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Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

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Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

#1
Hey HN,

I'm a software engineer by day, father to a newborn and burning with passion for my startup.

What advice can you give to help me manage all three?

Any recommendations for tools and services to automate typical early startup tasks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :)

Re: Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

#3
Here’s some suggestions from my recent experience: - hire night nurse a few times a week to catch up on sleep - hire nanny for day time - SNOO Bassinet was a game changer with the baby sleeping 10+ hours - wake up at 4:30am every day and work on startup BEFORE your day job. No one is awake to bother you. Pure focus.

Re: Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

#5
Realistically, the only one of the three people actually regret if they fail at is being a father - so I would honestly make sure you don't make excuses to sacrifice time on this.

Not saying you cant do the rest. Failing faster will be better than any productivity tips - it will reduce the period where your splitting between day-job & startup. As if the latter is successful you'll need to ditch the former pretty quickly.

Re: Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

#8
Realistically the only way I was able to do it was being laid off which forced me to jump in. I had a savings and a wife who believed in me (the savings has helped her belief hah) Family is a no-compromise #1 priority for me under any and all circumstances. I don’t think it is possible for most people to do all three. At Berkeley we had a saying “you can have 2/3 of either: good grades, a social life, and sleep”. This feels like a similar 2/3. Unless your job is easy enough where you can get it done in 1-2 hours and spend the rest on your startup.

Re: Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

#9
hello,

idk, this might not be the most "popular" opinion ... especially here on HN, but imho.

keep the stable job and start to appreciate your family - especially your newborn child.

time flies, and you never get back the time you are missing out with your growing child - ever!!

and this is much more rewarding than getting some stupid startup off the ground - and be serious to yourself: statistically you won't have a lot of success anyhow ;))

just my 0.02€

v.

Re: Ask HN: How to balance a full time job, family and founding a startup?

#10

Realistically the only way I was able to do it was being laid off which forced me to jump in. I had a savings and a wife who believed in me (the savings has helped her belief hah) Family is a no-compromise #1 priority for me under any and all circumstances. I don’t think it is possible for most people to do all three. At Berkeley we had a saying “you can have 2/3 of either: good grades, a social life, and sleep”. Thi…

How much time did you have before your savings would run out and how long did it take before your business was earning enough to cover basic living expenses?
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