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Comment by mirsadm | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why there is such a focus on "going through" YC. In my opinion that isn't the difficult part at all (well getting accepted is ;)). Most people can sacrifice 3 months of their life and not see their loved ones. It is really only 3 months of your life. The bigger picture is a lot harder to balance. What happens after those 3 months? How do you run the startup while still maintaining a reasonable work-life balance?

If you can figure that part out then nothing should stop you from applying for YC.

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Agree, though 3 months is not an option for me with my kids age (1 and 3) too much stuff I'll miss, and not sure my wife will be there when I get back.

But I agree, it's the years after probably, although I believe you can do more in 9 hours of balanced life than in 14 hours of hectic coding (just less reading HN, and writing just "good enough" code and not developing features that users don't really need, and hiring good people, can save a lot of time)

> Most people can sacrifice 3 months of their life and not see their loved ones. It is really only 3 months of your life.

Most people with kids live on the edge of a precarious childcare cliff. It's a marvel of logistics to allow both parents to keep their jobs as it is--3 months of one parent holing up would push the whole family over the edge of that cliff. What is your spouse going to do, take 3 months off work?

I didn't mean to make it sound easy. But running a business is difficult and that is only one problem to overcome. If you can't solve that problem for a pretty short amount of time then maybe it is not the right time to create the business.

After YC it is not like you can go home and do nothing. If anything things would get much more difficult. Especially if you raise money from investors.

"The bigger picture is a lot harder to balance. What happens after those 3 months? How do you run the startup while still maintaining a reasonable work-life balance?"

My theory on how to maintain work-life balance after YC is that you have to try to create some semblance of it during YC as well, then turn the volume up afterwards. That can also help avoid the post-Demo Day postpartum crash that comes with pulling a 3 month stint of nothing but work.

So for us, that meant taking Saturdays off, like I mentioned in the article. And it's not just about not working, it's about planning out some kind of epic release and fun time, like going to Monterey for a concert or kayaking around the bay. I have to admit that I wasn't as good about that before YC - I would work until some kind of internal safety valve would blow a gasket and I was flirting with the crispy edges of burnout, then I'd crash uselessly until I could be productive again - and now I'm hoping I've learned a life skill that can power steady productivity for much longer than 3 months.

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