Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 18 hours a day is likely a pretty big exaggeration Nope, not at all. Some days it was 20 (rarely). When you have to do the job of 5 engineers the only path is to be extremely well organized, driven and be willing to put in the time. > I'd actually say that's making my point > probably not too stressful tho I guess I didn't make it clear enough. I used farm work as one of the simplest and oldest types of work in his…
Martin, I really enjoy your posts & feel compelled to respond. I think the pushback is primarily on process, not results. Like, you do these 18 hour stints & get the millions & then land up, like you say, in the hospital. Or you could, you know, not put in 18 hours & not have millions & stay out of the hospital. There is that option too. In the midwest where I live, me & my neighbors aren't exactly phoning it in. We…
Oddly enough, the 18 hour days didn't send me to the hospital. I did have weird thoughts during that time, like "This is like being in prison".
I did what I had to do. Part of it is about ethics and responsibility. In this case, to my family.
My wife had just graduated as a doctor. We had enough money to set-up her practice free and clear and enough backup left over for her to take 6 to 10 months to get up to speed.
I also had this idea to start a technology company. This would burn through the cash we had --all of it-- and likely require more.
So, one nice Sunday morning, over coffee, we had a relaxed discussion about the options ahead. A third option was to buy a bunch of homes (this was over twenty years ago), rent them out and make money on appreciation, etc.
Well, my wife said she wanted to go work for various clinics and get experience before setting up her own practice (twenty years later, she is happy where she landed). She also thought I would not be happy being a landlord. I'm just not built that way. I have a drive to create and learn, not fix plumbing. She was right. So, she said, just go ahead and do the startup.
I stressed that a hardware startup would absolutely burn through 100% of our savings an likely require more. To her credit, she has always trusted me and my hairbrained ideas. So, off we went head-first into that adventure.
That was a "Failure is not an option" scenario. I could not fail her and my kids. We didn't have enough money to hire mechanical and software guys to take some of the load. So, I had to be everything. Electronics, embedded, FPGA, firmware, layout, mechanical, manufacturing, desktop software and more. Hence the 18 hour days.
That is not a way to live. I have only done that once in my life. Probably never again. Yet --and this is also something a lot of people do not understand-- the motivation was NEVER money or getting rich. Not even close. I can't remember ever thinking about that. Sure, I wanted to make money. It would be dumb not to. Yet, money can't motivate someone to work like that. No, there has to be passion to achieve something difficult and a sense of responsibility to others. That could be investors or your own family. In my case it was the latter.
I did what I had to do in order to ensure success.
The hospital visits came much later. Around 2008, when the economy collapsed, and the business I worked so hard to build to a nice company of twenty employees collapsed right in front of my eyes because the music stopped and there were no chairs to sit on. We had millions of dollars in orders cancelled. We had an acquisition offer in the multiple tens of millions of dollars on the table (from a company most would recognize) for technology I developed. And all of it, 100% came to a grinding halt when the economy took a shit. That's what put me in the hospital the first time. Just stress and dehydration after I decided to take a brake and go rowing.
That was a very dark period. The only think that kept me together was coming home to my kids and wife. I could have panic attacks driving back home and they would evaporate instantly when I opened the door.
Black swan event? Yeah, I'd say so. I guess. Don't know.
Two years later I ended-up in the hospital again after exhibiting at our last tradeshow before I had to shutdown the company. The hope of closing a nice deal at the show (one that would keep us alive) evaporated. I went to dinner with a friend. At the end of that I didn't feel good at all. I asked him to just drive me to the hospital. Again, it was just stress and dehydration.
As all of that unfolded, again, due to a sense of responsibility and not wanting to give-up, we took out a substantial second mortgage on our home to be able to pay our employees (people were losing their jobs right and left back then) and have a shot at keeping the company going. We had to live with that decision for years to come. These are some of the reasons for which, when I read some of the comments people post about business, I just don't react well. They are ignorant comments that come from a complete lack of understanding. Business and entrepreneurship are hard. Few can understand this without a front row seat and a thousand pounds of responsibility on their shoulders.
As tragic as that was, after taking a year to get my head back on straight I wrote a few educational apps for kids for iOS and dabbled in some consulting. Oddly enough, some of the technology I had developed for that business landed me a really nice contract in aerospace. I launched a product development/technology consulting business from there. A few years later, just before the pandemic, I decided to launch yet another startup to help develop innovative technologies for indoor farming.
I guess I just can't help myself. That said, yes, the perspective is very different. And yes, I am and have always been a family guy. Always first. No matter how busy I might be. In fact, they tell me they learn more from me than from school (well, it's California...you know).
I am still doing difficult work, both for my own efforts and consulting clients, which is what drives me, yet, there are self-imposed limits borne from experience. The 18 hour days are not even remotely part of my reality. That said, I know I have the mental toughness to be able to endure such a thing, should it ever be necessary for whatever reason.