51–60 of 79 posts
someone on HN believes in God? No judgments, I just thought hacker and atheist were deeply intertwined. Perhaps I just picked up the wrong impression from Reddit.
I wouldn't rely on Reddit for too many things like that :-) I belong to the Christian + Hacker set intersection as well.
I've been doing side-projects while supporting a family for over 8 years now and I share a lot of your experiences. One of them led to being acquihired at a funded startup in the same area. It was a lot easier when there was one kid. Now with 3, like yourself, I find it's near impossible to get any kind of consistent focus. However, I know the hours are usually there, so that's my problem more than anything. However,…
Where do friends fit in? You seem to think that they are expendable since you don't see those Saturday soccer mornings as particularly important.
Support of your spouse is a must, no doubt about that. If your spouse see's all of your time spent on the computer as just that, "being on the computer" forget about having a startup the support isn't there. I'm fortunate enough to have a supportive spouse who understands I want to succeed not only for us, but because I'm tired of making other people money and have untamed entrepreneurial spirit.
Great article.
Get your spouse or SO's buy-in. The challenge here is does SO really understand a priori what [s]he is buying into.
I started a bootstrap startup on the side while married (but before kids) which I eventually sold. Not a huge exit, but we don't have to worry about money anymore.
Here's what I can tell a spouse:
- Prepare for your startup spouse (SS) to be mentally distracted pretty much all the time (even when they're just hanging out with the kids).
- Expect your SS to be really tired. They'll probably try to steal time for their startup by sacrificing sleep. They'll need understanding and kindness when they drag their ass out of bed on under 5 hrs of sleep.
- Expect your SS to be more excited about taking a stay-cation to code than traveling thousands of miles to go on vacation with the in-laws.
- Once your SS has customers or employees, you probably will not have a true "no devices" vacation for 7-10 years.
- Don't pressure SS to get a partner; if they don't already have a partner, recruiting one likely will NOT relieve their workload and allow them to focus on you more. Also, don't expect SS to see value in partnering, since the other person may or may not be good, and could very well create more stress and pressure (not to mention dilute your upside and introduce conflicts over vision/direction).
- Expect NOT to go bed at the same time as your SS.
- Expect NOT to watch the same TV shows (if any) as your SS; once the kids are down, SS will be coding.
- Expect your SS to be really bad remembering details about what's going on with the kids, house, pets, etc. Just remember, they aren't that way because they don't care, they just can't keep those details in their head. You'll need to be the czar of that stuff (or have VERY clear delineation of responsibility).
- Expect to need to plan date nights. I'd recommend buying a bottle of wine and not feeling bad about have a few glasses if that's what it takes to get SS to relax and forget about their project. In general, plan activities that don't let SS get bored-- otherwise you'll be hanging out with someone whose mind has drifted off in thought.
- If all goes well, SS may be able to quit their job, be master of his/her own destiny, and maybe even sell the business and walk away finally independent.
- Understand the upside will most likely be some payout between $1 and $10M which really won't change your lifestyle, but will make you very wealthy with time and options, which honestly, f---ing rocks.
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HN is a more mature environment. Probably the atheist:believer ratio is not all that different from Reddit... but your likelihood of being derided for your religious beliefs is a bit less. People here are more interested in talking about creating successful startups than in being "right" about their spiritual beliefs.
i'm an atheist myself, but gratified to see this guys beliefs being respected. its one thing i hate about reddit.
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As an atheist, I just don't see the point in picking a religious fight and insulting people for their religious beliefs in a thread about managing a personal life while also creating a startup.
Well said crusso, I'm not sure of the point of militant secularism either. How the hell does it have to do with startups? Bringing it back to discussion and finding relevance.. It's fine and wonderful to have different points of view to be able to discuss and learn from... but when one brings a "you are a _____ so i think everything you say is ____", it seems as presumptuous and blind as the blindness being pointed o…
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Reddit can give incorrect impressions on a great many things. Christian + hacker here as well.
It would be interesting to know how many Christian Hackers believe in Evolution.
I think you have in mind a very vocal minority of Christians. Most of us would not even consider taking every sentence in the Bible in a literal sense, if not for the debate with those minorities.
So, no need of technical savviness, advanced degrees or even high IQ. Millions of average Christians will share your intuition of "common sense".