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Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#251

Post by SoftTalker »

adventured wrote: post #241
julianlam wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. When people ask me what the best time is to work on a startup, it's always when you have no dependents, living with parents, and perhaps no significant other. It's quite amazing just how much you can skim down your expenses at that point in life. Minimizing expenses, maximizing runway. The rest is luck. Just blind luck.

> Minimizing expenses, maximizing runway. If you're in the US, and not living with your parents (and or don't want to do that), one of the best ways to do it is to live in a university town. They're wired for fast Internet, the cost of living (including rent) is often very reasonable, they're among the safest areas in the US on average, and you can work at mundane jobs to pay your bills (30-36 hours per week; telemet…

Have you lived in a university town recently? I do, and your rent estimate is low by a factor of about 2.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#252

Post by johnxie »

Hard mode? Yes. Possible? Absolutely.

Many factors come into play from your spouse to your cofounders and team. Your personal time management, organization skills, and support groups become even more critical.

There is no simple/single answer to your question, just like how to have a successful marriage or founder relationship, if you commit, you will find a way.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#253

Post by giraffe_lady »

rco8786 wrote: post #247
julianlam wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. When people ask me what the best time is to work on a startup, it's always when you have no dependents, living with parents, and perhaps no significant other. It's quite amazing just how much you can skim down your expenses at that point in life. Minimizing expenses, maximizing runway. The rest is luck. Just blind luck.

This is “obvious” advice but also statistically a huge number of startups are founded by older people with families, houses, etc.

I've actually worked at a handful of startups founded by middle aged men with families. I would kill to have coffee with one of their wives or older kids though because there's no fucking way those guys contribute meaningfully to the family life. I know how much they work because I was right there.

Also in every case they were already wealthy, either from early career success or just the traditional path of inheriting it. That takes a lot of the risk out and lets you outsource the domestic labor, reducing some of the burden you're asking your family to carry.

Anyway I've seen that up close and it's not necessarily inspiring.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#255

Post by mbgerring »

Depends on what you mean by “startup”.

If you want to found a money-burning VC-backed play for world domination, that’s probably not something you can do while you raise your kids and pay your mortgage.

However, if you’re interested in starting a business, providing a valuable product or service that people need and will pay for, you can absolutely do that.

The real answer I think you’re looking for is that you need to put a lot of money in savings, starting now, and you need to be aiming for actual paying customers on day one, not on convincing someone to give you a billion dollars to screw around until you find product market fit.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#256

Post by SoftTalker »

Kranar wrote: post #194
saulpw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even committed parents and spouses take alone time for themselves and have hobbies. The parents I know with kids younger than 7 have no time for themselves or their hobbies. They're lucky if they can scrape together a few hours a week for basic self-care. In the mornings the kids demand full attention and after the kids go to bed there's maybe time for a single TV show which one person falls asleep during. > how ca…

Are you speaking from personal experience? I am a parent and have a younger daughter and I have many other parent friends, we all had kids within a similar age range. I have plenty of time to spend with my family and I am also the founder of a successful company. If anything, being a parent taught me how to be very efficient with my time and how to cut things out that were meaningless. The arrangement I have with my…

Congrats to you that you've made this work. I've made attempts at the "super efficient optimise every moment" thing and it always eventually collapses for me with severe mental exhaustion. I cannot be "on" that much. It just isn't in me.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#257

Post by hermitcrab »

You have 3 main options:

1. Do it on the side, while working.

2. Save up and then go full time.

3. Borrow money and go full time.

None of them are easy or stress free.

I went for option 2. I worked like crazy and was making roughly my old income after a year or so, so I never burnt too far into my savings. There is a bit about my journey here:

https://successfulsoftware.net/2013/11/06/lifestyle-programm...

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#258

Post by Komodai »

_8j50 wrote: post #176

Can you educate on why the existence of wife and children is such a burden? Is it social committments? Children don't take up 8+ hours a day after 1yro+ And wives... get one that understands stuff like this? I ask because I know multiple talented people using this as an excuse to not use their abilities as they claim they want to. My ignorant guess would be people these days think you need to spend a ton of time with…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#259

Post by hermitcrab »

hermitcrab wrote: post #257

You have 3 main options: 1. Do it on the side, while working. 2. Save up and then go full time. 3. Borrow money and go full time. None of them are easy or stress free. I went for option 2. I worked like crazy and was making roughly my old income after a year or so, so I never burnt too far into my savings. There is a bit about my journey here: https://successfulsoftware.net/2013/11/06/lifestyle-programm...

Also it helps if you live in a country with socialized healthcare.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?

#260

Post by scruple »

Kranar wrote: post #194
saulpw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even committed parents and spouses take alone time for themselves and have hobbies. The parents I know with kids younger than 7 have no time for themselves or their hobbies. They're lucky if they can scrape together a few hours a week for basic self-care. In the mornings the kids demand full attention and after the kids go to bed there's maybe time for a single TV show which one person falls asleep during. > how ca…

Are you speaking from personal experience? I am a parent and have a younger daughter and I have many other parent friends, we all had kids within a similar age range. I have plenty of time to spend with my family and I am also the founder of a successful company. If anything, being a parent taught me how to be very efficient with my time and how to cut things out that were meaningless. The arrangement I have with my…

As a counter-balance: I have 3 children, twins who are 3 (and I am the twin parent) and a 1 year old. My wife is still in recovery and on partial (she works 20 hours / week right now) disability from the birth of our youngest.

I've reduced my hobbies down to: 1) reading before I fall asleep at night, 2) exercising during my lunch hour on work days. That's it. I managed to change jobs earlier this year but it was challenging and it remains a challenge to remain ahead with my current role due to my family obligations.

My situation is somewhat unique but is certainly not an outlier.

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