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> Ok, so I work 80 hours per week - it just doesn’t feel like it. Working 80 hours per week only sucks if you’re working on something you aren’t passionate abou

> Ok, so I work 80 hours per week - it just doesn’t feel like it. Working 80 hours per week only sucks if you’re working on something you aren’t passionate about. Trust me, I’ve tried that. This isn't sustainable. It's likely not healthy, either. It doesn't matter how fun you're having while you work 80 hours per week, it's not good for you. Most successful businesses grind away for years before they finally become profitable. The rocket-ship success stories like Whatsapp and Instagram are the exception to that rule. The whole mentality that you need to work yourself to the bone in the name of "passion" to build a successful business is poisonous. Even if you happen to be one of these super humans that can sustain that amount of work more than a year it's likely that your co-workers are not. It's also likely that they will not complain about it because they don't want to seem like the weak link. All the while, though, it will do damage to them and to the company in the long term. Maybe working 80 hours a week is a sign that you're over-engineering. Simplify, focus, and work less. The product will likely become more focused, less bloated, and have a much better chance of surviving over the long haul.

blisterpeanuts 13y ago
But sometimes, there's just that much work to do, and in a 5 or 6 person company, the work load is just that much greater while they're bootstrapping their way to a product.
- wylonis 13y ago
  Exactly. AT an early stage, the product goes through a ton of changes and when they happen the team often needs to work even more to catch up. Having a team that's willing to go through that kind of pressure and still keep truckin' improves the odds of success.
acconrad 13y ago
And to be fair WhatsApp has been around for years...most of these "rocketship" companies aren't in fact rocket ships and take years before they become famous, and then once they're famous gain traction seemingly very quickly.
thenomad 13y ago
If you're really enjoying working 80 hours a week, and everyone else on the team is too, I don't see a huge problem with it - provided, and this is a big "provided", that if anyone doing that wants to stop working 80 hours, or indeed take a bloody long holiday to recover, they can do so. I know several extremely successful, productive people in different fields who work on the "work as long as you like when you feel like it, rest when you don't" principle.
genericuser 13y ago
My take away was that when your work is the same thing you would personally want to do with your free time (something you are passionate about) that doing 80 hours of work for your employer isn't really any different than 30 hours of work and 50 hours of leisure time. 80 hours still leaves over half his time for eating, sleeping, the small amounts of physical activity which are realistic, and small amounts of human interaction. It simply does not leave time for leisure or to unwind, but as I said previously if your work is what you would do with your leisure time then that's not an issue, as there is nothing to unwind from. Now I have only encountered this situation for a brief 3 month project which I wish had never been finished. But this type of dream job type situation does exist, and I don not believe is unhealthy, unless you have some sort of family to maintain also (it doesn't really leave enough time for a healthy family life).
- marknutter 13y ago
  > It simply does not leave time for leisure or to unwind, but as I said previously if your work is what you would do with your leisure time then that's not an issue, as there is nothing to unwind from. I don't qualify continuing to work as leisure time just because you happen to like your work. Work is work, regardless of whether or not you like it. Also I don't believe that simply increasing the amount of hours you work on a startup will directly impact its success. Cutting the scope is almost always a better way to improve a startup's chances.
- rorykoehler 13y ago
  I have to agree that work is work regardless of whether one likes it or not. Work and leisure are essential. Personally I work in sprints where I work like crazy and then make sure to take time off to recover. I also use recovery time for reflection, both structured and unstructured. I would class the structured reflection as work but naturally my mind processes automatically in down time also when I'm out riding my bike or whatever. This is where all the best ideas and plans come from. Take the analogy of an athlete. Any athlete knows that recovery is an important part of training. Too much work and they over train. This can be applied to any area of life but is usually called burn out in business. Burn out happens regardless of how much one enjoys the work.
koonsolo 13y ago
Doing 80 hours a week, pulling all-nighters. This sounds to me as they are putting out fires instead of building a product the pro-active way. If an all-nighter is unavoidable, you should definitely ask yourself what you're doing wrong, and how to prevent it.
wylonis 13y ago
When we work 80 hours per week - we do it out of interest for the things we are doing. Like another person said, that we work 80 hours feels like working 30 hours. There is nothing we would rather do than be at our office. The energy in an early startup is just one of the most addicting things in the world.
- marknutter 13y ago
  Think of it this way - do you think it'd be healthy for a person to play World of Warcraft for 80 hours a week? What if they were having fun and it felt like they were only playing 30 hours a week? Just because you're building a startup instead of playing WoW doesn't mean it's any less unhealthy. What I'm suggesting is that working 80 hours per week is by its very nature harmful to you, your coworkers, and the company, regardless of whether it sout of interested for the things you're doing. It leads to scope creep, burnout, and other unhealthy outcomes. Everything should be done in moderation, including (especially?) work. I can foresee a situation where you or somebody on your team will ignore the obvious signs of burnout and power through until its too late. If you feel like you need to work that much I would suggest you re-evaluate your scope or find more coworkers. Look to other companies who have built fantastic products without sacrificing a good work/life balance (37 Signals comes to mind).
  - wylonis 13y ago
    Hi Mark - You're completely right. It's not healthy to do anything for 80 hours + I would hate to sit through 80 hours of WoW :) Too much of anything can become a bad thing, and you're completely right that we need to make sure we don't burn ourselves out. We, of course, hope that we will not have to work 80 hours every week down forever - but at an early stage we can't help ourselves. The extreme motivation, energy and drive in the team keeps us running.
    - marknutter 13y ago
      Well, I wish you luck, but the likelihood that you will become successful before one of you burns out is low. Plan for the long term and establish a sane culture now before it's too late.

blisterpeanuts 13y ago

But sometimes, there's just that much work to do, and in a 5 or 6 person company, the work load is just that much greater while they're bootstrapping their way to a product.

wylonis 13y ago
Exactly. AT an early stage, the product goes through a ton of changes and when they happen the team often needs to work even more to catch up. Having a team that's willing to go through that kind of pressure and still keep truckin' improves the odds of success.

acconrad 13y ago

And to be fair WhatsApp has been around for years...most of these "rocketship" companies aren't in fact rocket ships and take years before they become famous, and then once they're famous gain traction seemingly very quickly.

thenomad 13y ago

If you're really enjoying working 80 hours a week, and everyone else on the team is too, I don't see a huge problem with it - provided, and this is a big "provided", that if anyone doing that wants to stop working 80 hours, or indeed take a bloody long holiday to recover, they can do so. I know several extremely successful, productive people in different fields who work on the "work as long as you like when you feel like it, rest when you don't" principle.

genericuser 13y ago

My take away was that when your work is the same thing you would personally want to do with your free time (something you are passionate about) that doing 80 hours of work for your employer isn't really any different than 30 hours of work and 50 hours of leisure time. 80 hours still leaves over half his time for eating, sleeping, the small amounts of physical activity which are realistic, and small amounts of human interaction. It simply does not leave time for leisure or to unwind, but as I said previously if your work is what you would do with your leisure time then that's not an issue, as there is nothing to unwind from. Now I have only encountered this situation for a brief 3 month project which I wish had never been finished. But this type of dream job type situation does exist, and I don not believe is unhealthy, unless you have some sort of family to maintain also (it doesn't really leave enough time for a healthy family life).

marknutter 13y ago
> It simply does not leave time for leisure or to unwind, but as I said previously if your work is what you would do with your leisure time then that's not an issue, as there is nothing to unwind from. I don't qualify continuing to work as leisure time just because you happen to like your work. Work is work, regardless of whether or not you like it. Also I don't believe that simply increasing the amount of hours you work on a startup will directly impact its success. Cutting the scope is almost always a better way to improve a startup's chances.
rorykoehler 13y ago
I have to agree that work is work regardless of whether one likes it or not. Work and leisure are essential. Personally I work in sprints where I work like crazy and then make sure to take time off to recover. I also use recovery time for reflection, both structured and unstructured. I would class the structured reflection as work but naturally my mind processes automatically in down time also when I'm out riding my bike or whatever. This is where all the best ideas and plans come from. Take the analogy of an athlete. Any athlete knows that recovery is an important part of training. Too much work and they over train. This can be applied to any area of life but is usually called burn out in business. Burn out happens regardless of how much one enjoys the work.

koonsolo 13y ago

Doing 80 hours a week, pulling all-nighters. This sounds to me as they are putting out fires instead of building a product the pro-active way. If an all-nighter is unavoidable, you should definitely ask yourself what you're doing wrong, and how to prevent it.

wylonis 13y ago

When we work 80 hours per week - we do it out of interest for the things we are doing. Like another person said, that we work 80 hours feels like working 30 hours. There is nothing we would rather do than be at our office. The energy in an early startup is just one of the most addicting things in the world.

marknutter 13y ago
Think of it this way - do you think it'd be healthy for a person to play World of Warcraft for 80 hours a week? What if they were having fun and it felt like they were only playing 30 hours a week? Just because you're building a startup instead of playing WoW doesn't mean it's any less unhealthy. What I'm suggesting is that working 80 hours per week is by its very nature harmful to you, your coworkers, and the company, regardless of whether it sout of interested for the things you're doing. It leads to scope creep, burnout, and other unhealthy outcomes. Everything should be done in moderation, including (especially?) work. I can foresee a situation where you or somebody on your team will ignore the obvious signs of burnout and power through until its too late. If you feel like you need to work that much I would suggest you re-evaluate your scope or find more coworkers. Look to other companies who have built fantastic products without sacrificing a good work/life balance (37 Signals comes to mind).
- wylonis 13y ago
  Hi Mark - You're completely right. It's not healthy to do anything for 80 hours + I would hate to sit through 80 hours of WoW :) Too much of anything can become a bad thing, and you're completely right that we need to make sure we don't burn ourselves out. We, of course, hope that we will not have to work 80 hours every week down forever - but at an early stage we can't help ourselves. The extreme motivation, energy and drive in the team keeps us running.
  - marknutter 13y ago
    Well, I wish you luck, but the likelihood that you will become successful before one of you burns out is low. Plan for the long term and establish a sane culture now before it's too late.