Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulhauggis | Hacker News Reader

The long hours mostly has to do with the startup community. They get funding and VC wants to make a profit within a year and get out, at the expense of any long-term goals of the company.

The result is 70 or 80 hour work weeks and burnout. The VC don't care because they will be done in the short-term anyway.

It's the reason why I refuse to work for startups.

View on HN

Startups don't have to be VC backed and don't have to work long hours. We aren't and we don't.

> VC wants to make a profit within a year

Typical returns take 5-7 years for a VC. < 1 year returns tend to be low.

You are presenting things you believe as facts. Please don't do that.

This isn't exclusive or indicative to startups. I have friends who work at large companies (Apple in particular) who work 90 hour work weeks and are completely miserable.

Your understanding of VC timetables is wrong. It's almost unheard of for a VC to book a profit within a year.

This company is not a startup; it's merely a successful small business.

the startup community ... get funding and VC wants to make a profit within a year and get out, at the expense of any long-term goals

This is not unheard of, but certainly not the norm. Successful VC firms invest of big growth, but over a longer term. Look at the huge VC-backed successes in SV (obvious examples like Google, LinkedIn) and you'll see anything but a build-it-and-flip-it mentality.

"merely a successful small business."

Really? That small business is financially more successful than most crazy ass VC backed startups with the latest photo sharing solution will ever be.

</rant>

In fairness, that still doesn't make it a startup.

No, it doesn't.

But who the hell cares?

I think after being in business for over a decade, 37signals is way past being called a startup.

Pray tell, what would make it a startup?

I know this'll be a controversial stance but IMHO.. needing to work 5 or 6 days a week to prove the business case, make the business stick, and to scale the business to a point where you have multiple employees and processes that allow you to only work 4 day weeks if you want.

Of course, some businesses can run on fewer hours from the start, but many require a lot of sweat and long hours to get the engine running.

They were a startup early on. I think it's safe to say they've transitioned out of that at this point, just as Google, Amazon, etc. have.

losing money

That small business is financially more successful

Sure. But they're not trying to build the same thing. I think it's mainly a midwestern attitude vs. Californian. Fried just wanted to build a business. Startup founders want to build companies.

Startup founders want to sell companies.

Wow, could we put the mythical "startup" on any more of a pedestal? '... merely a successful small business' as a diminutive to 37Signals? We've really jumped the shark here, haven't we?

> This company is not a startup; it's merely a successful small business.

Startup, n.: A small business that is not successful yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com