The Unintended Consequences of Startups - Docstoc CEO
jasonnazar.com
jasonnazar.com
He said something I grabbed: "When I go to a company, in five minutes I can see if the owners work hard or work well. When you go to a well managed company is very boring, all things are made routine and made without effort"
If you work 20 hrs day STOP!! Your work quality/hr is very low, you make your life hell, and your products reflect that. Start learning how to make effective use of your time. There are specialist on that, read books, see videos(eg Even Pagan) learn to avoid distractions, focus like a laser on what brings value to your company(marketing:learn about people necessities ).
(a) That is what we are told and
(b) That is what is reinforced by those who have been successful
How many stories have you heard that were basically, "Yeah, I started this company part-time, never worked on it more than a few hours a day because I had this other job, and it was bought for 20 million bucks!" Personally, I've heard none.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I still work 20 hours a day, because I don't. Last summer I was close, though. I stopped sacrificing my health at the beginning of this year when I began going to the gym every day again and stopped smoking a pack a day. Now that spring is upon us, I'm even beginning to remember a time when "woman" was a word in my vernacular.
The reason you see these types of articles and the reason you will continue to is because for those of us who have no other jobs, our startups are our lives. I could work for Big Co. and go home at the end of the day not at all worrying about whether or not they will be there tomorrow. The company would pay me X to perform Y and that would be exactly what I'd perform (if I wanted a promotion, maybe Y+1).
At TicketStumbler, I am not merely a cog. If I don't write code for that new feature or fix that bug or setup that new server, nobody else is going to. This means that not only do I constantly have a lot to do, but it all has pretty much the same priority: done yesterday. And if I decide to take a few days off instead of doing one of those things? I get the pleasure of feeling guilty about it the entire time.
So it basically boils down to: at an early-stage startup you have the pleasure of controlling your destiny and being your own boss; for those of us who cannot stomach traditional employment, we feel as if we actually have a soul. The downside? Well, you live in a constant and unrelenting state of stress and obligation. The effects of that state differ from person to person, but alienations/estrangement from family and friends and unwillingness to prioritize anything other than the company are common ones.
In fact, most of the stories I've heard of companies doing the 20-hour day thing end in failure. I think more people try it that way.
Actually, I should rephrase that---companies that START OUT with 20 hour days more often than not end in failure.
The reason why is simple: there's no reason why you need to work that hard until you've found a "magic model" and are scaling it.
In other words, here is my blueprint for maximizing your odds of starting a successful Internet company:
a) have stable income.
b) start side projects part time, don't work on them for more than a few hours a day.
c) once one of the side projects is generating significant revenue more than income source A, or is growing like a Twitter, then slowly ramp up to where you're working the 10+ hour day thing
d) sell for bazillions
If you skip A and B, you will likely fail.
Yes, you do increase the project's chances of "success" significantly. You don't, however, increase your chances of success. Instead, you increase your chances of failure and decrease your chances of significant success.
The reason is because odds are, you've chosen the wrong project. Also, as things inevitably go wrong, if you don't have a cushion you're greatly increasing your chances of failure.
> What you describe is the no-risk route.
There is still risk in putting time and/or money into a project part time. Also, even if your project has traction there will still be a lot of risk in going at it full time.
I think the opposite of what I'm describing is not even the high risk route, it's the gambling route. You get more of a rush but it's not wise to do and generally ends badly.
> I'd argue that it is very hard to determine that an idea (including successive iterations) will not lead to a successful internet company till you go full time on it.
I disagree. I think you should assume odds are very high that the idea will not lead to a successful internet company, UNLESS you have good traction when you go full time on it.
I am still a fond believer in going full-time if you're doing startup. The reason is because, 95% of the people that i know (include me), work much more effectively if you go full time. Your speed are just faster and you discover dead-end faster (and most of us definitely hit that wall). Beside those, i've seen again and again that if you don't jump on it full time, most people will have "excuse" to go back to their job / school. There is always excuse to drop the project especially when things get tough/rejected (your whole hypotheses about the business collape? rejection by Y Combinator?).
My experience is, when you put yourself on the line, you'll go extra mile to grab anything that are needed to be successful. Understandable though that this is more possible for person like me, single-and-no-family.
Has this worked for you?
My experience is, when you put yourself on the line, you fall a lot harder.
Doing things part time has tended to work much better for me.
It's too early to say we're anywhere near success. =) Guess this is preference. But, i'll stick with what works for me.
There is a real issue, though. Most startups demand an intensity of commitment that is difficult to reconcile with part-time engagement or even, it seems, with so-called work-life balance.
Or even just in your head! You are constantly thinking about the project and that stresses you out.
Personally, I found exactly one thing in common - determination to get something done. That's it.
I know that at the beginning I felt that my talent and experience was absolutely vital to the firm's growth. That if I did not put in that extra hour, I was robbing the company of its potential future.
The reality is that I am not that smart and not that talented. Much more important than running around personally implementing everything is growing a group of effective managers who take pride in their work and whom you can trust in running your business.
I think a weakness in many internet businesses (certainly not all of them though) is that because they are so little focused on revenue, it becomes necessary to either (a) try to implement everything yourself, thereby saving labor costs, or (b) spend tons of time raising money (and destroying your ownership in the process), which deducts from time you can spend selecting and growing your managers.
The first time I felt I realized I could leave my company for a week with no cell phone, no BlackBerry, no Internet access, and not be terrified of what would happen -- it was a huge relief, and that was when I began seeing the folly of my ways. It's not about me, it's about my wonderful managers. Working obscene hours is not the way to do that.
Of course, you shouldn't be a slacker either -- people do take cues from you -- but as others have suggested it is far more important to develop your firm's talent than to try to do everything yourself.
It's still not balance though. I can relate to that constant thinking and working condition. Often, i got a friend ask me, "so, tomorrow is weekend, what are you going to do?" and my typical answer is "work". Because, when you're doing startup, there is no more weekdays or weekend. For me, everyday is just the same. If i don't sleep due to biological needs, then i work.
Having said all that, now i try to balance the equation a little bit with exercise, socialize with family and friends. After all, most of the time, the "quantum leap" in our business concept are discovered during that "downtime".
Beside, why are we working so hard anyway in the first place? I don't want to lose all my family and friends or key moments in my child's life, while my startup make it. I think this fallacy is well described by Marshall Goldsmith in his book "What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful" about goal obsession. I read it years ago and think it's a great book for most of us here in HN, dare to say, A personality.
People cared more about "looking" hard working, that about the actual product itself.
He learned looking at capitalist that naturals were rewarded (people that make some things "effortless"). In communism talented were bad seen.
"Less work doing the same= better"
If something did what it had to do with half the work it was considered twice better, not twice bad.
Look at this, I was in a big company that valued programming work per lines of code written!!. This is like valuing the worth of a plane by weight in direct proportion.If my code works with ten time less code,its really much better.
neglecting your health is not a badge of how hard you work. one of my startup investors, chris sacca, recently told me he's weary of founders who don't exercise regularly. exercise is a net gain.
i really urge more people to read this blog post from naval ravikant before launching into endless 14 hour "work" days - http://www.startupboy.com/journal/2005/11/29/the-80-hour-myt...