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Startup is not your job

igzebedze.com

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Re: Startup is not your job

#21

Post by jasonkester »

igzebedze wrote: post #19
timonv wrote: post #17

So I'm curious, what would you define a job? True, running a startup requires you to make some concessions with your private time. But when you have what you describe as a job, assuming there is no need to excel (i.e., prioritising, pushing), seems a bit judging. Aiming to be good at what you do, doesn't that hold for anything? So with that argument turned around again on startups, if you need time off, vacations, pr…

great question, thanks. i call a 'job' something that has a stable job description, clear career path and predictable roadmap. vacation becomes just another item on the calendar then, which is perfectly fine. you can and should still excel in those conditions, but the project won't be jeopardized or stalled if you take time off. and when you come back, chances are that the specs of your project didn't shift yet. ther…

I've never been able to even book a plane ticket more than a week in advance, because plans always changed.

Fix that if you can.

From your comments on this thread, I get the sense that you've let your business get out of control a bit. You think that it's all normal and part of the deal because it's all you know. But lots of people here are trying to tell you it's not.

If you can't mold the business you created yourself to fit the pattern you want, that's a big red flag. Now, it's likely that the pattern you want actually is to be occupied 24/7 and pour your whole life into your thing, in which case you've succeeded.

But know that it doesn't need to be that way. It's entirely your choice.

Re: Startup is not your job

#22

Post by mindcrime »

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…

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.

Eh... I don't know. I mean, yeah, I totally agree with the sentiment that "Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon." But, even so, part of the issue is the old saw that (paraphrased) says "an entrepreneur is someone who sets out to change something about the world when he doesn't control the resources necessary to do so."

If you buy that definition then doing a startup is trying to do the (nearly) impossible. Given that, you look at the simply ridiculous amount of work in front of you, and the resources you have available, and you don't have much choice but to do as much as you can with the one resource you do control: yourself.

I guess there is some romanticizing involved, but doing a startup is hard and I don't see any way around that. It takes a lot out of you, and I believe you do have to sacrifice a little (maybe a lot) at least in the early days, until you get some traction and can start attracting more resources to your initiative.

Maybe, if you're a natural born salesperson and can attract more resources without traction, it's a different story. Or maybe I'm just one of the people who has bought the marketing hype.

I probably watched The Social Network one time too many. :-) Or maybe, in my case, it's just because I'm getting older and feel like I'm running out of time to do something big.

Re: Startup is not your job

#23

Post by Juuumanji »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

This is another article that makes a bunch of assumptions about its precise definition of a "Startup", then defines those definitions, then restates them as its conclusion. But it doesn't mean you need to fit any of those definitions to be a Startup. Except in the mind of the author. I run a successful little software startup that has as its first and primary goal: "Maximize Jason's vacation time". Every decision I m…

Well said. I don't understand why people shy away from this mindset. There is nothing wrong with running something successful and living a full life.

Re: Startup is not your job

#24

Post by eggspurt »

Juuumanji wrote: post #23
jasonkester wrote: post #20

This is another article that makes a bunch of assumptions about its precise definition of a "Startup", then defines those definitions, then restates them as its conclusion. But it doesn't mean you need to fit any of those definitions to be a Startup. Except in the mind of the author. I run a successful little software startup that has as its first and primary goal: "Maximize Jason's vacation time". Every decision I m…

Well said. I don't understand why people shy away from this mindset. There is nothing wrong with running something successful and living a full life.

There's a difference between a "startup" and a "lifestyle business".

Re: Startup is not your job

#25

Post by matwood »

rimantas wrote: post #8
andraz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A lot, and those things stack up over time. If I finish something today it frees up my mind to think about some other, possibly larger problem tomorrow. Do this enough times and it can be the difference between success and failure. I know people like to think in big black swan moments, but most of life is not like that. Life is about making lots of little decisions that add up over time. The speech from Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday talks about fighting for each inch on the football field and really how it is no different than life itself. Over time those inches add up.

Re: Startup is not your job

#26

Post by unreal37 »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

This is another article that makes a bunch of assumptions about its precise definition of a "Startup", then defines those definitions, then restates them as its conclusion. But it doesn't mean you need to fit any of those definitions to be a Startup. Except in the mind of the author. I run a successful little software startup that has as its first and primary goal: "Maximize Jason's vacation time". Every decision I m…

The article is based on the (huge) assumption that you have an internal burning desire to change the world, and running a startup business is just the most efficient method to do that.

That doesn't apply to most small businesses, even new ones.

Say you want to disrupt credit card payments. Do you need to work on that 20 hours a day, 7 days a week? Or can credit cards be disrupted 8-5 M-F? Seems either is possible.

Re: Startup is not your job

#27

Post by AznHisoka »

igzebedze wrote: post #13
JSadowski wrote: post #7

Also, could we stop pretending that every startup founder is in it to "change the world"?

startups make money by making people behave differently - paying them instead of someone else. that's changing the world. let's stop pretending there is more to it than that, because it's hard enough.

I step on ants and consume bacteria everytime I eat. So I change the world as well.

Re: Startup is not your job

#28

Post by entropyneur »

mindcrime wrote: post #22
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…

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. Eh... I don't know. I mean, yeah, I totally agree with the sentiment that "Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon." But, even so, part of the issue is the old saw that (paraphrased) says "an entrepreneur is someone who sets out to change some…

I completely agree that most startup founders are going to be making sacrifices and using all the resources available. If you are expecting anything to come out of your startup you better be really committed to it. I'm against that school of thought on a totally different basis.

My issue with it is that it views starting a startup as a kind of gamble. Every sleepless night, weekend at the office and skipped vacation is absolutely guaranteed to come back and bite you in the ass after a certain time. If you are into gambling, you might bet on "hitting a home run" (whatever that means) before that happens. But you might as well try your chances in Vegas. In reality behind every overnight success is skill and years of dedicated work. And there's no way you are going to stay in overdrive for years without wrecking yourself and your startup.

I'm speaking from personal experience btw. I used to subscribe to that ideology and I still haven't fully recovered years later.

Re: Startup is not your job

#29

Post by ayers »

eggspurt wrote: post #24
Juuumanji wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I don't understand why people shy away from this mindset. There is nothing wrong with running something successful and living a full life.

There's a difference between a "startup" and a "lifestyle business".

I would disagree with that, they are not mutually exclusive. Some people create a "startup" to provide them with a "lifestyle business".

Re: Startup is not your job

#30

Post by mindcrime »

entropyneur wrote: post #28
mindcrime wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Eh... I don't know. I mean, yeah, I totally agree with the sentiment that "Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon." But, even so, part of the issue is the old saw that (paraphrased) says "an entrepreneur is someone who sets out to change some…

I completely agree that most startup founders are going to be making sacrifices and using all the resources available. If you are expecting anything to come out of your startup you better be really committed to it. I'm against that school of thought on a totally different basis. My issue with it is that it views starting a startup as a kind of gamble. Every sleepless night, weekend at the office and skipped vacation…

But in reality behind every overnight success is skill and years of dedicated work. And there's no way you are going to stay in overdrive for years without wrecking yourself and your startup.

Yeah, you definitely can't sprint the entire marathon. I won't argue that. But I think there are moments when you choose to sprint for a while, to achieve certain goals. And even the non "flat out sprint" moments are a hard slog.

The thing that I don't do well, is allowing myself to take time off. I can't escape the sense of feeling guilty when I do... if I go out to watch a movie or go out drinking or whatever, I always find myself thinking "I could be (writing code|doing market research|writing a whitepaper|etc.)" the whole time. So I don't wind up taking much time off. Whether I'll look back on this whole experience as being a net negative, or a net positive, remains TBD.

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