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Comment by flog | Hacker News Reader

I'm in a similar position, although I'm still in year 2 of my startup and just exiting stealth.

It's a tricky one. I know I could be out contracting like my friends (the few there are, since I've been holed away for so long), earning £100k a year. Instead, I'm looking at minimum wage until this thing succeeds, or crashes and burns.

It's a rough life, this entrepreneur gig. On reflection, my advice would be to go save some money for a couple years, find a good woman, and have another go when you've got some more stability.

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As a (hopefully "good") woman, I'm slightly offended by that - we might have career goals of our own, too. Heck, we might even want to be entrepreneurs.

But let's assume I misread you and got my hackles up over nothing - let's focus on the "some more stability" instead. I'd advise against that. The time to make mistakes that end in crash&burn is when you're young. As you wait, you accumulate obligations. There's a mortgage, there's (in the U.S.) the fact you might like to have health insurance, you specialize in a certain area, or you might even have kids.

Making that leap and saying "ah, I'll just risk my savings and a few years of my life" becomes harder as life goes on. The risk/benefit ratio seems to be getting worse over time.

Funny, by reading the GP, I thought exactly the opposite - that in the context of the sentence, that would be a woman with a career to pay the bills. May be hard to have two entrepreneurs tho - Or only without children.

I understood it as "find yourself a woman with similar entrepreneurial goals so she can understand, be patient and support you". It is _really_ important to me, I just couldn't do it if I didn't have that support.

I think it was just a misreading. My suggestion was that being a part of a couple would provide stability, financial and emotional. I've been in both, and know i'm far more courageous with someone in my corner.

Plus, while I agree that this may affect his hunger for the business, I personally understand that my entrepreneurship is for the benefit of my loved ones, and not in-and-of itself valuable.

Conversely, I'm offended by your suggestion that for a woman to be in a relationship is somehow detrimental.

Glad I misread you, awesome you could return the favor ;) - we're going for the misinterpretation championships here.

I'm not suggesting it's detrimental for a woman to be in a relationship. I'm suggesting it's easier to go ahead, follow your dreams, and take crazy risks when you're not in a relationship, independent of gender. Simply because less obligations mean failure is less of an issue.

Note: This is about _starting_ as an entrepreneur, not being one. Obviously, there are many who make both their business and their relationship work just fine. (And I have no doubt many manage to start a business while in a relationship, too. It's just a little bit scarier/harder)

Ultimately, as long as both you and your partner are good with it, do whatever works for you :)

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