24 ms·

Working alone sucks

153 points by labaraka 14y ago

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
Working alone sucks(if you are extroverted). I had the opposite problem, I started working in sales with tons of people. I had no time for myself, meditation, solitude or thinking, just meeting people or being interrupted on the phone constantly. People could not understand that I wanted time for myself(most of the human population is extroverted). It was great for some people, but not for me. Now I work(at home) in engineering mostly alone with my dogs at my side and I am so happy. I am thinking about problems most of the time without interruptions. I see people when I want. For me this is great.
- trafficlight 14y ago
  I'm definitely introverted, but sometimes I do find it helpful to be around other people while working. Which is why I'm starting a coworking space in my hometown.
  - contemplative1 14y ago
    Have you found any pitfalls trying to start a co-working space where there's a lack of an existing community? Did you do much research?
    - trafficlight 14y ago
      This remains to be seen. I just signed the lease on Monday for the space and we are doing cleaning and some minimal construction right now. I live in Helena, Montana. We have a very small startup/tech community here, but we do have a lot of people who telecommute or freelance for out-of-state clients. Ideally, we'll get a mixture of these people. I think the diversity is what's really important. Outside of Helena, in Bozeman and Missoula, there is a much larger startup community that's really starting to take off. I try to drive down for meetups a few times a month and participate in as many things as possible. So far, the initial response has been overwhelmingly positive. Rent is really cheap (my father-in-law owns the building, that helps) and I'm not trying to make a living off of the coworking space itself. It won't take many members to get the space self-sustaining and I'm confident that we can get there quickly even with the small population. Our website just went live yesterday. http://theshophelena.com http://theshophelena.com
cmwelsh 14y ago
I have experienced feelings similar to these in the past as a freelancer working from home. My advice is to join a local coworking group where freelancers come together to share office space. I have found the social atmosphere helps everyone get more enthusiastic about their work and allows for easy collaboration between designers, developers, marketers and businesspeople.
- labaraka 14y ago
  Good point. I have also successfully experimented with this in the past.
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
  Agreed, not only that but you will learn techniques from other people to constantly improve as a professional and as a person. You will also be helping new comers and that will make you feel deep satisfaction.
marknutter 14y ago
Title should be "Working alone sucks for some people". I've been working from home for years and love it, for instance.
- akulbe 14y ago
  I would love to have his "problem". I'm envious of those who get to work from home full-time.
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  Specifically since this person mentions that he's "active, extraverted [sic] and social." Which is not to say that such people will always hate working alone, or that people who enjoy it can't be those things, but it seems from his description that working alone is something he probably should have avoided or, now that that's impossible, do something to change. I think the coworking environment in another comment is a great suggestion in that vein. Having worked in one of them for the better part of a year, for people who really just want to be around others while working, that's pretty ideal (aside from the relatively minor expense, but if that's something that's going to make you significantly happier, it seems likely to me that you could find one with a cost that makes it viable and worthwhile). Edit: I've also been working from home, alone (cue Macauly Culkin), for years and love it.
  - marknutter 14y ago
    +1 for co-working. I occasionally work from a co-location workspace or a coffeeshop with local friends and hackers and it satisfies my need for human interaction without being too distracting.
    - labaraka 14y ago
      There is a difference between general human interaction and specifically having a peer working with with you on a common goal.
      - obviouslygreen 14y ago
danhou 14y ago
I can definitely empathize. A few years ago, I co-founded a startup with one of my close friends - except he had relocated to Shanghai and I in Virginia living with my parents to save on rent. We talked or IMed every day, but it definitely wasn't the same as working with a co-located team. There's no grabbing lunch together or the occasional drinks after work. It definitely got lonely, and led to some unusual behavior. By the end of the second week, I'd stopped getting out of my pajamas - it wasn't like I was leaving the house, so why bother? We have a dog, who isn't allowed in the house, so I set up a desk in the garage and worked from there. I'd keep the garage door open all day, for natural light but also to let the dog run around. I distinctly remember one afternoon, where I'm cranking away in my garage/office. Some neighborhood kids were cutting through our yard to get to the local basketball court, and they definitely paused for a moment to stare at the unkempt weird hermit guy, still in his pajamas, a bathrobe, and slippers, hacking away in the garage of all places. Good times!
- labaraka 14y ago
  That's how I also started. After too many unshowered days eating cereal, I decided I needed to get an office :)
tchock23 14y ago
This post hit close to home for me. I have had very similar work experiences as the OP (having done both a startup with two co-founders and management consulting), and found that the biggest factor is whether you are introverted or extroverted. He notes that he's extroverted, which is likely why he hates this method of work. As an introvert, I don't mind long periods of alone time as long as it's occasionally punctuated by social events. However, I tend to avoid the local networking events like the OP described because I find them to be full of blowhards and vendors pushing a service (YMMV). Instead, I prefer smaller group gatherings with people I trust. I'm trying to decide if my next startup is going to be solo or with co-founders, so this is weighing on my mind at the moment. I find that the biggest drawback of solo is the sense of loneliness, and I'm trying to balance that with the considerations of equity, creative control, etc.
return0 14y ago
I guess many indie developers and freelancers with an office-work history have the same issue. If you have the time, an appropriate option might be to go back to school or do some postgrad studies.
labaraka 14y ago
Seems from the comments that coding is an activity particularly well suited to working alone.
jaymorg 14y ago
I have been working from home for almost four years now. I don't consider my self an overly social person, but it's beginning to take a toll on me. I live in a small city (~80k population) with absolutely no tech industry and don't have any close friends that are working programmers with similar interests. I tend to have a lot of ambitions, which make it even worse when you have no feedback system to discuss those ambitions. Lately I've been considering applying for jobs in the Bay area, but I'm not sure I'm qualified enough to get a job worth moving my family for.
- contemplative1 14y ago
  Sounds like a strikingly similar situation to mine: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4905386 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4905386
calinet6 14y ago
Definitely join a Co-working space. They are designed for this. You may not be working directly with the people you interact with, but you are all working toward something, and that fact alone helps me be productive. The diverse community and productive environment of any good coworking space have untold benefits beyond the obvious. Try it out for an extended time before you make any assumptions.
- labaraka 14y ago
  I am not yet 100% comfortable giving up our office. But we have some extra desks and we are located in a very nice part of town. I think offering these to interesting local entrepreneurs might achieve a similar goal. If you are en entrepreneur interesting in a space in Old Montreal, leave your contact info here and I'll contact you.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    That could work great. I know a local co-working space here in Boston does an office-space trade as well. Maybe get in touch with one in Montreal and see if their members have any interest or if they offer a similar service.
anujkk 14y ago
I believe it depends on the personality of person. I like to work in an environment where I am able to do my work alone, in isolation, have full control over process and schedule, and interact with others only when necessary. It's not that I hate interacting with people. I like to socialize but not when I am working.
thoughtcriminal 14y ago
Thanks for sharing this. You are definitely (ahem) not alone. One thing I heard from a friend (in a church talk) was that if you want a beautiful life, you need to find beautiful things and bring them into your life. This struck me as obvious but somehow I never clued in before. I need to actively create the life and living environment I want. I hope this doesn't sound like browbeating because it isn't. I don't know you but I absolutely relate to what you're saying. Good luck in creating a better life for yourself and enjoy the journey along the way. I will try and do the same.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
hiperlink 14y ago
How I wish, how I wish you were here... I mean, You, you, the clever, normal people. But for now I'm sharing my cubicle with two really clever (they can get the job done quickly, elegantly, etc) guys, who are both loud racists, one of them scientologist (although the later that did not caused any problem yet). And there's no chance the change offices. So. I would give both of their arms if only I could work alone a day a week.
lsdafjklsd 14y ago
I have never had a real life developer friend or someone to talk to. I got my BFA in illustration in 2010 and decided to get back into web development (I got an associates in digital media 3 years prior and was into web development in high school). So the landscape of development had changed a ton, I stumbled on to middleman and SASS.. so I was getting acquainted with modern tools and techniques. Then I was lucky enough that a marketing company in my town hired me to help out with html emails and photoshop collateral. They had a VB .NET Webforms guy that they would outsource application-ish websites too. At this time I was watching the google python videos and reading books about django / rails. I learned about heroku and in my spare time I would build and deploy simple apps like questionnaires with an active admin backend. Basically, my company let me take a stab at one of these application-ish projects and it went really well so I got to do more and more. That was a year ago, and now I work solely on large Rails / backbone projects hosted on Heroku. In all of this personal growth I still have not met another developer who I can talk to or learn from, it's crazy. It makes me sad because I don't have someone to share the excitement with, or someone who I can learn with. We have had this AD out for another developer for months and get very few responses. If you're in NH and like this stuff send me a message :)
- thirtysixred 14y ago
  If you're close to the Portsmouth area check out: http://alphaloft.com http://alphaloft.com. They have regular talks and meet ups. You could always head over to Boston there's a ton of web development stuff happening there and regular meet ups.
  - lsdafjklsd 14y ago
    Wow alpha loft is an amazing resource, thanks!
gnaritas 14y ago
I don't work alone; I work in blissful solitude. Alone is a word for extroverts.
paulsutter 14y ago
This is a pretty clear take on the cofounder debate. Key quote: "I don’t have a CFO, COO or other peers with the same overall picture of the company and incentive structure that I have" In the early days of Quantcast, Konrad (the other cofounder) and I wondered why the employees didn't generally have the same sense of urgency that we did. My friend Bryan asked "so, what do you do when you read an article about a competitive threat?" and we both answered "we share it with each other". "and not the employees?", and we looked at each other and said "we don't want to be discouraging". Bryan said "no wonder they don't feel urgency". And that's at the core of having a cofounder. Or more importantly, perhaps that's one of the real reasons you want the initial team of a company to all be cofounders (YC style). You want everyone in the same boat, with a big bet on the line, sharing information openly. I'd love to hear any other thoughts about the real underlying reasons that the success rates are higher with companies that have cofounders. Most of the discussion on HN is about the observation, and examples either way. But I'd love to hear insight into the reasons.
- labaraka 14y ago
  You've nailed it! I should have been clearer in my post and maybe titled the post "Not having co-founders sucks".
- sensosam 14y ago
  I haven't got a cofounder (I do as much as I can myself and I outsource the rest), mainly because I haven't found the right person/people yet. I know that by being a single founder I can't share the workload, and I don't really have people to turn to when everything breaks at once. I also know that my startup deals with extremely abstract concepts and that its been easier to 'hold it all in my head' than to have to work with the potential cofounders I had available when I started my project. The big kicker for me is that I knew that without a cofounder I had no one to blame but myself if things went wrong. I find this hugely motivating, but I could also see it a major reason for people to fold too. For me it was a networking issue more than anything. This is my first project and I didn't know anyone that I thought would be appropriate fit for my project. I would rather build stuff than do meetups, though I'll probably start attending more after I launch. If I did find the right people then I wouldn't hesitate to bring them on board. I just couldn't find them and rather than wait I've done the best I can to make a successful startup. This was the right choice and things are going fairly smoothly. I personally think that the number of cofounders for a startup to be successful is entirely dependant on the circumstances - its product, its market and its goals. (I realize that this is an absolute copout of an answer. Sorry.)
fmavituna 14y ago
Interesting. My experience is almost the opposite of this. CEO of a small distributed team with 10 people, I spend half of my day on Skype talking with the team. I actually socialize more than my previous office job (penetration testing) in an office with 20~ people. Best part of it when I want to be alone to focus on something all it takes is setting my status to DND which you can't effectively do in many offices.
jasonkester 14y ago
I met a girl at a party once, and she said something really interesting when I mentioned that I wrote software for a living. "I could never do that", she said. "I could never sit alone all day, staring at a computer and never getting the chance to talk to anybody. It'd be my worst nightmare." I hadn't ever thought about it like that. Naturally, as a developer, I think I have the greatest job there is. Where else could you get somebody to pay you like fourteen times the median family income to hang out anywhere in the world you please and solve interesting puzzles all day? But not everybody is wired the same. Lots of people (most people???) get their energy from face to face human interaction. Poor fools, eh?
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  14x? Where are you living? I understand software developers generally make more than the average, but I've not heard of too many people making 14x (in the US).
  - jasonkester 14y ago
    ^ number pulled from butt for the purposes of comedic exaggeration. But doing a quick order of magnitude check, it's not off by much: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income In the US, that says median income is ~$31k. You'd be 10x'ing that with a $150/hr consulting rate, which is by no means outrageous.
    - mgkimsal 14y ago
      not completely outrageous, although most of the people I know that are billing >= $150/hr aren't billing 2000 hours/year. Actually, even most of the hourly consultants I know that work for themselves aren't billable that often - usually 1000-1200 billable hours between most of the independent IT/tech people I know. Still, even at $75/hour, you're still 2-3x what a lot of people are making, and it's generally only up from there for most people.
      - 14y ago
wallflower 14y ago
If you work at home alone and you need human interaction, get a dog. It will force you to get outside and interact with humans. I met a young person once who was successful (multi-millionaire) and had sold several companies. In the post-sell lull, he said that until he got a dog - he didn't have a daily routine - since he didn't have to really work. Showering is a habit that quickly can fall by the wayside if you work from home alone too much.
bobmacw 14y ago
Many many years ago, I tried to do solo musician as a career - I write, practice, and perform the music - and in addition to the crushing poverty, the solitude was really hard. When I ended up working for a software company, I remember telling people, "Gosh I wish there was a Lotus Development for guitarist-composers." (I'm dating myself...) In addition to the lack of social contact, there's the lack of externally provided structure - schedule, resources, breaks, milestones. I just think it's hard to be a one-person anything.
rachelbythebay 14y ago
The update on the bottom of this post really hits home: "it is the lack of peer-level teamwork towards a common goal that I lack". That made me shudder. For me, the worst thing in the world is to try and do something in a "team" which exists in name only. If the other folks aren't willing to run at the same speed, then it just starts draining the life out of me and the project. It sounds like the author of this post is in the same situation. The flip side of this is that when a couple of people agree to really band together, we can go out and do amazing things. It doesn't even have to be programming. The nights when I got together with a couple of friends and decided to "beat the (ticket) queue down" were great. We were all "over it" and did not like our jobs any more, but the teamwork of getting in there and showing what we could still do was worth it. Two or three of the right people could destroy a backlog of tickets which had accumulated over the span of hours or even days. It would make a dent which would last for several shifts, and probably rescued more than one ticket which would have been criminally mishandled otherwise. The teamwork basically established that more than one of us felt this way. That's important, since if you're the only one of a kind in any situation, don't you start wondering if you've done something wrong? I guess life is easier for those who aren't troubled by that sort of "do I even belong here" thought.
darkstalker 14y ago
I think totally the opposite. Working in group most of the time degenerates into procrastination. Also I find a lot harder to concentrate into problem solving when someone is talking to me.
bluethunder 14y ago
I have been in a similar situation and also read a bit of psychology and the inescapable conclusion that I have come to is that this is exactly why you need a cofounder. Humans crave regular 'peer' level feedback and gratification - this is an evolutionary trait and is extremely critical for your happiness which is in turn critical for optimal work performance. Almost anyone who feels otherwise is wrong. The key point is that even if your startup is doing well and making tons of money you will still not be happy because of the lack of 'peer' level feedback. So in that sense getting a co-founder is a bigger objective than making your startup profitable. The only other two options are: 1. Your company grows real fast and you are able to hire a couple of CXO's. This might take a long time and its not really in your control. 2. Raise funds and hire a couple of peer level CXO's - this is easier said than done as premature scaling is the number one cause of startup mortality even assuming that you can raise funding in the first place. The good part is that if you understand this simple fact, you can start figuring out a solution which I guess you have already begin.
sbrother 14y ago
One word: coworking! As a freelance developer I struggled with this for a while (getting depressed working at home, and getting tired of reduced productivity at cafes) until I joined a good coworking space. I realized that while working alone wears me down, I wouldn't trade working for myself for anything, and being around a group of people who feel the same way is awesome. For me at least, coworking is better than working at home in every way I've considered. I'm much more productive, it's not as isolating socially, and professionally I've even found new contracts through people I've met coworking.
contemplative1 14y ago
Isolation doesn't matter if you're absorbed in your work since your work is your world. If work stagnates (a project, a startup or a job) that's when it's felt. The trick is to always love what you do and to feel part of something whether it's guaranteed to succeed or not. I'm finding this out slowly.
rsobers 14y ago
> I should emphasize that it is not physically being alone (i.e., not enough contact with other people) that bothers me, it is the lack of peer-level teamwork towards a common goal that I lack. I wonder if Roger Federer feels that way?
dschiptsov 14y ago
Tell that to Philip K. Dick, J. D. Salinger, Ken Kesey, Orhan Pamuk, Albert Camus, George Orwell, to name a few..)
timedoctor 14y ago
I've been working at home and travelling the world for over 5 years with our whole team completely distributed, managing over 30 people remotely for all of this time. I've seen it doesn't work for some people. If the person doesn't have a partner, is a bit too introverted, they can get into an anti-social pattern and not communicate enough, not get out of the house. My experience is that this is the minority, maybe 5% maximum 10% of people. The majority love working from home and the benefits of greater flexibility and not having to travel to and from work each day more than compensate for any downside.
tedmiston 14y ago
I'd like to consider this through the lens of motivation. It's a social motivational problem. I experience the same thing is some classes in the case where grades are too easy to get / there's no challenge, and when there's no push for creativity. When the prof presents a leaderboard or favorite features in projects afterwards, or offers bonus for implementing more challenging additions, it multiplies my own motivation significantly. Even in grad school (CS), most of my course projects have been too easy IMO.
code_duck 14y ago
Except for the lack of distractions, I don't like it. Same with working with people, in reverse. I work as both a programmer and a glass artist, and similar conclusions apply. Working in group environments is inspiring, informative, invigorating and synergistic, but brings up all sorts of problems one doesn't encounter in solitude. I'm trying to find the right balance.
pacomerh 14y ago
I love the fact that a developer can work anywhere, while working on client projects thats totally fine and cool. But when you're doing 'cool stuff' or your own ideas. I found that working with someone else is another world. The energy that flows back and forth is incomparable.
pathy 14y ago
I am currently writing a paper relating to this topic. (Nothing special, just part of a university course) We are studying Seats2meet.com, a company providing co-working spaces in The Netherlands, or rather one of their co-working spaces, BounceSpace, where its free to work but you have to "pay" with your social capital. What we have found so far is that it is mostly (early start-up phase) entrepreneurs and freelancers who attend the location we have studied. They say that they cannot focus well at home and having the possibility to interact with is great beneficial to them. The fact that the location is free is of course important, especially for start-ups on a tight budget. The idea behind the concept is knowledge sharing but while there is certain amounts of knowledge sharing going on it appears that most are looking for human contact, and sometimes the human contact can help them out - good. The academic literature suggest that teleworkers, and it appears entrepreneurs though the literature is quite weak on that subject, are often feeling isolated due to lack of face-to-face interactions such as informal meetings, lunches and "water-cooler conversations" with colleagues. Our focus is mostly on knowledge sharing and social capital but I think many entrepreneurs could benefit from more interactions with others, rather than just hacking away at home. P.S. Check out Seats2Meet/BounceSpace if you are in Amsterdam and looking for a co-working space, they got some collaboration with Appsterdam and such. Not to mention good coffee!
zee007 14y ago
I worked alone (from home) for 4 years. Left a very high paying job mostly for that reason. I thought if it continued I'd kill myself. Now I am working on my startup with other smart people and man, I love it.
readme 14y ago
>Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am (hyper?)active, extraverted and social. Sitting in front of the computer alone all day is as sub-optimal as it gets for my character A more appropriate title would have been "Working alone sucks for me" I love working alone. Politics are non-existent or scarce.
nitingarg 14y ago
These are exactly my feelings in last one year after i left my job and working solo from 2+ years now. While i love the work & freedom and comfort as i am a natural loner/introvert, sometimes it sucks real bad. And unfortunately, we don't have much of work at cafe & co-working culture here. And with the time i have lost interest in "social media". It feels like i am talking to projections of characters and not real people.
Chirael 14y ago
I don't have much experience at this level (CEO), but I've always had the impression that this is partly why CEOs join the boards of other companies/organizations (including non-profits), to find camaraderie with peers, give back some of their perspective/experience, etc.

153 points by labaraka 14y ago

Working alone sucks(if you are extroverted). I had the opposite problem, I started working in sales with tons of people. I had no time for myself, meditation, solitude or thinking, just meeting people or being interrupted on the phone constantly. People could not understand that I wanted time for myself(most of the human population is extroverted). It was great for some people, but not for me. Now I work(at home) in engineering mostly alone with my dogs at my side and I am so happy. I am thinking about problems most of the time without interruptions. I see people when I want. For me this is great.

trafficlight 14y ago
I'm definitely introverted, but sometimes I do find it helpful to be around other people while working. Which is why I'm starting a coworking space in my hometown.
- contemplative1 14y ago
  Have you found any pitfalls trying to start a co-working space where there's a lack of an existing community? Did you do much research?
  - trafficlight 14y ago
    This remains to be seen. I just signed the lease on Monday for the space and we are doing cleaning and some minimal construction right now. I live in Helena, Montana. We have a very small startup/tech community here, but we do have a lot of people who telecommute or freelance for out-of-state clients. Ideally, we'll get a mixture of these people. I think the diversity is what's really important. Outside of Helena, in Bozeman and Missoula, there is a much larger startup community that's really starting to take off. I try to drive down for meetups a few times a month and participate in as many things as possible. So far, the initial response has been overwhelmingly positive. Rent is really cheap (my father-in-law owns the building, that helps) and I'm not trying to make a living off of the coworking space itself. It won't take many members to get the space self-sustaining and I'm confident that we can get there quickly even with the small population. Our website just went live yesterday. http://theshophelena.com http://theshophelena.com

cmwelsh 14y ago

I have experienced feelings similar to these in the past as a freelancer working from home. My advice is to join a local coworking group where freelancers come together to share office space. I have found the social atmosphere helps everyone get more enthusiastic about their work and allows for easy collaboration between designers, developers, marketers and businesspeople.

labaraka 14y ago
Good point. I have also successfully experimented with this in the past.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
Agreed, not only that but you will learn techniques from other people to constantly improve as a professional and as a person. You will also be helping new comers and that will make you feel deep satisfaction.

marknutter 14y ago

Title should be "Working alone sucks for some people". I've been working from home for years and love it, for instance.

akulbe 14y ago
I would love to have his "problem". I'm envious of those who get to work from home full-time.
obviouslygreen 14y ago
Specifically since this person mentions that he's "active, extraverted [sic] and social." Which is not to say that such people will always hate working alone, or that people who enjoy it can't be those things, but it seems from his description that working alone is something he probably should have avoided or, now that that's impossible, do something to change. I think the coworking environment in another comment is a great suggestion in that vein. Having worked in one of them for the better part of a year, for people who really just want to be around others while working, that's pretty ideal (aside from the relatively minor expense, but if that's something that's going to make you significantly happier, it seems likely to me that you could find one with a cost that makes it viable and worthwhile). Edit: I've also been working from home, alone (cue Macauly Culkin), for years and love it.
- marknutter 14y ago
  +1 for co-working. I occasionally work from a co-location workspace or a coffeeshop with local friends and hackers and it satisfies my need for human interaction without being too distracting.
  - labaraka 14y ago
    There is a difference between general human interaction and specifically having a peer working with with you on a common goal.
    - obviouslygreen 14y ago

danhou 14y ago

I can definitely empathize. A few years ago, I co-founded a startup with one of my close friends - except he had relocated to Shanghai and I in Virginia living with my parents to save on rent. We talked or IMed every day, but it definitely wasn't the same as working with a co-located team. There's no grabbing lunch together or the occasional drinks after work. It definitely got lonely, and led to some unusual behavior. By the end of the second week, I'd stopped getting out of my pajamas - it wasn't like I was leaving the house, so why bother? We have a dog, who isn't allowed in the house, so I set up a desk in the garage and worked from there. I'd keep the garage door open all day, for natural light but also to let the dog run around. I distinctly remember one afternoon, where I'm cranking away in my garage/office. Some neighborhood kids were cutting through our yard to get to the local basketball court, and they definitely paused for a moment to stare at the unkempt weird hermit guy, still in his pajamas, a bathrobe, and slippers, hacking away in the garage of all places. Good times!

labaraka 14y ago
That's how I also started. After too many unshowered days eating cereal, I decided I needed to get an office :)

tchock23 14y ago

This post hit close to home for me. I have had very similar work experiences as the OP (having done both a startup with two co-founders and management consulting), and found that the biggest factor is whether you are introverted or extroverted. He notes that he's extroverted, which is likely why he hates this method of work. As an introvert, I don't mind long periods of alone time as long as it's occasionally punctuated by social events. However, I tend to avoid the local networking events like the OP described because I find them to be full of blowhards and vendors pushing a service (YMMV). Instead, I prefer smaller group gatherings with people I trust. I'm trying to decide if my next startup is going to be solo or with co-founders, so this is weighing on my mind at the moment. I find that the biggest drawback of solo is the sense of loneliness, and I'm trying to balance that with the considerations of equity, creative control, etc.

return0 14y ago

I guess many indie developers and freelancers with an office-work history have the same issue. If you have the time, an appropriate option might be to go back to school or do some postgrad studies.

labaraka 14y ago

Seems from the comments that coding is an activity particularly well suited to working alone.

jaymorg 14y ago

I have been working from home for almost four years now. I don't consider my self an overly social person, but it's beginning to take a toll on me. I live in a small city (~80k population) with absolutely no tech industry and don't have any close friends that are working programmers with similar interests. I tend to have a lot of ambitions, which make it even worse when you have no feedback system to discuss those ambitions. Lately I've been considering applying for jobs in the Bay area, but I'm not sure I'm qualified enough to get a job worth moving my family for.

contemplative1 14y ago
Sounds like a strikingly similar situation to mine: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4905386 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4905386

calinet6 14y ago

Definitely join a Co-working space. They are designed for this. You may not be working directly with the people you interact with, but you are all working toward something, and that fact alone helps me be productive. The diverse community and productive environment of any good coworking space have untold benefits beyond the obvious. Try it out for an extended time before you make any assumptions.

labaraka 14y ago
I am not yet 100% comfortable giving up our office. But we have some extra desks and we are located in a very nice part of town. I think offering these to interesting local entrepreneurs might achieve a similar goal. If you are en entrepreneur interesting in a space in Old Montreal, leave your contact info here and I'll contact you.
- calinet6 14y ago
  That could work great. I know a local co-working space here in Boston does an office-space trade as well. Maybe get in touch with one in Montreal and see if their members have any interest or if they offer a similar service.

anujkk 14y ago

I believe it depends on the personality of person. I like to work in an environment where I am able to do my work alone, in isolation, have full control over process and schedule, and interact with others only when necessary. It's not that I hate interacting with people. I like to socialize but not when I am working.

thoughtcriminal 14y ago

Thanks for sharing this. You are definitely (ahem) not alone. One thing I heard from a friend (in a church talk) was that if you want a beautiful life, you need to find beautiful things and bring them into your life. This struck me as obvious but somehow I never clued in before. I need to actively create the life and living environment I want. I hope this doesn't sound like browbeating because it isn't. I don't know you but I absolutely relate to what you're saying. Good luck in creating a better life for yourself and enjoy the journey along the way. I will try and do the same.

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hiperlink 14y ago

How I wish, how I wish you were here... I mean, You, you, the clever, normal people. But for now I'm sharing my cubicle with two really clever (they can get the job done quickly, elegantly, etc) guys, who are both loud racists, one of them scientologist (although the later that did not caused any problem yet). And there's no chance the change offices. So. I would give both of their arms if only I could work alone a day a week.

lsdafjklsd 14y ago

I have never had a real life developer friend or someone to talk to. I got my BFA in illustration in 2010 and decided to get back into web development (I got an associates in digital media 3 years prior and was into web development in high school). So the landscape of development had changed a ton, I stumbled on to middleman and SASS.. so I was getting acquainted with modern tools and techniques. Then I was lucky enough that a marketing company in my town hired me to help out with html emails and photoshop collateral. They had a VB .NET Webforms guy that they would outsource application-ish websites too. At this time I was watching the google python videos and reading books about django / rails. I learned about heroku and in my spare time I would build and deploy simple apps like questionnaires with an active admin backend. Basically, my company let me take a stab at one of these application-ish projects and it went really well so I got to do more and more. That was a year ago, and now I work solely on large Rails / backbone projects hosted on Heroku. In all of this personal growth I still have not met another developer who I can talk to or learn from, it's crazy. It makes me sad because I don't have someone to share the excitement with, or someone who I can learn with. We have had this AD out for another developer for months and get very few responses. If you're in NH and like this stuff send me a message :)

thirtysixred 14y ago
If you're close to the Portsmouth area check out: http://alphaloft.com http://alphaloft.com. They have regular talks and meet ups. You could always head over to Boston there's a ton of web development stuff happening there and regular meet ups.
- lsdafjklsd 14y ago
  Wow alpha loft is an amazing resource, thanks!

gnaritas 14y ago

I don't work alone; I work in blissful solitude. Alone is a word for extroverts.

paulsutter 14y ago

This is a pretty clear take on the cofounder debate. Key quote: "I don’t have a CFO, COO or other peers with the same overall picture of the company and incentive structure that I have" In the early days of Quantcast, Konrad (the other cofounder) and I wondered why the employees didn't generally have the same sense of urgency that we did. My friend Bryan asked "so, what do you do when you read an article about a competitive threat?" and we both answered "we share it with each other". "and not the employees?", and we looked at each other and said "we don't want to be discouraging". Bryan said "no wonder they don't feel urgency". And that's at the core of having a cofounder. Or more importantly, perhaps that's one of the real reasons you want the initial team of a company to all be cofounders (YC style). You want everyone in the same boat, with a big bet on the line, sharing information openly. I'd love to hear any other thoughts about the real underlying reasons that the success rates are higher with companies that have cofounders. Most of the discussion on HN is about the observation, and examples either way. But I'd love to hear insight into the reasons.

labaraka 14y ago
You've nailed it! I should have been clearer in my post and maybe titled the post "Not having co-founders sucks".
sensosam 14y ago
I haven't got a cofounder (I do as much as I can myself and I outsource the rest), mainly because I haven't found the right person/people yet. I know that by being a single founder I can't share the workload, and I don't really have people to turn to when everything breaks at once. I also know that my startup deals with extremely abstract concepts and that its been easier to 'hold it all in my head' than to have to work with the potential cofounders I had available when I started my project. The big kicker for me is that I knew that without a cofounder I had no one to blame but myself if things went wrong. I find this hugely motivating, but I could also see it a major reason for people to fold too. For me it was a networking issue more than anything. This is my first project and I didn't know anyone that I thought would be appropriate fit for my project. I would rather build stuff than do meetups, though I'll probably start attending more after I launch. If I did find the right people then I wouldn't hesitate to bring them on board. I just couldn't find them and rather than wait I've done the best I can to make a successful startup. This was the right choice and things are going fairly smoothly. I personally think that the number of cofounders for a startup to be successful is entirely dependant on the circumstances - its product, its market and its goals. (I realize that this is an absolute copout of an answer. Sorry.)

fmavituna 14y ago

Interesting. My experience is almost the opposite of this. CEO of a small distributed team with 10 people, I spend half of my day on Skype talking with the team. I actually socialize more than my previous office job (penetration testing) in an office with 20~ people. Best part of it when I want to be alone to focus on something all it takes is setting my status to DND which you can't effectively do in many offices.

jasonkester 14y ago

I met a girl at a party once, and she said something really interesting when I mentioned that I wrote software for a living. "I could never do that", she said. "I could never sit alone all day, staring at a computer and never getting the chance to talk to anybody. It'd be my worst nightmare." I hadn't ever thought about it like that. Naturally, as a developer, I think I have the greatest job there is. Where else could you get somebody to pay you like fourteen times the median family income to hang out anywhere in the world you please and solve interesting puzzles all day? But not everybody is wired the same. Lots of people (most people???) get their energy from face to face human interaction. Poor fools, eh?

mgkimsal 14y ago
14x? Where are you living? I understand software developers generally make more than the average, but I've not heard of too many people making 14x (in the US).
- jasonkester 14y ago
  ^ number pulled from butt for the purposes of comedic exaggeration. But doing a quick order of magnitude check, it's not off by much: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income In the US, that says median income is ~$31k. You'd be 10x'ing that with a $150/hr consulting rate, which is by no means outrageous.
  - mgkimsal 14y ago
    not completely outrageous, although most of the people I know that are billing >= $150/hr aren't billing 2000 hours/year. Actually, even most of the hourly consultants I know that work for themselves aren't billable that often - usually 1000-1200 billable hours between most of the independent IT/tech people I know. Still, even at $75/hour, you're still 2-3x what a lot of people are making, and it's generally only up from there for most people.
    - 14y ago

wallflower 14y ago

If you work at home alone and you need human interaction, get a dog. It will force you to get outside and interact with humans. I met a young person once who was successful (multi-millionaire) and had sold several companies. In the post-sell lull, he said that until he got a dog - he didn't have a daily routine - since he didn't have to really work. Showering is a habit that quickly can fall by the wayside if you work from home alone too much.

bobmacw 14y ago

Many many years ago, I tried to do solo musician as a career - I write, practice, and perform the music - and in addition to the crushing poverty, the solitude was really hard. When I ended up working for a software company, I remember telling people, "Gosh I wish there was a Lotus Development for guitarist-composers." (I'm dating myself...) In addition to the lack of social contact, there's the lack of externally provided structure - schedule, resources, breaks, milestones. I just think it's hard to be a one-person anything.

rachelbythebay 14y ago

The update on the bottom of this post really hits home: "it is the lack of peer-level teamwork towards a common goal that I lack". That made me shudder. For me, the worst thing in the world is to try and do something in a "team" which exists in name only. If the other folks aren't willing to run at the same speed, then it just starts draining the life out of me and the project. It sounds like the author of this post is in the same situation. The flip side of this is that when a couple of people agree to really band together, we can go out and do amazing things. It doesn't even have to be programming. The nights when I got together with a couple of friends and decided to "beat the (ticket) queue down" were great. We were all "over it" and did not like our jobs any more, but the teamwork of getting in there and showing what we could still do was worth it. Two or three of the right people could destroy a backlog of tickets which had accumulated over the span of hours or even days. It would make a dent which would last for several shifts, and probably rescued more than one ticket which would have been criminally mishandled otherwise. The teamwork basically established that more than one of us felt this way. That's important, since if you're the only one of a kind in any situation, don't you start wondering if you've done something wrong? I guess life is easier for those who aren't troubled by that sort of "do I even belong here" thought.

darkstalker 14y ago

I think totally the opposite. Working in group most of the time degenerates into procrastination. Also I find a lot harder to concentrate into problem solving when someone is talking to me.

bluethunder 14y ago

I have been in a similar situation and also read a bit of psychology and the inescapable conclusion that I have come to is that this is exactly why you need a cofounder. Humans crave regular 'peer' level feedback and gratification - this is an evolutionary trait and is extremely critical for your happiness which is in turn critical for optimal work performance. Almost anyone who feels otherwise is wrong. The key point is that even if your startup is doing well and making tons of money you will still not be happy because of the lack of 'peer' level feedback. So in that sense getting a co-founder is a bigger objective than making your startup profitable. The only other two options are: 1. Your company grows real fast and you are able to hire a couple of CXO's. This might take a long time and its not really in your control. 2. Raise funds and hire a couple of peer level CXO's - this is easier said than done as premature scaling is the number one cause of startup mortality even assuming that you can raise funding in the first place. The good part is that if you understand this simple fact, you can start figuring out a solution which I guess you have already begin.

sbrother 14y ago

One word: coworking! As a freelance developer I struggled with this for a while (getting depressed working at home, and getting tired of reduced productivity at cafes) until I joined a good coworking space. I realized that while working alone wears me down, I wouldn't trade working for myself for anything, and being around a group of people who feel the same way is awesome. For me at least, coworking is better than working at home in every way I've considered. I'm much more productive, it's not as isolating socially, and professionally I've even found new contracts through people I've met coworking.

contemplative1 14y ago

Isolation doesn't matter if you're absorbed in your work since your work is your world. If work stagnates (a project, a startup or a job) that's when it's felt. The trick is to always love what you do and to feel part of something whether it's guaranteed to succeed or not. I'm finding this out slowly.

rsobers 14y ago

> I should emphasize that it is not physically being alone (i.e., not enough contact with other people) that bothers me, it is the lack of peer-level teamwork towards a common goal that I lack. I wonder if Roger Federer feels that way?

dschiptsov 14y ago

Tell that to Philip K. Dick, J. D. Salinger, Ken Kesey, Orhan Pamuk, Albert Camus, George Orwell, to name a few..)

timedoctor 14y ago

I've been working at home and travelling the world for over 5 years with our whole team completely distributed, managing over 30 people remotely for all of this time. I've seen it doesn't work for some people. If the person doesn't have a partner, is a bit too introverted, they can get into an anti-social pattern and not communicate enough, not get out of the house. My experience is that this is the minority, maybe 5% maximum 10% of people. The majority love working from home and the benefits of greater flexibility and not having to travel to and from work each day more than compensate for any downside.

tedmiston 14y ago

I'd like to consider this through the lens of motivation. It's a social motivational problem. I experience the same thing is some classes in the case where grades are too easy to get / there's no challenge, and when there's no push for creativity. When the prof presents a leaderboard or favorite features in projects afterwards, or offers bonus for implementing more challenging additions, it multiplies my own motivation significantly. Even in grad school (CS), most of my course projects have been too easy IMO.

code_duck 14y ago

Except for the lack of distractions, I don't like it. Same with working with people, in reverse. I work as both a programmer and a glass artist, and similar conclusions apply. Working in group environments is inspiring, informative, invigorating and synergistic, but brings up all sorts of problems one doesn't encounter in solitude. I'm trying to find the right balance.

pacomerh 14y ago

I love the fact that a developer can work anywhere, while working on client projects thats totally fine and cool. But when you're doing 'cool stuff' or your own ideas. I found that working with someone else is another world. The energy that flows back and forth is incomparable.

pathy 14y ago

I am currently writing a paper relating to this topic. (Nothing special, just part of a university course) We are studying Seats2meet.com, a company providing co-working spaces in The Netherlands, or rather one of their co-working spaces, BounceSpace, where its free to work but you have to "pay" with your social capital. What we have found so far is that it is mostly (early start-up phase) entrepreneurs and freelancers who attend the location we have studied. They say that they cannot focus well at home and having the possibility to interact with is great beneficial to them. The fact that the location is free is of course important, especially for start-ups on a tight budget. The idea behind the concept is knowledge sharing but while there is certain amounts of knowledge sharing going on it appears that most are looking for human contact, and sometimes the human contact can help them out - good. The academic literature suggest that teleworkers, and it appears entrepreneurs though the literature is quite weak on that subject, are often feeling isolated due to lack of face-to-face interactions such as informal meetings, lunches and "water-cooler conversations" with colleagues. Our focus is mostly on knowledge sharing and social capital but I think many entrepreneurs could benefit from more interactions with others, rather than just hacking away at home. P.S. Check out Seats2Meet/BounceSpace if you are in Amsterdam and looking for a co-working space, they got some collaboration with Appsterdam and such. Not to mention good coffee!

zee007 14y ago

I worked alone (from home) for 4 years. Left a very high paying job mostly for that reason. I thought if it continued I'd kill myself. Now I am working on my startup with other smart people and man, I love it.

readme 14y ago

>Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am (hyper?)active, extraverted and social. Sitting in front of the computer alone all day is as sub-optimal as it gets for my character A more appropriate title would have been "Working alone sucks for me" I love working alone. Politics are non-existent or scarce.

nitingarg 14y ago

These are exactly my feelings in last one year after i left my job and working solo from 2+ years now. While i love the work & freedom and comfort as i am a natural loner/introvert, sometimes it sucks real bad. And unfortunately, we don't have much of work at cafe & co-working culture here. And with the time i have lost interest in "social media". It feels like i am talking to projections of characters and not real people.

Chirael 14y ago

I don't have much experience at this level (CEO), but I've always had the impression that this is partly why CEOs join the boards of other companies/organizations (including non-profits), to find camaraderie with peers, give back some of their perspective/experience, etc.