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Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

benmilne.com

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Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#51
Life is now.

If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled.

If you‘re doing something to make a difference – or to make the world a better place – then if you feel like you‘re running out of time then you‘re probably doing it wrong. That sort of goals are rarely if ever such undertakings that are constrained by time. Paradoxically, life is short yet there‘s always plenty of time so as to not have to hurry things. If you work madly for a few years what is it that you think you‘ll win from it if you compare doing that thing you can‘t not do for decades? Or maybe you weren‘t doing a thing you can‘t not do in the first place?

Rush is a sign that you have grown an inflated sense of importance. Nothing is that important, not even the important things.

If you‘re building a company, you have all the time to grow the business. Some families have been doing that for centuries, many individuals for decades. If you have a really great idea, take the time to work on it. If you‘re lucky, someone else does the same thing and finishes faster than you which means you don‘t have to do it at all! You can just enjoy the benefits of the addition of widget X or feature Y in the pool of things tangible in our lives. Maybe the idea wasn‘t that unique after all. But some ideas are and thosee you can work on for years. For many things in life, building them slower makes them last longer. Even a good relationship or a family tree.

For these reasons, I consider it a better approach to weave the things you can‘t not do and your life together. This removes a divide: life goes on at its own pace and along comes your calling but they‘re not in conflict. There‘s no contrast between work and family, or business and private life because everything is scattered around in the timeline of your life in small pieces. There‘s always some work but there‘s always home and family too. Neither is more important than the other and none of the areas can continuously hog a big chunk of your focus.

Daddy must work now, daddy has to write an important email because those people need daddy‘s opinion.

I can‘t have the meeting today, I need to cook dinner and water the garden with my daughter.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#53

The startup thing has been both amazing and incredibly devastating. Haven't seen my folks in years. Spouse dumped me because I practically didn't exist outside of work. Absolutely no hobbies or traveling in years. No guarantee the company will be anything but a massive drop in my financial history. You're constantly running out of money, so you're cutting every unnecessary expense, and you're living on scraps for yea…

The price does not have to be so high..IF stuff is not working out, you can just quit and try something else. There is nothing heroic or romantic about living in poverty. Joining the workforce or running a so called lifestyle business that makes actual money is not a bad thing.

All this talk of sacrifice and being gods tells me you need to step outside your bubble. You are trying to start a company, not solve World hunger.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#54
post #40

This guy is the CEO. So, by definition, this is a management problem. Dwolla has some money now; they can hire people. This guy needs to learn how to build a staff and delegate. He's only done startups, and hasn't worked in a long-established company where they have this figured out. Some founders have trouble letting go of control. They want to do it all themselves. That doesn't scale.

Saying, "they can just hire people" is quite flippant. No matter how many people a CEO hires there is always more that they can do. Using a topic he discussed the f.ounders event... he cannot hire someone to go to it -- that event is exclusively for founders. By not attending he's missing out on a BD opportunity. Could he have hired someone to cover the BoFA or other meetings? Maybe? Maybe not -- would BoFA take the…

I do think that there's a number of things the CEO shouldn't be doing though. Who was it, Dan Kennedy or someone put it quite aptly "Your job as a CEO is to make sure money keeps coming. Not making sure the printer works or whether the office is clean or any number of things that don't relate to your main goal". Going to a f.ounders event might be part of that, or overhauling the sales funnel or making sure that the next version of the product just kicks ass. Cleaning your own office proably isn't.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#55
I wish I had the balls to write this post. Mine would certainly not be so honest and raw. It's also sad that it comes to this. I get home for dinner but work till midnight. I'm in town for birthdays but leave at 6am the next morning. I still talk to my very best friends but no one else. I hope to heaven that the startup never ruins my marriage but it's not impossible to see it could happen.

Maybe these "compromises" mean I will never quite get to that level - but regardless I'm not willing to do compromise them. At any expense.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#56
Perhaps there could be something in between a startup and a job as an employee.

Startups are rewarding because you are not simply an employee but also part owner and they are hard because you have to undertake a lot of extra work and responsibility and risk.

Maybe there could be a third way were you are part owner but undertake less risk and less responsibility and less work. Imagine a startup where instead of the typical 2/3 founders 3/15 employees you have a 15 employees who all share an equal amount of ownership and responsibility.

The point of such a startup would be to provide better working terms and better pay than one would get when working as an employee or contractor but at the same time lessen exposure to risk and responsibility.

I don't know how doable it is but I always thought that it was strange that most startups were trying to emulate the same corporate structure the, founders themselves probably wanted to avoid because it didn't suit them very well as employees.

Sorry for going of tangent but it's just random idea that crept into my head and wanted to share.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#57
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Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#58
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Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#59
post #10

I don't want to be a wet blanket, but when I read how hard he and others work, the first thought that comes to me is: "I'm not working even close to that level." In a way, it's a glimpse into the reality required to do Great Things. Followed by the painful self-awareness that you're nowhere close.

This is not the reality of what is required to do great things [1]. This is one path, but there are many others. There are lots of people who work 40-50 hours a week and have incredibly successful startups/companies/whatever. There are people who work 80 hours a week and their startup is a complete piece of garbage. Jamie Zawinski has a great great blog post about this [2], which I'll quote part of: > He's trying to…

> There are lots of people who work 40-50 hours a week and have incredibly successful startups/companies/whatever. There are people who work 80 hours a week and their startup is a complete piece of garbage.

There are lots of people who work 80 hours a week and their startup is garbage. But there are very few (if any at all) people who got their startup off the ground with 50 hours of work per week. Working long hours is necessary but not sufficient. (There are lots of people who claim it isn't necessary, but none of them actually had a successful startup)

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