Startup discipline and family--any hilariously-frustrating fun stories? | Hacker News Reader

Startup discipline and family--any hilariously-frustrating fun stories?

1 pointVuongN3 comments

Hi gangs,

I've been a lurker mostly for a long time, but decided to start an account recently to contribute to the community more actively.

I quit my day job not too long ago (about over a month) to start on my own project. At first it was always 16 hours a day and really getting things done. For the last few weeks or so, my young wife has this trick: "If you don't want to go to sleep with me, you don't have to, but come put me to sleep/tug me in first." And I ALWAYS fall asleep with her.

I guess the hilarity of it all is that I would wake up at 7 or 8 realizing: "Aarrrggh! she did it again!" or "Oh noes, I've fallen asleep and I didn't get up!" And we would have a good laugh about it. But I'm getting a bit hilariously ...frustrated. I love spending time with the young wife, but gosh, I got to go conquer the world.

We have this thing where she would ask me every day before heading out to work: "What are you planning to do to day?" and I would answer: "Same thing I do everyday, Pinky, try to take over the world."

It has been about 40 days, and I'm only done with all the back-end functionalities--I guess I'm hoping to get to work on the design and front end this week.

What about you? any frustratingly fun stories? I'd love to hear stories about what you guys have "endured" with your oh-so-lovingly-but-clever trickster family/partner/pet ?

Graciass,

-V.

PS: by the way, I'm 28, but someone on #startups was saying I might be a bit old to do this whole startup thing. Heh, I thought that was sort of funny, but any take on that? Bootstrap startup sure has its ups/down, eh?! :)

If it's 40 days of that kind of workload and you're only just done with the backend, your Minimally Viable Product likely has too many features.

Strip it down, launch with less.

I am in the process of kicking my girlfriend out of my house for this very reason. I'd rather be single and taking over the world than getting snuggly full nights of rest.

I definitely keep going back to my MVP plan to cut down the scope-creepiness so-to-speak part of my work. It's getting better.

Are you breaking up with your girlfriend to do startup? That's a bit of an extreme case isn't it? I could understand if there is implication of bigger issues--but the world is quite a lonely place without people, my friend.

I wanted to commit to startup/entrepreneur life for 2 reasons: I can't live without it and I want to take care of my family with the rewards :) You can't possibly conquer the world without love ones' support. It is such a lonely path, being entrepreneur, already. Any love a long the way would only enhance it.

By the way, some might trade everything for a snuggly full night of rest.

Stay enthusiastic, my friend and good luck.

For now I'm just kicking her out to avoid distraction, we'll see about full-on "breaking up" later. I have plenty of people in my life, but I need them to stay inside their time-boxes if I'm to get anything real accomplished in this short life I have.

It's no so much "to do a startup" - I think the "go to work"/"do a startup" dichotomy espoused by so many on HN is a bit of a meaningless construct. I already have a fairly successful business that I started, but I'm always working on several other projects (some revenue, some not) at any given time.

Most of my ideas are the kinds of things that are somewhat market-timing-critical, so there will be quarters in which I am "only" working 50 hours a week, but sometimes during a rush to get a product out, I will double that. I don't really count hours - it's one of those things where you're either sleeping, eating, or moving toward a goal. It seems perfectly natural to me, and it certainly doesn't feel like work.

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