Ask HN: single founders – how do you do it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: single founders – how do you do it?

31 pointsandkon13 comments

I've been full-time on my startup for about a year now, and though I'm getting the hang of the wild ups-and-downs, it can be exhausting to bounce from client-side to backend to design to marketing to press. When you're faced with a bunch of rejection on top of all the stuff you normally have to do, how do you keep going? And if/when you burn out, how do you recover?

View on HN

There's one key point to everyone's comments thus far, I'll just reiterate it: This is a marathon, not a sprint. Work too hard, too fast, or too long, you'll burn out and get discouraged, quit and say that it doesn't work.

I have a full time job and work on my two WordPress plugins on the side. I make sure that every day I accomplish at least one thing relevant to them or something I'm starting.

Just one thing. It seems so easy, and yet, there have been days I got distracted, bored, busy, or just plain uninspired and didn't do it. Those days are the ones that I wish I had back.

If you make progress on something every day, even a teensy tiny bit, you will head toward your goal. Progress does NOT mean:

- Reading HN

- Tweeting about your business

- Looking at Facebook

- Reading business books

These are distractions (for the most part). And they're GREAT sometimes. But we tend to overindulge and think we're making progress because we read 5 new articles about X on HN today and feel "invigorated". That feeling will fade. You need to do something sustainable.

Action is sustainable. Visible progress can be tracked on a daily basis. After 30 days, you can look back and see a LONG list of things YOU DID. That's inspiring. And it makes you want to do MORE. And MORE.

Once you have momentum, the other key thing you need IMO, is a trusted person to bounce ideas off of. Someone who won't listen to your bullshit, only someone who will listen and call it like it is, not how you want to see it. Most friends are bad for this--they will be an echo chamber. You need honesty. Not ego stroking. This is HARD. It is VALUABLE as hell, too.

Those two things will make a huge difference in getting you moving forward. That's what I rely on daily.

I am a big fan of the get 1 thing done today. Doesn't matter how big or small. It just mentally keeps me focused on progress.

Great comment! I'd like to add to the points you made based on my experience.

-To stay focused, I set and obey time limits on researching startup advice and studying the domain of my startup.

-Everyday I write in a journal, among other things, about one great decision I made the previous day. This has helped me to consciously make better decisions. Therefore, more often than not, I decide to act/build rather than just think about something relative to my startup.

-Fortunately I'm not a single founder this time, but I have been on multiple past projects. A great friend of mine from college has agreed to co-found my current startup with me. One of the most important advantages I've gained is having someone that I trust and respect who can discuss ideas with candor. Try to find someone like this, even if they're not your co-founder.

Great thread andkon. I'm essentially a single founder, but I have a contract dev and there is always so much to do. There is a lot of good advice here already, but to me, the marathon analogy is best. In other words, take the long view.

I know a man who built an engineering company up from nothing to a billion dollar exit over 30 years. I'm in week one of having my app available to the world.

Am I in a hurry? No. I have a long time to build a business. I cannot live or die each DAY/WEEK/MONTH based on users who joined, or users who left, or any other metric. Good Luck!

That's a wonderful way of looking at it. I'm gonna strive to remember that timeframe. Good luck to you too.

I'm a single founder. For me it's a marathon not a sprint so I make sure I work at a sustainable pace: I start and finish at the same time each day (perhaps ironically given that there's no boss holding me to fixed hours) and I do my best to exercise every day.

I also make it a priority to chat to friends who work in "normal" jobs. It helps remind me that what I'm doing is quite unusual, which is motivating, and also reminds me it's just a job – which is easy to forget when it all depends on you – so I shouldn't worry about it too much.

I try to celebrate the small victories each day to keep motivated in the face of multiple rejections, and I try to complete whatever task I'm working on before switching to something else altogether.

There's no magic formula though – it depends on who you are. I suppose you just need to ensure you don't put your life on hold. Make sure you keep doing what you enjoy doing (in terms of hobbies etc) regularly and often.

This is a journey, don't forget to live. Work regular hours and make time for friends & family. Make sure you get exercise, sunlight and fresh air. Believe in your vision. Setup a positive feedback drip

On a positive feedback drip: Set a reasonable small milestone. Hit it, celebrate, set the next one.

On vision: You probably have a vision that's based on a number of assumptions. As you move forward, some of those assumptions will turn out to be false. You'll be forced to re-think, adapt and evolve the vision. That vision is a moving target, but as long you can see it, you know where to go next. As long as you can see it, all hope is not lost.

p.s. I'm local, feel free to reach out over email (on website)

OP here - I wanted to thank y'all for the great advice so far, and I wanted to share one thing that has helped me a lot: founder's breakfasts.

We get together once every two weeks and hold one another accountable. I bring donuts. Everyone shares a good thing and a bad thing that happened, explains what they accomplished and failed to accomplish, and commits to what they'll complete next time.

One thing: it helps to make sure everyone in the room is at a similar stage, or at very least working on product-focused startups (or all ecommerce, or whatever). That way there's a lot more value in hearing what other folks are going through.

Basically, you've described a Mastermind group. :) It need not be in-person, though. I have one, and we're scattered across the US. You definitely want to have somewhat similar timezones if you go remote, just because it's easier to schedule things. More than 3 hours time difference and someone is eating lunch when another is getting dinner ready, etc.

Gotta keep things simple to make them successful.

Thank you for putting a name to that! A search for 'Mastermind group' got me a few things to tweak for next time. Part of the focus of our group is geographical - we're all in Toronto, and Toronto startups have some specific problems because of the cultural (read: overly polite) landscape we're a part of, but I could see this working well over skype.

I'd like to hear the responses to this since I am in a similar position. I was accepted to a startup accelerator at UPenn and have been working full-time the past 8 weeks both learning to code and building the application. Before that, I was working part-time for about 2 months while holding a job.

Lately, I've been in a massive rut and have serious doubts seeing if I have what it takes to make my startup succeed. It is mostly due to the technical side since I'm just graduating a bootcamp but I feel my energy and drive waining.

I also had to learn to code to get my startup off the ground; it took a while and was painful, no doubt about that. Eventually I realized that coding is a process that I could enjoy if I let myself. Same with all the other things I do day to day.

But 8 weeks? That's it? You have a long way to go. It took me about that long to get to where I was good enough to create a basic app on my own. Building a business on top of your coding abilities takes much longer, so try to focus on what you have accomplished. It will always (ALWAYS) take longer than you'd think to get where you'd want to be, so just repeat what everyone else in this thread has been saying: it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Give yourself goals and meaningful/relevant success metrics for various periods (week/month/3 month). Hack the system to constantly push that number up by engaging in activities that are high levered. This will keep you motivated and become an objective measure of progress. Everything else is time management and a holistic exercise in maturity, spirituality, and general wellness. It's entirely doable and an amazing experience. Feel free to reach out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com