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How to start a company with no free time

medium.com

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Re: How to start a company with no free time

#31

Post by frandroid »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19
drited wrote: post #6

For those with babies on the way like the author and reading material to get through for business, I found that a text to speech app like @voice with a good sounding voice like the AT&T voices, plus a Bluetooth earpiece helps a lot. Baby needs a bottle? Earpiece on, start listening. Baby needs a walk in the buggy? Same. Baby wakes in the middle of the night and needs to be in your arms for a while to get back to slee…

When my oldest was a baby I used to read the C++ annotated reference to him to send him to sleep.

Did your oldest end up becoming a C++ dev? 8)

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#32

Post by alexbeloi »

civilian wrote: post #5

I have a related question for the author or anyone: How do you keep your energy up to code in the evenings on your own project, after a full day of coding at the office?

Sounds like you might be always prioritizing your office work over your own projects. If you haven't already, you might want to try this, categorize your tasks according to this chart:

https://olivergearing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Importa...

Your side project tasks probably mostly fall into the Q2 box, unless you're getting ready to launch or something then Q1, and your work projects will be spread all around.

Spend your office time according to the 'strategy' for each box (mostly Q1, some Q2), don't stay late at the office to work on some Q3 nonsense, don't work weekends on office related things.

Go home as early as possible, show up to work as late as possible. Use the extra hour in the morning/evening to get knock off a task on your side-project. Ask to work from home 1 or more days out of the week to cut out commuting time.

tl,dr; spend less time on office work and more time on personal work

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#33

Post by shawn-furyan »

ggregoire wrote: post #24

I'm surprised by the points 1 and 3. I started a company 2 months ago as solo founder and I work everyday on the product (a SaaS for small/mid companies). I really have no free time to do marketing yet or promote my idea. I just focus on having a MVP. 1. "Decline invitations from VCs to drink a coffee" I've never received any attention from a VC, like probably most founders when they started their first company. It s…

Heh... I'll say that these points are not surprising to me. The title (as well as the, urm, Medium) strongly suggested a Silicon Valley bubble point of view. I didn't read the article, and instead came to the comments to see if my initial expectations were wrong (in which case I may have decided to read it). It seems my expectations were in the ballpark.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#35

Post by tonyedgecombe »

frandroid wrote: post #31
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my oldest was a baby I used to read the C++ annotated reference to him to send him to sleep.

Did your oldest end up becoming a C++ dev? 8)

No, bit he did study CS at Cambridge.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#36

Post by amorphid »

ggregoire wrote: post #24

I'm surprised by the points 1 and 3. I started a company 2 months ago as solo founder and I work everyday on the product (a SaaS for small/mid companies). I really have no free time to do marketing yet or promote my idea. I just focus on having a MVP. 1. "Decline invitations from VCs to drink a coffee" I've never received any attention from a VC, like probably most founders when they started their first company. It s…

>> Decline invitations from VCs to drink a coffee

More generally I read this as... What are my priorities? 100% focus on building an MVP with resources I have now. Someone with resources I may need later wants to chat now. Does that fit into my priorities? No. Politely decline, offering to keep them updated as my priorities start to consider the need for external resources.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#39

Post by marktangotango »

drieddust wrote: post #20
lubujackson wrote: post #12

After having a baby I struggled to switch from marathon coding sessions to trying to punch out code in hour, half hour or even 10 minute increments. The best advice is what she said - plan and divide tasks ruthlessly. There's always bits of time to work on your task list on your phone or flesh out a bit of meta-code in your to-do list, and now I'm able to do the brunt of the "thinking" work in the shower or wherever,…

> There's always bits of time to work on your task list on your phone or flesh out a bit of meta-code in your to-do list, and now I'm able to do the brunt of the "thinking" work in the shower or I want to move to this model of working but nothing seems to stick. Do you follow any specific routines or use tools to manage yourself? I have tried a lot of tools but nothing sticks.

I did this, what worked for me was leaving myself a note of where I left off and exactly what to do next at the top of my task list; "validate input x on form y" for example. Just a simple 'trick' that really worked, for me at least.

Re: How to start a company with no free time

#40

Post by magic_beans »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #23
bytelayer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you business end up taking off?

That is not really related to this thread since this is about how to "start a company with no free time" (hint: there is no such thing as "no free time"), but to answer your question, I did reach my goal and went above and beyond.

How was your health after such little sleep? Did you ever take breaks?
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