurdy 14y ago
FYI: Article refered to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3874872 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3874872

andyouthink 14y ago

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.

stdbrouw 14y ago
Lots of assumptions here. Why wouldn't they include lunch hour?
commondream 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.

meterplech 14y ago

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

ahoyhere 14y ago
It's a mistake to think that a startup's goal is "to beat big companies." Especially by "outproducing them." Obviously Treehouse is doing fantastically on the revenue front. What big company are trying to "beat" or "outproduce" exactly?
ryancarson 14y ago
I love how whenever you say the words "4-day work week" on HN, people roll out the old "lifestyle business" stuff.

jack7890 14y ago

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

ryancarson 14y ago
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.

andrewingram 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  True, but I've always found that despite my insistance that we never release on a Friday, it always seems to end up happening.

deleted 14y ago

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mibbitier 14y ago

"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_ 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.

ssn 14y ago

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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hkarthik 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
In most major US cities, that wouldn't even cover the base salary of an skilled employee. Only if by "most major US cities" you mean San Francisco and New York exclusively. The vast majority of the United States would still be happy to make $88,000/year!

robforman 14y ago

"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.

moconnor 14y ago

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 14y ago
> 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 14y ago
  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.

ValeriuWL 14y ago

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.

bizodo 14y ago

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.

driverdan 14y ago

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.

drivingsouth 14y ago

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

dblock 14y ago

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.

rralian 14y ago

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

ryancarson 14y ago
Always hiring :) Hit up support at teamtreehouse

cancelbubble 14y ago

Pretty sure I recently read where Treehouse was moving to Portland. You going to be hiring any front-end developers in Portland?

zobzu 14y ago

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.

mrbgty 14y ago

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?

newobj 14y ago

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?

EGreg 14y ago

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

jasonwilk 14y ago

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.

gawker 14y ago

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 14y ago

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.