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Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
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Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#2I know sitting in the apartment coding all day, eating cookies while watching the Daily Show sounds like a dream moment. But it was one of the first lessons I learned when I entered college: it doesn't work for me.
I like to take each morning as a new work day--shower, hit the library, make calls, hit a class or two, continue work on start-up.
I'm assuming YComb doesn't provide office space. So I'm curious if there have been YC companies that came together to get some space to create a collective work environment away from their apartment?
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#3I've found that too. Sometimes it's hard to get into the flow while 'working from home.' An office that is seperated somehow can really make it easier to work.
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#4I get where you're coming from. I just recently graduated and moved into an apartment complex with fewer college kids which definitely helped as things are quieter. I think whats ideal is to work out of a small house where you can live just with your co-founders. But the issue is cost.. Renting a house is usually considerably more which will increase your burn rate.
I think it is pretty key to work out of the same place where you live though. Separation of living and work is not ideal for a startup, and PG even talks about this some. Your life needs to BE your work; They need to coexist.
As far as distractions go, I think this is another reason why living with a co-founder is so important in the early stages. Its kinda like a checks and balances. You both keep each other in check and on track.
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#5I can't work effectively from home. To many distractions to devote large blocks of time. I'm up in Seattle so I ended up renting out some industrial space from ActivSpace (http://www.activspace.com/) for $250 a month. It's not a large space but it serves my needs nicely. Two desks, couch, fridge, white boards, and we can paint on the walls if we get bored.
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#6An apartment works well if your co-founders are around (as roommates, or in the living room with a big table)
But it's important to have the right kind of crowd around. If you are hard at work and all your rommie does is play XBox all day (no fingers at you pranav!) then it gets crazy.
So definitely depends on the roommate situation.
I'm doing this right now ... have a 1 bedroom and getting work done on the dining table! And it works great!
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#7At such an early stage, I think an apartment works quite well. My cofounder and I share an apartment (with a couple other friends) and things get done. Integrate your startup with your life because the startup is your life if you're serious. But it really depends on you as a person. If it's just that you're somebody that needs to be supervised/forced in a specific environment to be productive, then you might reevaluate your ambitions in starting a company.
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#8I know I found (during my Summer of Code work last year) that I had to get out of the house to get any real work done. It's well-known advice to have a separate "work" area of the house if you want to succeed at working from home, and I'd have done that if I had a spare room.
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#9At such an early stage, I think an apartment works quite well. My cofounder and I share an apartment (with a couple other friends) and things get done. Integrate your startup with your life because the startup is your life if you're serious. But it really depends on you as a person. If it's just that you're somebody that needs to be supervised/forced in a specific environment to be productive, then you might reevalua…
I don't see it as black and white. Everyone has their conditions under which they work at their optimal level.
Identifying those conditions and finding a way to make it work I think is more important than forcing yourself to work under difficult conditions SIMPLY because you are a start-up. There is a huge misconception that just because you are a start-up you HAVE to make your life difficult. It already will be difficult; if you can find ways to make it easier you absolutely should!
Re: Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work?
#10I get where you're coming from. I just recently graduated and moved into an apartment complex with fewer college kids which definitely helped as things are quieter. I think whats ideal is to work out of a small house where you can live just with your co-founders. But the issue is cost.. Renting a house is usually considerably more which will increase your burn rate. I think it is pretty key to work out of the same pl…
I can see pg's point about making startup your life. But I think you can still have startup as your life even while you work out of your office until 11pm, come to the apt, grab some food over some TV and work few more hours before hitting bed.
That's how it is for me anyway and it has been more productive than staying in apartment all day.
Again this is something that must vary from person to person. So I'm not necessarily out to do a philosophical debate about whether one is better than the other.