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Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

The examples you gave were your choices. They weren't "shit the server's gone down" moments.

You could have said you were busy that day to either of them. For the 2nd one you even could have hired another sales guy and you wouldn't have even been in that situation.

But you didn't.

And in the end, this guy's got a time tracking/invoicing app he sells to small businesses, his scenario is completely different. I don't want to be too dismissive, but it seems more suited for the Amy Hoy/patio11 route rather than the YC one, it's not a pants on fire, runaway scaling startup.

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You're right. Those were my choices. Fortunately, over the past few months, the servers have stayed up and my daughter hasn't had a need to go to the hospital. Those are holy shit moments.

But most of life is lived in a more mundane day-to-day way. Those days are filled with your choices about where and how you spend your time.

I wrote this post to detail how I go about making these decisions because I know there are others out there in a similar position. Just hearing another perspective is helpful.

Someone just pointed me to this post from Change.org's COO and I greatly appreciated her take: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141022041002-407452...

On the scalable startup or not...we wouldn't have gotten into YC if we didn't have a plan.

I really appreciate this article and the way you've handled some of these comments.

My wife is expecting our first child soon and one thing it has really done is change my perspective. I've actually become a more dedicated employee and have also realized the glass and rubber ball metaphors.

There's bugs that have to be fixed right now and projects that have to be completed on time -- but there's also a personal life.

I'm no longer killing myself because of some minor bug that can wait, but at the same time I'm finding that when I am "on," I'm actually "on" instead of the half-on all the time.

It's been a life changing experience and it's very hard to describe in an understandable way to people who haven't gone through it, but this article is coming close.

Thanks! I experienced a similar thing the first time around. I enjoy my work. But pre-kid, I found myself spending longer days where I wasn't actually "on."

Post-kid, there's far more meaning to whether you're at work or not. All of the sudden, I was getting done in 8 hours what I used to do in 10 or 12 (or in 12 hour what used to be 16).

Congrats on the upcoming child! Best of luck!

Hiring a sales guy is also a hard choice. One that involves giving part ownership to the sales guy in very early stages. Which not everyone wants to do.

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