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I don't agree with this. Why not be able to have a startup succeed with 7.5 hour days? For me, I can put in a day longer than that when I need to, in an extrem
by schrodinger 13y ago
I don't agree with this. Why not be able to have a startup succeed with 7.5 hour days?
For me, I can put in a day longer than that when I need to, in an extreme circumstance. But if it becomes often, I just can't be productive longer than that. I loses ability to focus, and start accumulating burn out. My throughput is greater at 7.5 hour days than 10 hour days.
Of course, if there's like a week leading up to a launch where you need to crunch, that's different. I've been there, and have been able to be super productive like that for a week. But it can't be sustained... I feel like I'm basically borrowing some productivity from the future, and that debt will catch up to me eventually.
- pauleastlund 13y agoThe sentence in question was: "You can't run a startup at crunch time with devs putting in 7.5 hour days." The "at crunch time" was meant to qualify the rest of it -- to suggest that standard hours might work some or even most of the time, but not when you get that big client on the hook who wants something custom next week. I think that's in line with what you're saying. With that said, most of the successful startups I know involved long hours early on, and not just occasionally. It absolutely involves borrowing from future productivity and present quality of life. Sometimes taking that loan is worth it, and sometimes it's just a stupid, pointless death march and the urgency is manufactured. The latter might be more common but the former definitely exists.
- pauleastlund 13y agoAlso, just to tie back to original post -- the poster's complaint was not, "I'm really giving this job my best but I just can't be productive for longer hours than I'm working right now." It was, "I'm giving this job all I'm willing to because the rest of my time goes towards work on a separate project."