I did this seven years ago as the sole provider for the family. We did not have any savings, so it turned out to be a very busy time for me. I had two years of overlap of the paying job and startup. I am opposed to the common advice of waiting until the children move out to pursue the dream of owning your own company. My father did this and bought a small startup that already had some traction when he was 55. He spent the next eight years working extremely hard under a lot of stress to come out in a good financial position, but his health worsened significantly from that. So, he fulfilled his startup dreams, but it was through witnessing this that I decided "the sooner the better" and pursued my dreams without waiting for the "right time." The two years of overlap I had with the job and startup was worth it. I have plenty of freedom now to spend time and take vacations with my family. I kept this post general because I do not think the details matter. As someone who has done exactly what you want to do, I say 'go for it. The sooner the better. Tomorrow is not guaranteed!'
Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
271–280 of 345 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You signed up for a bunch of responsibilities. You are always going to be your kids parent. You are only going to have this one opportunity to get this marriage and this family right. I think this is a bit of a depressing take. Even committed parents and spouses take alone time for themselves and have hobbies. Just treat your side project as your hobby and you can still have a healthy family. Also, think about how…
> 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…
I have young kids very close in age. Doing a startup. Life doesn’t get easier, you just have to get better kids or not. Besides todays the youngest you’ll ever be, if both now, then when?
tldr; You can get funding and have balanced pursuit and resources. For the 98% of founders who can’t, won’t or don’t get funding, self-funding and bootstrapping is a way to build the thing to free your time to then swing for the fences - same transferable startup skills required.
With kids, I realized I traded a lot of time wasting for two amazing beings and it’s optimizing my time with and ultimately for them. People make expensive decisions that lock them in to cost time in addition to kids. Minimizing those has been a blessing. You can get back many hours. I’m going to share here so other parents can share with me here and I can learn from them.
On to trying to paint an alternative picture:
One thing missing in this post is it’s more about the effectiveness with your time than the quantity of it as you get older. When starting out, few are effective with their time but we have lots to waste. If we can admit it’s needed we can become more effective quicker.
Today, every minute matters. I’m not perfect, but nothing gets easier, you just get better. Everything’s a grind.
Kids can help prioritize in a big way for some. If you think you have an idea based in hearing from parents it’s not super accurate because everyone’s life situation is different.
- 4-9 am isn’t a guarantee. Kids will be sick. Late nights can be tiring. I find I can just go to bed at 8 or 9 most nights and wake up at 2 or 3. Works great if I have a few devs overseas helping because am in my 30s and probably have a few thousand to get help with. When I slip in my schedule I start over.
- Being hyper organized with every little step that needs to be done next helps make the most of small pockets of time. This was hard for me and I’m still learning to get better every day. If I don’t casually get 4-8 hours straight on the weekends to work on something I still am able to find ways to be more effective.
- Startups are a business not coding alone: Time away from the keyboard can actually be valuable to stop and get perspective. Often I don’t need hours anymore to do something where it can be done in 60 minutes while thinking about it away from the keyboard. Thinking can actually be a lot of the work to be done in some steps. I never would have designed and simplified a great deal in my startup if it wasn’t for those late nights.
- Face yourself. Generally ppl who weren’t the best with their time before kids might have a hard time after. Everyone Has run to improve but not everyone realizes discipline leads to improvement and freedom.
- Learn to change better than you are: A lot of people aren’t as good with change as they imagined themselves to be too. It’s why advice sucks sometimes. If you’re good with changes and improvements you’ll love meeting the next version of you on the other side of kids.
Things I’ve done against the grain as a entrepreneur and new parent..
- Big problems and opportunities often attract to small problems that get solved: the initial idea should be strategic, disciplined and calculated enough to be successful. This means small enough and able to win $ and be part of the big picture to grow into. Buy my time back with a small team that I pay for or get tinyseed type funding for. Maximize return, lower risk, build momentum, failure is not an option.
To pursue this in my personal life:
- Don’t buy things that I’m buying a ton of maintenance time with. Cars, houses, pets (pets usually becomes dads pets) should all be thought about a little more. Buying boring things or none at all saves your time. Let your friends have fun taking their Audis to the shop all the time. But boring so you can spend your time on interesting things.
- Eliminate commuting as much as possible. Actually most driving. But have a car. 2 hours a day driving is 10 a week, ~40 a month. Imagine getting 1 extra week per month back. Get a vehicle with room to get more stuff done near by. Batch. Save time wasting for a planned times of fun.
- Social Invitations- it can be hard to imagine but people do end up in their lives just over times. if they won’t come to you sometimes you don’t always have to go to them.
- Setup an above average remote work setup and build the space it into your home life. Get multiple ergonomic proper work setups, put gaming stuff in its own dedicated space. Two 2k monitors minimum if not 3. Slightly better screen resolution gives more working pixels which helps work much faster. Buy different keyboards including economic and cycle them through. Every little thing saves your energy a bit longer for work or family. Every desk should be a standing desk they are super inexpensive now. Our home has multiple spaces with multiple monitors that can plug in a mac or surface pro. If it’s the open room there’s a noise cancelling headset so people hear kids less if they were ever home sick. ready to go. Keeps everyone calm and cool. One workspace is the room between mine and kids. If someone’s up at night they can be super close by. It’s a sound proofed room so calls can even happen. All to say it takes seconds to plug in and get going instead of minutes. Adds up too. Buy extra power adapters.
- Improve mobility: Carry a big screen phone + iPad mini in a sling, or ideally a MacBook 12” in your baby bag. So much down time in vehicles or appointments can be easily recaptured. Again if you want it all your might have to be creative to get at it. My 12” MacBook is the best for unexpected waits or delays time. Wish I had it as a 2nd laptop when it just came out. Priceless.
- Location should create free time; we left the burbs and came back closer to downtown. Pick up times our kids now has an extra hour or two of flexibility for work (!), And most days we’re done and drive home in 8 minutes. Dinner is cooked served and done before rush hour is over. Most of my friends are usually still driving home. Doing this sooner in the day helps wind down for kids with quality time and energy easier, and there’s still energy to start back up on work. The alternative is I could go do the things I’m supposed to and get a house far in a suburb and kids are under pressure to sleep. Not always a good feeling not a possibility for everyone.
- food. Your energy is what you eat. Meal prep until you have enough meals in fridge and meals prepped in the freezer before cooking any nightly meals. Buy 2 instant pots to do rice and food at the same time or 2 meals at the same time. Did prep Sundays and Wednesdays if needed. Eat out less and feel sluggish less.
- ask for and take help and pay for it if you need: if you can live closer to your family, work and startup it can be life changing. One of my friends lives next to their parents. Siunds crazy but no vehicles to load or unload. Kids can be kicked out to grandparents for last minute night out. Kids are also standing outside to help grandma/pa to load and unload groceries. It doesn’t matter if something isn’t packed or forgotten. I understand this isn’t possible for many of us but I am happy for those who it works for.
- have everything you can delivered on subscription, spend the saved shopping time to adjust frequency of times.
Message for above poster / in general: Please, don’t tell or imply people they aren’t capable of something. Innovation can only happen in a mindset of possibility and the world isn’t a toilet for doubt worshippers wanting to externally validate their doubts by painting them on others.
Everything has opportunity cost. I try to remember what kind of example and memory I want to be for my kids and let it balance and inform my presence with them. My spouse reminds me the only ppl who will care long term that I’m dead is my kids and hopefully her lol. It gives some a focus to live and achieve for that can magnify and accelerates a lot.
I’m not telling you to have kids or not.
Be open to seeing the good and you will. If you want to see the bad and worries you’ll see it too. You might just discover most things are like lifting weights at the gym, you get stronger the more you do it and not from the sidelines.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Me too on falling at it.
The answers to do that is not in our current selves. Had to read a lot to learn ways.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would guess that in 2023's rankings he will no longer be the world's richest person. That's diminished success, although still an astounding level of it.
> That's diminished success That's diminished wealth. Wealth is factored into success, but is not the only unit of it. One can see diminished wealth at the same time as realizing gains elsewhere to no net change or even net gain.
The person I was responding to used wealth as the signal of success. But, unless I mispredict how things will go at Twitter over the next year, we are likely to see a major failure attributed to Elon.
Again, not that he won't be fantastically wealthy or successful. But he will probably take a nasty hit to both his wealth and his reputation because of Twitter.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#275I'm the founder of a venture-backed company in my 30s with two young kids under five. My co-founder is also in the same boat. A few points: 1. My wife works in a well paying field (nothing crazy, but comfortable), and we were financially stable enough to be able to live without my salary for a couple years. 2. We were very customer focused from day one, even before we incorporated. We signed up several customers (usi…
> 2. We were very customer focused from day one, even before we incorporated. We signed up several customers (using LOIs) with just a deck, before we wrote any software. How did you find these customers? Existing network or fanatical prospecting? Did you, your co-founder, or both close the deal?
We called them and asked if we could come visit in person and learn more about their business. I think you’ll be surprised how open people are to help - especially if you’re curious and let them talk about themselves.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 cha…
I’m a twin parent as well. Similar situation for a bit.
Becoming a parent during the pandemic or shortly before is no joke on its own. Wish there was a way to connect with them at scale lol. Maybe we can start up a discourse forum together.
Hang in there.
It was nice to see another parent here identify as a twin parent.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#277I'm the founder of a venture-backed company in my 30s with two young kids under five. My co-founder is also in the same boat. A few points: 1. My wife works in a well paying field (nothing crazy, but comfortable), and we were financially stable enough to be able to live without my salary for a couple years. 2. We were very customer focused from day one, even before we incorporated. We signed up several customers (usi…
Do you feel like that because you were once a professional, that it helps with the startup? As in, does it help you avoid useless nonsense that doesnt add to the bottom line? Also the time management piece is ultra important here I think. Its like Leetcode for time management. Theres leetcode easy which is just brute force working hours, then theres more efficient ways of working that become more obvious in a profess…
There are two aspects here:
- being efficient with your time: not wasting time on distractions, keeping meetings short etc.
- knowing what to spend time on: doing the activities that will actually drive to your goals rather than feel like you are.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#278Earlier 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…
Agreed. My impression is that most parents are already overworked at their day jobs, and then proceed to not even workout. Lots of people don't even have hobbies.
I’ve heard a recommendation to can get a job that pays a little less for way less effort and save the energy for what I really want.
A lot of people want to eat their cake and have it too though though.
Hopefully building a money printing startup is enough of a hobby :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yep absolutely, it's not for everyone. One question I'd ask of you is do you exercise regularly? The one thing I'd say that gave me the kind of energy to be "on" all the time is having a daily exercise/cardio routine and changing my eating habits. Not saying this works for everyone, but the effect that doing that had on my life was enormous.
I lift weights. Not too big on cardio, after many attempts at doing it (running, cycling, swimming). Lifting weights is the one thing that I finally found I can stick with. My diet is decent, mostly cook for myself and avoid highly processed foods and a lot of sugar. I am not strictly following any dietary program though.
I like the effect the weightlifting has on my body. It's nice that I have some definition and strength. But honestly cannot say it's had a big effect on my energy, motivation, outlook, etc.
I have tried enough things that other people say have made a tremendous difference in their life, from exercise to supplements to diet to reading philosophical books and they just... don't. I still feel like the same person. I don't think there are any secret tricks. People are who they are, fundamentally. Accepting that feels like giving up sometimes, but also brings some peace and freedom.
Re: Ask HN: How do you start a startup in your 30s when you have wife/kids/mortgage?
#280My very concrete feelings on this is that you probably don't. Asking folks how to do this is a bit like asking billionaires how to get rich. It's a fun story but it's overfitting. The individual narrative that made a billionaire is unlikely to be available for you. If you ask some millionaires they may be more likely to give you some useful advice around sound investment strategies, living within your means, and iden…
Thanks for writing this comment. It is actionable, excellent advice.