Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Startup is not your job

igzebedze.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 38 posts

Re: Startup is not your job

#2

Post by lmm »

Agreed except for holidays. If you don't have a clear sharp line between work and life day-to-day, then you need those more than ever.

Re: Startup is not your job

#3

Post by entropyneur »

I don't understand why the idea that you should try and gain a competitive advantage by stretching yourself beyond limits is so popular in the startup community. Not resting properly (be it vacation or daily sleep) hurts your productivity and decision making ability badly. So overworking is simply not a rational thing to do.

Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon. And all this romanticizing does a huge disservice to the people who buy the hype and end up burned out.

Re: Startup is not your job

#4

Post by andraz »

entropyneur wrote: post #3

I don't understand why the idea that you should try and gain a competitive advantage by stretching yourself beyond limits is so popular in the startup community. Not resting properly (be it vacation or daily sleep) hurts your productivity and decision making ability badly. So overworking is simply not a rational thing to do. Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon. And all this romanticizing does a hu…

Being constantly overworked is not sustainable.

However start-up life does include periods of overwork to get things done. Things that you could put off for a couple of days if you had a regular job.

Re: Startup is not your job

#5

Post by j45 »

entropyneur wrote: post #3

I don't understand why the idea that you should try and gain a competitive advantage by stretching yourself beyond limits is so popular in the startup community. Not resting properly (be it vacation or daily sleep) hurts your productivity and decision making ability badly. So overworking is simply not a rational thing to do. Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon. And all this romanticizing does a hu…

Most folks this way is sold to haven't lived much and the marketing machine reaches them.

There's no question its more work than anyone expects. I just believe there's a better way than perpetually stumbling a startup

Re: Startup is not your job

#8

Post by rimantas »

andraz wrote: post #4
entropyneur wrote: post #3

I don't understand why the idea that you should try and gain a competitive advantage by stretching yourself beyond limits is so popular in the startup community. Not resting properly (be it vacation or daily sleep) hurts your productivity and decision making ability badly. So overworking is simply not a rational thing to do. Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon. And all this romanticizing does a hu…

Being constantly overworked is not sustainable. However start-up life does include periods of overwork to get things done. Things that you could put off for a couple of days if you had a regular job.

And what exactly would change in those couple of days?

Re: Startup is not your job

#9

Post by alexfoo »

> You don’t need time off. If you think you do, you’re in a Job and should stop thinking it’s a startup, because it will fail.

Strongly disagree. Start-ups fail for lots of reasons; burn-out being one of them.

Start-ups are just high risk/reward jobs without many of the guarantees or safety nets that the traditional employer/employee relationship can provide.

If you don't have your work life balance sorted out, then something will fail; be it your start-up, your relationships/marriage/family, or both.

If you get to the point of burn out and it's a choice of either burn-out completely or - by taking a holiday - a failed start-up then you can't blame the holiday, I'd be looking at the original idea and/or the execution.

Post reply on HN