21–30 of 52 posts
As others have pointed out, the key is focus. You have a family and they demand / deserve some amount of your time.
So make that time. Prioritize it.
There will always be more to do in your company than you or your team can address. Focus on the important stuff, say no to the rest.
Founder in my 40s here. "1 toddler and another child is coming" - Then you want to work one and a half or maybe two jobs? Unless your wife is Superwoman, sounds like a divorce to me. Wait until your kids are in school and more independent. In the next few years, your wife and kids need you. There are plenty of successful founders in their 40s. In fact the average age of the successful founder is 44. Plenty of time! F…
For the kids, for your health, for your wife :)
Founder in my 40s here. "1 toddler and another child is coming" - Then you want to work one and a half or maybe two jobs? Unless your wife is Superwoman, sounds like a divorce to me. Wait until your kids are in school and more independent. In the next few years, your wife and kids need you. There are plenty of successful founders in their 40s. In fact the average age of the successful founder is 44. Plenty of time! F…
You have to stop and ask yourself what it’s all for. What is the point of anything? For me kids filled in a large missing piece of the puzzle I couldn’t tell was missing.
Your startup can happen any time. Kids happens once, maybe twice and you are going to want to be there.
They’ll be in school so soon and then you’ll at least have a clear time in the day.
The more time you spend with your kids the more you’ll like it - and it will probably inspire a ton of ideas!
Misery is doing one thing while thinking about another
I just finished reading The Cult of We. If the author is to be believed, Adam Neumann managed to build WeWork into a $50 Billion unicorn while fathering 5 children and being perpetually drunk and/or high. And having no real talents beyond incredible salesmanship and incredible obliviousness. So yeah, it's possible. But is it right for you? We can't say without knowing more.
Being an incredible salesman is the most important trait to be a founder. You can easily start a company if you can sell your vision to a technically skilled person and to the angel fund. You can never succeed no matter how technically strong you are or how good the product is, if you cannot sell it. The sheer arrogance of technical people waving off selling as a lesser skill is getting boring even to me and I'm not…
But you don’t have to be an “incredible” salesperson.
Be able to explain the value prop of your product. Know your customer and know how you help them. Become good at having them know this too.
But that’s just rote sales and marketing. Nothing “incredible” about it.
But yes, if you are technical and hold “sales” as some kind of contemptuous skill, you won’t do well.
I would say that it all depends on funding. I have bootstrapped before, and I could never do that now. Perhaps more accurately, I would not want to do that now.
Having raised funds for this start up, my salary is a lot lower than it was working in enterprise, but it’s enough to support me and my family.
I have two Cofounders to share the load. One is also a parent, one isn’t. They pull a lot of weight, but none of us have to work ourselves to death. Having a good founding team is crucial.
My wife is at home full-time - Chief of Domestic Operations - and that’s what makes it work. Because she enjoys that role and I can feed us all, things work out.
With that support structure (funds, founding team, supportive spouse), it’s very doable. Still hard work, but the very enjoyable good kind of hard work.
I just finished reading The Cult of We. If the author is to be believed, Adam Neumann managed to build WeWork into a $50 Billion unicorn while fathering 5 children and being perpetually drunk and/or high. And having no real talents beyond incredible salesmanship and incredible obliviousness. So yeah, it's possible. But is it right for you? We can't say without knowing more.
Being an incredible salesman is the most important trait to be a founder. You can easily start a company if you can sell your vision to a technically skilled person and to the angel fund. You can never succeed no matter how technically strong you are or how good the product is, if you cannot sell it. The sheer arrogance of technical people waving off selling as a lesser skill is getting boring even to me and I'm not…
But WeWork is also proof that unless there's some substance to go with the selling the story won't end well.
Life will continue to get busier. Once they are over 5 and sports activities and creative activities start you'll be driving around for training, games etc. At least by then you will be enjoying uninterrupted sleep again. As a 30 year old software developer, I had a startup going great just a few years prior to kids and into the early years of my 3 children. I found the technologies I learnt and used on the startup p…
I want to be more present during children golden period time. I want to nurture their curiosity, problem solving and creativity, so that they can be better than me in their careers and life. Of course I want to continue to be present as they grow older too. But as they older the attention span needed should be not as much as before. Yeah I think I should start with simple software side project and taking it slow but…
This could mean that you can be there at the times you need to "be there" and work around that: like in the evenings when the children are in bed, and/or early morning if that's more your thing.
I juggled a day job and side-startup while my child was a toddler. My wife and parents picked the slack on the nights where I had to push towards a hard deadline and I leaned heavily on my team so that I could be present for family time. The company was profitable and we successfully sold it to a private party.
For my current startup, I was very up front with my co-founder about making sure I was around to do school drop-offs and pick-ups. We're fully remote so there's no commute and we predominantly work asynchronously to avoid meetings. I mostly work during school hours and pick up again in the evening after the bedtime routine.
It's not for everybody and doesn't leave a lot of "me" time, but I'm personally finding a lot of fulfillment in trying to build a family-friendly remote-first company.