The Life of a Startup Founder’s Significant Other | Hacker News Reader

The Life of a Startup Founder’s Significant Other

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133 pointsssclafani32 comments

I'm a musician. I'm also a freelance developer. I did the startup thing, and it's not for me. Right now I've been programming for about 6 months of the year and spending the rest of the time on music.

Starting a music project, be it a band or whatever, does have some similarities to a startup. You need a good product, you need to market it, promote it, you've got to start lean, you need to keep at it all the time, etc, etc.

My lady gives me a lot of support. She's fine with practicing 3 nights a week, being in the recording studio, sitting on my laptop working on demos or editing recordings.

I spend a lot of time working on music! A good 50-60 hours a week, for sure.

...but...

I always seem to have time for her, too. Even when I've got a programming contract.

You can always make time for the people and things that you love. If you're not making time for them, you don't love them. It really is that simple.

Honestly, do you really need to be spending 15 hours a day working on some silly little company? Your daily photo company or whatever it is? That's going to be your pride and joy when you're all alone with a pile of cash?

I mean, this is Hacker News. I know what you're motivations are here. They're not art. They don't seem to be love either.

I guess that's why I got out of the game.

I want love to rule my life, and not the other way around.

It's almost a tradition now that startup = sweatshop. That's the problem -- I have zero tolerance for sweatshops, even though I have nothing against startups.

Too many people equate hours with value; reality is that if you're working burnout hours, you're writing bugs (not code) and creating more work for yourself rather than knocking things off of your to do list.

There are going to be times when you'll work extra hours if you care about what you're doing, so that's a given. But if you get to a point where you're consistently working ridiculous hours, your SO should drag you away from the computer, slap you silly, and tell you to stop and think about what you're doing, because you're obviously doing it wrong.

I've worked for several startups... not once have I encountered a situation where working long hours helped to get the job done, but I have frequently experienced the opposite. In every sweatshop project I've been in, whether a startup or not, I dreaded the first checkout, because invariably I'd spend a large chunk of my day fixing a lot of broken code.

Wise wise words here: "But if you get to a point where you're consistently working ridiculous hours, your SO should drag you away from the computer, slap you silly, and tell you to stop and think about what you're doing, because you're obviously doing it wrong."

I might have had some doubts if I'd seen even one exception, but I haven't. I've never found a long-hours buffoon get as much as I have, and that's in spite of the fact that I wasted so much of my time fixing the idiocy they introduced into the code.

Logically, it follows that if you have people working for you who are putting in crazy hours, you should fire them so that they stop preventing your good people from getting their jobs done.

I've spent the past two years ducking it out with my Masters course. Once finished I'm going to throw myself into getting my startup up and running.

Couldn't imagine doing it without my significant other by my side supporting me every step of the way. She's not involved in IT whatsoever, she is a surgeon however.

Neither of us know each others profession other than the fact that it's pretty hard to be good at either one. It gives us the excuse to talk about things that matter to both of us that are not work related.

Make sure you make time for each other, jobs come and go, business fail and succeed, but you want someone there with you to enjoy your success. It's not worth it otherwise.

That's one hell of a profession she has for you both to fall back on just in case the startup doesn't work out.

At least she can secretly take my organs and sell them in case the worst comes to pass.

About 2.5 years ago, my boyfriend and I had an idea and wanted to do a startup. I had zero coding experience, but I really, really wanted to be involved in a startup. So I taught myself how to code and then built the entire front end of the project.

That project failed, but soon later we founded a new startup that is on its way to ramen profitability. (We learned A LOT from the first experience). We both code essentially equal amounts, and share all the stress, while of course supporting each other at the same time. Neither of us has ever been happier doing anything.

I only wish I could find a woman like this. Tell your BF hes a lucky man!

Ryan, you sound like you're a lucky, lucky man.

Indeed I am.

Couldn't ask for anyone more supportive and understanding through all of this. Especially with having to deal with 2,500 miles between us right now.

My wife is also the non-coding co-founder of our startup. If you're totally stormed by the founder bug, it's actually great to live with your co-founder. We can talk about conversion rates in the bed between snoozes or on invitation improvements while washing kid's hair.

Very interesting piece. At least half of the startups in the 2010 batch had wives or girlfriends, and the toll that it takes on them was not really documented. I'd love to hear more stories like this.

Also, many articles on startups assume the founders have no other responsibilities. Reality is a bit different. So yes, it would be great to hear more of these stories.

I guess there are only two scenarios. They either dump you or fully support you.

Or, alternatively, we figure out that startups as all-consuming obsessions which require the sacrifice of everything we hold dear are not the whole of the solution space.

I know, I know, my salaryman colleagues thought it was heresy, too.

I wish my startup founder boyfriend would partake in that heresy. It's pretty soul destroying to always be somebody's second priority, especially when they're your first one.

If his start-up is his first priority now, it probably always will be, even on the off chance that it's successful.

I think it's impossible that all of your social interactions will stay unaffected.

Or somewhere in between.

An absolutely refreshing read first thing Monday morning..

A welcome change from logical hair-splitting arguments (as much as I love them) into something that matters most - emotional support from a loved one.

I echo the "Ryan, you're very lucky" sentiment, for sure.

I'm also lucky enough to have a phenomenal, supportive girlfriend. I live with her, so I get to see her fairly often, but at the same time, we usually both leave the house in the morning at the same time, I'll come home at 8, and then head to the coffee shop till 12, so we don't get to spend all that much time together. Luckily, she's still in school, so that helps. I generally make up for it by ensuring to spend some time with her on the weekends.

We had a year and a half-ish in before the startup stuff started, so we'd already had a fairly solid foundation in place to build off of. Also, (even though I try not to talk about this online, but it's relevant, I'll make an exception because I like you, HN) the fact that we have an open relationship helps take a little load off of the responsibilities as well.

The other big factor with women and startups is finding a girl that's okay with splitting the check, going bike riding rather than going to the movies, playing board games rather than going out to dinner. When you're living on subsistence wages, it's quite hard to do the whole "the man pays for everything" bit. It should be impossible. I hate to say that it's hard to find a girl like this, but it kind of is.

My life would certainly be significantly worse without her, though. There are enough unstable factors with startup life, and having that stable support really, really helps.

"a girl that's okay with splitting the check"

I thought those days were long gone. I've never not split the bill with a girl in my entire life.

What can I say, I'm from a small town.

That could likely explain why it's so hard to find the type of girl you're describing. :)

There are all sorts of folks in the world. FWIW, I prefer to pay, and my last girlfriend was visibly relieved when I offered the first time. (She literally said "I only said I wanted to go Dutch because I thought you wanted me to say that we should go Dutch." "I'm open to strong objections but in the absence of them I'm something of a traditionalist on the matter." "Great, me too.")

great great post. You're a lucky guy!

There's a reason I voluntarily choose to stay single while being a founder (unless I started dating that person before hand). It probably will not end up well. Sure at first they think it will be all a-okay and just like a "demanding job". Then they realize the stress and emotional unavailability that comes with it as things progress. Girls also always need attention. At the end of the day if came down between making some sort of date with her or getting the product out the door, I'd 100% always choose to get the product out the door. That's why I save the both of us the time and stay single.

"Girls also always need attention."

Yikes. Not true at all. Please don't make such generalizations.

girls, guys, pets, anyone,etc.. Maybe the use of the word always shouldn't have been there, but if you're in a relationship with someone they expect attention from you. I think it's fair to say: If you're dating someone they expect a good amount of attention from you. If you're not giving them a good amount of attention then it isn't really a relationship.

If you're defining relationships that way, I say what you what out of your relationships are different than what I know several other people to want out of theirs. There is a lot of variation there between "tightly orbiting binary stars" and "comet that comes by every 96 years" that people do use to have successful relationships.

I've met women looking for everything in between there.

Way to be awesome, Lindsay!

Awesome read for a Monday morning!

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