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(Of course in the real world there are lots of deviations from this, but this is the goal schedule.)
Simply put. I need a vacation but can't take one.
of course you can take a vacation, you just don't want to. your ego is bound up in a workaholic identity and you've lost grip on reality.
every small business owner or co-founder i've ever known takes at least a week off every year and most government holidays, because it's the responsible thing to do when you work with other humans.
I always wanted independence. I never wanted employees. SaaS is a wonderful business model for that. It took 10 years and a dozen ideas to find 2 businesses I could run on my own, be low-touch enough that I'd not have to be hands-on with every customer, and pay enough to be a viable alternative to employment. Most of my web app ideas didn't go anywhere, nothing happened overnight, but eventually I had the right mix of learned skills, experience, and luck to do something right.
I spent 10 years living like a broke college student. I was a broke college student in the beginning, but I didn't move past the one-bedroom apartments and cheap home cooked dinners until I had some solid business and a good runway in the bank. I was never a risk taker.
Now I pay myself a $30K/month salary. I saved enough to buy a house, rather than mortgage a house. Met an awesome girl and moved her, and her pets, in with me. She's always hated the work she originally trained for, and has gone back to school for a career she's passionate about -- working with large animals. I've been working every other day, a few hours at a time, recently. I work more in the summers than the winters, just because I prefer working outside in my sunroom with the fresh air, but it's not heated. We spend most of our time together, taking day trips, eating out, visiting friends, and don't worry much about money.
I never minded the stress prior to this last year, generally if I get burned out I take a vacation and I'm good after 10 days on the beach. But, this last year has been very stressful and it has taken a full year to find a solution to that. Stress management is key to maintaining a good lifestyle, I exercise a ton, and working to add meditation to my daily habits (you need both).
I love the flexible time, if I need to take a day off I take it off, and I put it back in somewhere else. As the company has grown in size it is a little more rigid in structure, I've got meetings on Monday/Tuesday that I usually can't skip. But usually that leaves Wed/Thur/Fri free for project work and no meetings.
I love to travel and this lifestyle. Since the entire company is remote it doesn't matter where I am. I traveled for all of 2012 and 2013, I spent a year in Australia, 6 months in europe/UK, and 6 months in South America. I am typing this from Nice France where my wife and I will be for a month, and then Croatia for a few months. I use AirBNB to find places to stay and it has worked out brilliantly so far.
I go to 3 to 4 conferences a year, sometimes more, I really enjoy the industry I am in and have a fair number of friends through that network + work meetups. Given the nomadic nature of my life for the last 5 years, and the higher hours I don't have a ton of close close friends. Just a few from college and it is hard to maintain those friendships when we are all different places in the world. I am looking forward to being a bit more settled as I've gotten older :).
The hardest part? It is hard to shut down, it is a constant battle to make sure my life has balance, both for hobbies, and for my wife/family. I would imagine that once kids are added to the mix that will really adjust some of my priorities and time :)
All in all, I love it. I am living off what I made with my last startup and work fulltime on my new startup. Most days I jump out of the bed and start working 7am in the morning. And often I am still working at midnight. The one thing that bugs me: I decided to not travel until my current venture is making 5 figures per month. I miss traveling. I am looking forward to the time when money is pouring in again and I can…
How long (from the start) do you think it will take until you do 5 figures per month?
Went full time 3/14 after getting into another accelerator. Since then work about 10+ hrs 6-7 days a week, sometimes taking the occasional weekend off. Started charging 5/14 and have been profitable since day 1. Pay myself and cofounder a nominal salary (~2k/m). By early '15 have grossed over 100k and still profitable.
We have about 5 consistent contractors that we pay for different parts of the business and work harder than ever managing time and people. I don't code as much as I like to anymore (still ~40 hrs per week), but I work just as hard. Only ever have more things to do, never less.
What makes it hard is I am a single parent; fortunately he's old enough that he can get to and from school on his own. But it's tremendously tough to give him the time he needs. Luckily if I manage that it gives me the "off time" I need too. Which is great since I've abandoned, for a time, all the other stuff I used to like to do (camping, playing tennis, reading, biking, writing code for fun...). I sit with him while he's doing homework and can answer mail and do other interruptible tasks and still talk to him about his homework, help him write something etc.
I figure there are another couple of years in this nozzle and then the pressure will drop. But at the same time: I wake up in the morning and that's when I want to read HN or my RSS feed simply because the rest of the time I'm having waay too much fun working.
5:30am - 6:30am: wake up, coffee, meditate 6:30am - 7:30am: customer support from overnight 7:30am - 9:30am: breakast with family, kids to school 10:00am - 4:30pm: work, office, lunch 4:45pm - 5:30pm: beer with coworing space coworkers 6:00pm - 10:00pm: Dinner with Family with support sprinkled in throughout the night. Yoga class sometimes. 10:00pm - 5:30am: Sleep (Of course in the real world there are lots of deviat…
On any given day, it's difficult to manage everything. When you have customer service, outreach, growth, and development to do, something gets dropped. There's never quite enough time.
Then there's the difficulty in taking time off. When you try to make time for other parts of your life, you're always looking at the things that you didn't get to and thinking about when you're going to do them. I don't go to as many happy hours as I used to; I certainly don't organize them. I'm not playing volleyball right now. I try to workout, but it's hard to tear yourself away from the computer when it'll just take another hour to finish your current task. It affects your conversations, your relationships, your health, everything. It is consuming.
On any given weekday, I work at least 10 hours. Generally it's about 12-14. I make sure to take a night or two off to spend time with my fiancee. On the weekend, I try to fit in time with her as well but I'll still get in at least 4 hours each day, sometimes more like 8.
I get stressed about money a lot. We're bootstrapped so not everyone is in this situations. In any case, everything is framed in terms of how many months we have left. That 12 dollar sandwich? That's a couple days of server time. An expensive car repair? That's a whole month of our runway.
And yet, it's the most rewarding thing you can ever do. You get to build something from nothing. People use it. They talk to you about it. You are making the decisions. And it isn't going to last forever. It'll last for a long time, but it'll get better. But most importantly, I wake up every morning without an alarm and am eager to get back to work.
Mostly free time. Probably not much different than most retirees with money in the bank. I always wanted independence. I never wanted employees. SaaS is a wonderful business model for that. It took 10 years and a dozen ideas to find 2 businesses I could run on my own, be low-touch enough that I'd not have to be hands-on with every customer, and pay enough to be a viable alternative to employment. Most of my web app i…