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YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever.
by katzgrau 2mo ago
YC reject so I bootstrapped and was thankfully able to hit profitability before my first kid showed up. I’ve now got two. I also have dreams bigger than ever.
In fact, writing this while sitting on the couch with the kids watching Muppet Treasure Island while my kids are wearing pirate hats and waving foam swords.
I’m still extremely productive and prolific. Probably less compared with before. But before, I had friends and TV shows subtracting from my time.
Today, my life priorities are kids, work and sleep.
There is no Netflix. There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents.
I’m up at 5:30/6 and get 90 mins of focused work in. Skip breakfast. Then workout and walk/bike with the kids. Then ready for work at 10 - and thankfully my office is two blocks away. Skip lunch. Home at 5/5:30. Dinner with kids and play. Work from 8-10. Every single day.
I love my kids, work and learning is fun, and I value sleep. Everything else is a nice to have.
The way I see it, when I’m 100 years old I won’t regret drag on my ambitions because I had kids. In fact I’ll probably think the ambitions were nice but kind of pointless in the end anyway. I will see the kids as important and meaningful, and will write a life story where I was the best dad I could be and still hustled like hell.
- daggerdrone 2mo agoIsn’t it unhealthy to skip both breakfast and lunch? How are you getting the energy to do stuff without eating?
- CalRobert 2mo agoNo idea but worth remembering that modern breakfast was invented to sell cereal.
- gritspants 2mo agoYeah I had a schedule like that when the kids were very young but it caught up with me, frankly. Having the computer be the first and last thing I interacted with every day was not great for my mood either.
- katzgrau 2mo agoGranted, I do need to take a break from that schedule every so often. If I catch myself being unfocused I just go to bed. Also, the first thing I work on is usually a high leverage project that excites me. Reading news or answering emails (things that can affect my emotions) are usually avoided during that time. Usually.
- thaumasiotes 2mo ago> Isn’t it unhealthy to skip both breakfast and lunch? No, why would you think that?
- davmar 2mo agohey hey don't interrupt the hustleporn
- hahahaa 2mo agoOh no you see this is now called intermittent fasting not "lunch is for wimps".
- jawilson2 2mo agoIntermittent fasting and calorie reduction are the only known way to EXTEND lifespan and wellness. 10 years of low carb + fasting is the single most important health decision I have ever made.
- dyarosla 2mo agoKind of a strong statement there. Happy that fasting’s had such a positive influence on your life but: No: fasting has not been proven to extend lifespan in humans. Also no: exercise has been far more provably correlated with healthspan improvements than fasting.
- Gareth321 2mo agoYou are more correct, but I think the truth lies somewhere between your statement and theirs. We have correlative evidence that lower calorie diets and/or fasting results in longer lifespans, improved insulin sensitivity, pancreatic cell responsiveness, blood pressure, oxidative-stress measures, and more, in humans. We also have animal testing showing causative evidence that fasting produces longer lifespans. Of course, animals are not humans, and correlation does not imply causation. Still, we do not currently have causative evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, and we widely agree that that is harmful for lungs. With enough correlative evidence I think it becomes reasonable to accept it as actionable evidence.
- triceratops 2mo agoIt's only unhealthy if you get hungry.
- keeda 2mo agoWellllll, kind of... I've realized hunger is often just another habit because we're used to eating N meals a day, like the GP comment implies. I've done a quasi OMAD (1-meal a day) thing on-and-off for 3+ years now and don't feel hungry the rest of the time, given my current physical activity levels. It took a few days to get used to, but now I can start and stop OMAD on demand. I'd recommend everyone try fasting and figure out what their bodies really need (preferably over the holidays, because the adjustment period can be a bit rough and could interfere with work.) I suspect most of the developed world is over-eating by quite a lot given our largely sedentary lifestyles.
- poncho_romero 2mo agoI did fasting for a while, usually fasting for 16+ hours and eating 1-2 meals in the eight hour feeding window, but eventually stopped in favour of working out. I'd like to be able to lift while also fasting, but I'm worried that (1) I'd struggle to hit my protein targets and (2) only eating during a small window each day would hurt muscle growth.
- keeda 2mo agoOh for sure, if your physical activity is higher you need to eat commensurately more! What I meant is, for most of us with desk jobs and little physical activity, our bodies need surprisingly little food and this is what fasting reveals. Like even on OMAD I pretty much don't lose any weight (and no, I'm not as lean as I wish I were!) I strongly suspect if average, healthy people cut out an entire meal a day and changed nothing else, their bodies would stay mostly the same.
- ColdStream 2mo agoAs a fun project, you should look up the history of eating schedules. They vary wildly between different cultures. Some have a single large meal at the start of the day, others have 5 smaller meals spread through, and everything in between. There is no standard even if it feels like it simply because that is how we are raised. It is but social convention.
- MeetingsBrowser 2mo agoSocial and historical conventions don’t necessarily align with “good for your health”.
- colechristensen 2mo agoMost "good for your health" advice is pop culture driven with a half life of 5 years anyway and breakfast being the most important meal of the day is a marketing slogan. In other words, no better than any various convention. About the only things that stick are "don't stop physical and mental activity as you age" and "do stuff in moderation". If you call it "intermittent fasting" and write a book about it, you can get a whole movement behind how healthy skipping breakfast and lunch is. And another movement preaching about how bad it is. And a followup book about what you REALLY should do ad nauseam.
- ColdStream 2mo agoPretty much, so much of what we take for granted in culture was actually intentionally designed from the top down to have masses of people fall into line and become good servants of the economic system. As for good diets, for instance, there is a wild meal schedule that has shown to be fairly good at managing weight, it is just intense. It is the 16 to 17 meals a day plan. One meal every hour you are awake, each one only about 100 to 150 calories. It does potentially work but try selling it to people and worse getting folks to stick to it.
- colechristensen 2mo ago
- _kb 2mo agoThe secret is to have your children eat for you, then just do blood transfusions when they’re at peak nutrient level. You can do that while you work for optimal efficiency.
- brainzap 2mo agobreak-fast is for farmer that do hard work
- Jtarii 2mo agoYour body has energy reserves that it can use when you aren't eating.
- aselimov3 2mo agoMan good motivating schedule. Are you married as well? I notice this is missing the wife time. I feel like I really have to wreck my sleep to get worktime between wife and kids.
- nichochar 2mo agoyep all of this resonates
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- SoftTalker 2mo agoBut time to post on HN?
- alansaber 2mo agoHe posts less than once a week so yes
- techn00 2mo agoWhen do you spend time with your spouse lol
- crassus_ed 2mo agoSo you're basically a machine that spends their time working and taking care of your children? This feels like a one-way ticket to a burnout.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- katzgrau 2mo agoI love my work and I love playing with the kids so it can be exhausting but in a good way. Never a drag (not usually anyway). Super thoughtful consistent schedule with little room for anything else is my tradeoff if I want to maintain high quantity of high quality output with my business. And TBH, it lasts for 15-18 years at most. I didn’t mention the weekends - those are more of a free for all. Lots of family time, work sneaks in. It’s a lot more thinking than working though.
- kakacik 2mo agoBurnouts often happen to passionate people who love their work. There are hard limits that conscious part of the mind simply ignores, with laser/tubular focus on whatever is the drive. For example nurses (both male and female) during WWI - worked themselves to mental breakdowns because there was endless stream of properly suffering people to help or even save. One can't have much more noble goal. Yet hard burnouts kept happening. I don't want to sound all gloomy since I know nothing about your situation. Just listen to your body and mind, it keeps telling things in subtle ways, not a good idea to ignore that.
- camdenreslink 2mo agoThis is basically what my life is like (going on 9 years now). I don't think it has necessarily led to burnout for me. Keep in mind that time spent with your children isn't all work. There is some fun and leisure in there as well (although it is a lot of work too).
- Daneel_ 2mo agoAgreed. This sounds like absolute hell. No time for even a single hobby? Where's your pleasure in life?
- sabarasaba 2mo ago> There are no hobbies. No downtime. No friends unless I happen to like my kids friends parents. this sounds miserable
- logical_ferry1 2mo agoI appreciate people like OP because they create jobs for people like me. I am more than happy to let him keep his profits and his lousy existence while I take it easy, do some work and then hang out with kids and friends and collect the paycheck. Yeah, I will never get rich, but I don't care. Work is just something I do to get by, I did find meaning in it earlier in life, but since I hit 40 work is just a thing I do so I don't end up under the bridge.
- astura 2mo agoNot just miserable, but also unhealthy for the kids - You're really not going to teach your kids to socialize? Beyond that, he's admitting he's ignoring the kids to post hustleporn on HN instead of engaging with them.
- katzgrau 2mo agoMy block is crawling with kids and usually playing baseball or hockey - they are pretty much never on screens apart from watching something on Disney+. Other than that we play outside year round.
- katzgrau 2mo agoReally just thoughtfully and consistently disciplined. Some people think diet and exercise are miserable. Others put more weight on how they feel when in good health.
- logical_ferry1 2mo agoI can't say is this sarcasm or is this guy serious?
- citizenkeen 2mo agoI noticed housework wasn’t mentioned in this idealized schedule.
- paweladamczuk 2mo agoI noticed the same. Housework consumes a LOT of my time. But maybe that's just because of income level and failure to delegate?
- avgDev 2mo agoWhere do you fit all the other things that come into life randomly? Helping aging parents? Dealing with problems? House chores? House maintenance? Props if you can do this and not burn out. I would not be able to live like this.
- _zoltan_ 2mo agoFriends "distracting"? Man, that sounds backwards. Work, skip breakfast on purpose, work until 10pm... Nah. That's not a good place.
- ahahs 2mo agoso your first meal of the day is at 5pm? and you manage to workout and attend work all day on no food?