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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. T

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
    Hold on, who are you to judge people on that? If someone wants to drink and play video games all day on their fifth day, then good for them! If they are producing quality work, then what does it matter? There is this obsession with productivity in the US and the startup community in general that I find incredibly distasteful. People are already risking their financial lives for startup businesses and you're going to come on here saying that's not good enough. That's typical Silicon Valley hivethink. Maybe you need to get out of the office more, bud.
    - alexpenny 14y ago
      Remember he was targeting 21 year olds. As a 21 year old I can confirm that not all of us just drink and play video games. As I said "The point is to give people time to do whatever they want." I don't care what you do or how old you are, I'm just not going to be sitting on my ass all day when I could be doing something productive or be "out of the office."
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  I think that 5th day would just be spent playing video games or being hungover You say that as if it was a bad thing. People need fun. It makes them feel better. People who feel better work better and are more productive. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that an extra day of fun makes the four days more productive than the five days of work. Hours worked is a lousy way to measure the contribution a person makes to the organisation.
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    I believe the proper metric should be "profitability delivered per # of hours". If I can be more profitable, in less time, that should be more valuable than how many hours as a whole I've worked.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Great comment :)
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Who are these 21-year-olds intelligent and passionate enough for a start-up with nothing else going on?
aguynamedrich 14y ago
I still disagree that your case is the average and that your situation can be used to model any young startup. Don't get me wrong, I admire what you're doing and the strong statement you're making about productivity and balancing priorities. I just agree with the above comment that it sounds a bit smug, especially by the title. There's an implied message of "I rode this methodology to ~$5M in funding, so you can too", and I think that makes a huge oversight that this is the same company that hosts some of the largest international developer/new technology conferences six times every year. Aren't you also the owner of the company that hosts FOWA, FOWD and FOM twice a year each? Doesn't that at least deserve a mention? "This works for us, but we also have the kind of industry connections and positioning that practically predisposes us to this kind of funding the second we're in the black anyway" What I think happened here is that you did a number of things right which affords you this flexibility in hours. I would say the real story is that you made something of value vs the free-but-pointless model we read about much more often these days. You built a business around something valuable with a relatively high price point that makes it less of a victim of the kind of scalability issues that "general public" web based services are dealing with. I think the bigger take away would be: If you make something awesome for the general public that millions of people will be using all day long, plan to work seven days a week 'round the clock and there's no guarantee you'll ever see a penny. If you come up with something valuable that people would be willing to pay $25-$50 a month for, your life will be much, much more enjoyable and you might actually get to watch your kids grow up and/or have some time left for your hobbies.
- Tloewald 14y ago
  There's quite enough "we worked 100h weeks and ate ramen on our road to success" stories out there to balance this one out, don't worry.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

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
  Hold on, who are you to judge people on that? If someone wants to drink and play video games all day on their fifth day, then good for them! If they are producing quality work, then what does it matter? There is this obsession with productivity in the US and the startup community in general that I find incredibly distasteful. People are already risking their financial lives for startup businesses and you're going to come on here saying that's not good enough. That's typical Silicon Valley hivethink. Maybe you need to get out of the office more, bud.
  - alexpenny 14y ago
    Remember he was targeting 21 year olds. As a 21 year old I can confirm that not all of us just drink and play video games. As I said "The point is to give people time to do whatever they want." I don't care what you do or how old you are, I'm just not going to be sitting on my ass all day when I could be doing something productive or be "out of the office."
adrianhoward 14y ago
I think that 5th day would just be spent playing video games or being hungover You say that as if it was a bad thing. People need fun. It makes them feel better. People who feel better work better and are more productive. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that an extra day of fun makes the four days more productive than the five days of work. Hours worked is a lousy way to measure the contribution a person makes to the organisation.
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  I believe the proper metric should be "profitability delivered per # of hours". If I can be more profitable, in less time, that should be more valuable than how many hours as a whole I've worked.
ryancarson 14y ago
Great comment :)
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
Who are these 21-year-olds intelligent and passionate enough for a start-up with nothing else going on?

aguynamedrich 14y ago

I still disagree that your case is the average and that your situation can be used to model any young startup. Don't get me wrong, I admire what you're doing and the strong statement you're making about productivity and balancing priorities. I just agree with the above comment that it sounds a bit smug, especially by the title. There's an implied message of "I rode this methodology to ~$5M in funding, so you can too", and I think that makes a huge oversight that this is the same company that hosts some of the largest international developer/new technology conferences six times every year. Aren't you also the owner of the company that hosts FOWA, FOWD and FOM twice a year each? Doesn't that at least deserve a mention? "This works for us, but we also have the kind of industry connections and positioning that practically predisposes us to this kind of funding the second we're in the black anyway" What I think happened here is that you did a number of things right which affords you this flexibility in hours. I would say the real story is that you made something of value vs the free-but-pointless model we read about much more often these days. You built a business around something valuable with a relatively high price point that makes it less of a victim of the kind of scalability issues that "general public" web based services are dealing with. I think the bigger take away would be: If you make something awesome for the general public that millions of people will be using all day long, plan to work seven days a week 'round the clock and there's no guarantee you'll ever see a penny. If you come up with something valuable that people would be willing to pay $25-$50 a month for, your life will be much, much more enjoyable and you might actually get to watch your kids grow up and/or have some time left for your hobbies.

Tloewald 14y ago
There's quite enough "we worked 100h weeks and ate ramen on our road to success" stories out there to balance this one out, don't worry.

deleted 14y ago

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