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The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

37signals.com

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Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#11

Post by dm8 »

jmduke wrote: post #9
dm8 wrote: post #7

First of all, "lifestyle business" is a terrible name. I'd like to know who coined that term? To my main point - With risk of getting downvoted. Why not think bigger? Building business is hard. Be it local publishing house or web based product serving millions of customers all across the globe. It requires same amount of (to quote Churchill) "blood, toil, tears and sweat". Then why not to swing for fences? In smaller…

Thinking bigger requires working harder, not working longer.

I Agree. Working longer != Success. Its working harder as well as smarter.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#13

Post by randomdata »

I have read on here several times that many entrepreneurs want to squeeze their entire working lives into a few short years, banking on the big payout that will set them free.

37signals, on the other hand, was in business for a long time before Basecamp was even released to the public. It has been a slow road, relatively speaking.

I respect what 37signals has done. It is the way I would want to build my own business. However, have they really worked fewer hours to reach some arbitrarily high income threshold? I would suggest probably not. It has just been spread out over a longer period of time.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#15

Post by harshreality »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #6

Some people don't realize the implications of hours worked on effective wages. If you work more for the same income you are giving yourself a pay cut, and worse a free time cut. If you work less then you are giving yourself a raise, and increasing your free time as well, a double whammy. Most people have trouble thinking like this though. They lose themselves in their work, filling up their time with trivial and meni…

There are still many menial jobs that cannot be automated (not cost effectively). Encouraging people with menial jobs to seek higher effective wages increases everyone's cost of living.

Until robots can do all the menial work, and build themselves too, a lot of people are going to have shit jobs. I don't see any way around that.

Philosophically, is it better to have more people each doing X hours/yr of menial work, rather than fewer people doing X+n hours/yr of menial work?

In the spirit of the recent thread about EVE, it seems to me that the impulse which game makers depend on to keep people playing games, particularly MMOs, is similar to the impulse that keeps people doing menial jobs. Both involve long hours spent doing uninteresting work, and rare random rewards. People are conditioned to feel good about getting through tedious real work as long as they get occasional random high-value rewards (salary or praise or both).

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#16

Post by famousactress »

dm8 wrote: post #7

First of all, "lifestyle business" is a terrible name. I'd like to know who coined that term? To my main point - With risk of getting downvoted. Why not think bigger? Building business is hard. Be it local publishing house or web based product serving millions of customers all across the globe. It requires same amount of (to quote Churchill) "blood, toil, tears and sweat". Then why not to swing for fences? In smaller…

Seriously? There's loads of reasons why not, and while I agree that it requires similar amounts of blood/toil/tears/sweat I'd say there's a bunch of differences.

[Background: 12+ years as an early employee in fence-swinging tech startups, also started and ran/run a modestly successful wedding photography business with my wife]

Our wedding photography business is definitely a "lifestyle business" by the usual HN definition. What a silly term and a silly set of ideas. For one thing, it's profitable. That makes is more profitable than the vast majority of startups. It gets old spending other people's money and I have to say that one of the things I found most informative and invigorating about the photo business was that it really re-reminded me the value of profit and the fundamental idea of being in business in the first place.

[It's also craaazy educational to be any kind of founder. Honestly, standing up the photography business might be the single most valuable thing I've done in my tech career]

Beyond that, our business (really my wife's business at this point.. I'm so busy with another startup that she does everything nowadays) makes a couple of dozen couples incredibly happy every year. I can't tell you how satisfying we find this. My wife shoots their weddings, becomes their friend, shoots photos of their children's first years.. It's a really incredible gift. The assumption that scaling up/out to serve a larger market would be such an obviously better idea is short-sighted and frankly kind of sad.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that there are loads of people swinging for the fences and tackling huge problems that have huge markets. So many awesome things come out of that! But don't fall into the trap that ultimately leads to thinking that it's the only way to go.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#17

Post by phillmv »

[deleted] wrote: post #14

[deleted]

The problem is you don't really end up knowing what's valuable if you don't indulge in that variety.

A startup will consume your life, and it doesn't really leave any room for trying new things. There is more to life than work, even if you enjoy your work. An optimal time investment strategy leaves room for serendipity.

I have clients at large companies who respond to email at ungodly hours. What for? It's not the equity.

The problem is that we tend to over glorify the work-your-ass-off approach.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#18

Post by connorlee »

All work and no play makes Sally a dull boy. Or whatever. But seriously: don't over-work yourself. I mean if you really want to, go for it, but the quality of your work will decline with you. Meet some new people, go hiking, go outside, eat better, live better, work better, and your work will look better with you.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#19

Post by Cushman »

> It’s been a long time since there was a direct correlation with the number of hours you work and the success you enjoy. It’s an antiquated notion from the days of manual labour that has no bearing on the world today.

It has never been true. Success has always been primarily correlated with the circumstances of your birth. This is not an antiquated notion so much as a fabrication invented to trick the less fortunate into putting up with it.

In that sense, it is as relevant today as it has ever been.

Re: The lifestyle business bullshit (2009)

#20

Post by gavanwoolery »

Yes, you can work very little and be very successful if you play your cards right. And there is nothing wrong with that, certainly. But hard problems are hard. There are a lot of easy problems I could work on, and probably get funding and then flip the hypothetical company for a quick profit, but I am more interested in the risky, hard problems that most people wisely would not invest in. If you look at the names that history remembers, they all worked their asses off to achieve something great.
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