Comment by jstoiko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jstoiko | Hacker News Reader

I feel like some people have built this fantasy that working at startups is like vacations.

These people probably work their ass off during their 40, 60, or maybe 80 hrs on the job. So they dont understand when they ear that startups' work schedule is more relax because they cannot relate to it. However, when they leave their desk, it's over, they're up to something else and they probably even force themselves not to think about work anymore.

Startups take a relaxing approach to work hours because the (right) person who works there lives and breathes startup 24/7.

It's easy to say when you're a founder (disclaimer: I am one). But it is something I have witnessed in (good) startup employees as well. They think about it all the time.

@falcolas is right, who the hell cares how many hours in the week you spent executing your tasks? Shouldn't the time "thinking" about work be valued as much as "executing" the work? Don't we all "think" better outside of execution time?

+1 to this. I'm a relatively early employee at my team, and while my founders don't really mind whether I'm in the office or not, they do know that I give a damn and that our work is on my mind 24/7.

And I don't mean that in a workaholic sense. I mean that if that anything arises or emerges, I respond to it immediately out of genuine interest rather than out of obligation. It's just the way things are, I think, when you're that much closer to the "value source". (How I choose to think about it.)

Things like rigorously structured work days are constructs that can only exist in large companies. I'd use a naval metaphor: If you're working on an Aircraft Carrier or a huge Cargo Ship, you can take sick days, you can operate tight schedules. If you're working as part of a small team on a little rowboat, though, the concept of a schedule itself is rather ludicrous– just mutual fiction.

The real schedule is closer to "do whatever it takes to get it done, and take whatever breaks you need to stay fighting fit".

If you're a pre-PMF startup then you better be working all the time, because the clock's running out and your "dream" will be in the dumpster once there's no more money.

Early stage startups are a sprint, startups like Treehouse have a proven business model and are now basically dealing with scale and optimization, they can go into a well-deserved "regular job" mode with weekends and family time. If you want a 9 to 5, do not do a startup, unless you have something absolutely incredible in your deck that will allow you to bypass the "work crazy" stage.

Also early startups aren't all about coding. There's a lot of other extremely beneficial work that can be done once you've reached your coding quota for the day.

Nobody wants to hear this, everybody wants to work 4 hours a week and be billionaires, so this inaccurate mythology gets propagated.

shrugs

The clock isn't ticking that fast. I have some experience here . I was the second technical hire at a company that went on to sell for nine figures. I founded an unsuccessful company. My second startup (as a founder) went on to be a successful and ongoing thing (revenue in the 7 figure range). For the last two years I've been with a nicely growing early stage startup.

I'm throwing out my resume to establish that I'm coming at this with nearly 15 year of startup experience.

I've rarely put in more than a 40 hour week at any point in my entire career. While I understand the idea that you are racing to product market fit.. I've never bought into the idea that effort is the thing that drives it. You need to be focused. You need to work hard, but you also need to keep your mind and body fresh. It's more important to produce great work at a reasonable speed, rather than bad work really quickly.

Those pre-PMF days aren't a sprint. They are most definitely a marathon, just one with a clear finish line. When I think of great early stage teams I don't think "high output", but instead I think "methodical" and "relentless". They are constantly analyzing the problem they want to solve. They are clever about soliciting feedback. They build prototypes leveraging every useful shortcut they can. However, few of them (again this is my experience) approach these early days with 60 or 70 hour work weeks. The benefit just isn't there.

Yep. Turning your brain off is impossible, and your brain's the most critical piece of you in a lot of these roles. If we counted thought time I'm not sure how many hours I'd log each week, but it'd be well above 32.

>Turning your brain off is impossible

That is what meditation is supposed to help one do - in a sense :) - thinking when you need to, none when you don't.

I retract my statement. Let's pretend I said "Turning off your brain is hard" instead?

Good point.

I'd say even some "procrastination" is about thinking how to do something (in the background)

Once everything fits together you just do it.

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