There's always time to launch your dream

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1619-theres-always-time-to-launch-your-dream

by screwperman • 17 years ago

61 17 17 years ago

patio112• 17 years ago

Its probably a throw-away line, but

Do you think I could fit all that and still get straight As and have lots of time left over for playing World of Warcraft? No.

spoke to me. I gave up World of Warcraft to start my business. The business pays rather substantially better and takes up much less time.

I sometimes wish I had enough graphical talent to bling out my UI with incremental visual rewards ("purple pixels") for various accomplishments, as a means of self-motivation. Charts help, but if it were charts and little icons of e.g. "2k visitors in a day, have a new blue Boots of Modest Traffic!", well, you'd probably have to bring a crowbar to get me away from the business.

On second thought... no trophies.

beza1e1• 17 years ago

Depends on how much you want to do. This year i want to (a) eat, (b) marry, and (c) get my degree. The first goal demands a little time to earn money. The seconds one demands mostly time, since debt is inevitable. To get the degree i have to learn.

I'd also like to work (d) on my project ideas, but there isn't enough time left after (a)-(c).

pchristensen• 17 years ago

That's the conclusion I came to. It's not that I don't have the time, it's that I apparently value spending time with my kids more than the rapid progress of my startup. It's still dissatisfying from my startup's point of view, but rather than rail against the universe about it, I look it as a manifestation of my priorities.

coglethorpe• 17 years ago

I think asking what we really want is a good exercise for anyone. Once one realizes what's most important, one can focus on those goals and not worry about making excuses for the other things.

There's no "shame" in not starting a business, not majoring in a certain subject, etc, except what society tries to tell us and society is trying to tell us that 100 different things are important. It's up to us to find what our destination is and head there, in spite of what other people say.

kellishaver• 17 years ago

Same here. I love the idea behind my startup and I love working on it. Have to say, though, I love the family more. I spend every spare minute I can on my startup, but not at the expense of my family. Their needs and spending time with them come first, along with the paying job that's providing for said family--it has to. If the kid were older, maybe I'd devote more time to the startup, but as it stands now, no.

Also, if I worked 12-15hr days every day, even doing something I love, I'd quickly grow to hate it. Not only would I resent the startup, but I'd likely be looking for an entire career change after a while.

catone• 17 years ago

I heard the same thing at FOWA in Miami this year from Gary Vaynerchuk (and have heard it from him before at other conferences). He said, paraphrasing: If you can't quit your job to follow your dream and build your startup because you have to take care of your family, then work 9-5 at the job you hate to pay the bills, then work 6-3am on the startup.

At face value, that's great advice. But I don't think it is that black and white for everyone. I don't know if DHH or Garyvee have kids, but for many people, if you really do need to support a family, then working 9am-3am every day is a pretty bad way to do it. Yeah, you might come out the other end running a business you love that's making you rich, but you'll probably be divorced and have kids that resent you. Or be sick and run down from all that lack of sleep.

If you have diapers to buy, ramen profitability might take longer to achieve. Or might not be an option at all. If you have personal relationships you value, working 18 hours per day might not be the best idea (if you can avoid it).

It really depends on your priorities. If supporting your family and spending time with them is important to you, then yeah, lack of time might really be a problem on the road to starting up. DHH is right that complaining about it isn't productive, but he comes across sounding arrogant when he writes it off as a non-issue.

thepanister• 17 years ago

hmmm I think it's all about the start. If you make the first step in implementing whatever you want, then it will be easier to continue.

nav• 17 years ago

The same way an Ivy League degree doesn't guarantee success, a top tier VC doesn't either. With the economy as it is now and general investor sentiment; one needs to highlight the sheer value of determination, experimentation, the art of minimizing and of course resourcefulness. I think the article does a great job of pointing out that the "lack of" time had more to do with one's self comforting through excuses rather than the actual tasks at hand. I sincerely believe that the next 18 months will result in amazing, cost effective innovations not only in tech but healthcare, the consumer world, finance etc. Should be extremely exciting; and it's up to us to encourage those that our there hustling and trying to launch their dreams.

k0n2ad• 17 years ago

I can feel the motivation flowing through my arteries.

brandonkm• 17 years ago

The undergrad years are definitely a great time to spend getting projects done. Not only projects, but exploring all the technologies that interest you. Luckily, I've never played World of Warcraft or else I would probably be in a different boat than I am right now.

ibsulon• 17 years ago

"I don't have the time" is more often code for "I don't have the energy."

For those who are moonlighting, how do you avoid burnout?

kirubakaran• 17 years ago

how do you avoid burnout?

Don't stop to think "omg I am working so hard".

... and get enough sleep.

endtwist• 17 years ago

I'm a student (and an art student, at that, which requires a lot of physical presence, if not always mental), and it definitely requires a bit of effort to avoid burnout. I go to class during the day, and work for most of my evenings: wash, rinse, repeat.

How do I avoid burning out, then? Many breaks of a medium duration (2 - 5 hours every few days, generally, with much shorter breaks in the interim) -- go out with friends, go to dinner, see a movie, nearly anything will do. If I'm feeling particularly unmotivated or tired one day, I'll reduce my to-do list for the day and shift the extra stuff to the next day or two.

Even if you think you can just keep going and going without any sort of side effects, you're fooling yourself. Everyone needs breaks, otherwise, at some point, you lose either your determination, will, or sanity.

omnivore• 17 years ago

Balance. Switching jobs and moving up each time you do it. But that really depends on your industry and timing.

Developing projects that can get you up and working for yourself, rather than those that take inordinate amounts of time/money and that are less likely to see the light of day.

patio112• 17 years ago

Make time for the things in life that aren't work: family, friends, exercise, church, hobbies, etc. When I overwork I am generally given cause to regret it. (The others are more important to QOL, personally, but that exercise point is very important to stress. 45 minutes of exercise buys you an hour extra of productive labor, easily. I wish I could make that trade all day long, and I hate the actual act of exercise.)

Concentrate on small, achievable tasks. Do them regularly.

If it isn't worth $100 an hour it should be automated, outsourced, or eliminated. (You can move that number up as your time becomes worth more. I've always considered it a solid baseline.)

You can combine the techniques. I used to spend an incredible amount of time on content creation for my website. Conception, writing, HTMLification, etc would take me literally hours per page. I decided to eliminate (my involvement) by outsourcing the conception/writing and automating the heck out of the workflow.

This entailed moving my site from static HTML with a lot of handwritten content into a Rails-based pseudo-CMS with a lot of handwritten but machine-polished content. Downside: it is a lot more cookie cutter than it used to be. Upside: 2~4 hours of my time per unit of goodness is now 10 minutes of my time plus $100 per 30 units of goodness.

teuobk• 17 years ago

I think that another key is being accountable to somebody else, if only informally. I'm all for self-motivation -- and I've accomplished plenty that way -- but I find it far easier to work when I know that somebody else cares about whether or not I complete the project. Maybe a business partner, maybe a coach of some sort.

mannicken• 17 years ago

I actually failed two classes in college (high school dual enrollment) as I was working on like two-three contracting projects simultaneously.

I thought I was doing it wrong but now I see that I'm not the only one who sacrifices school to do something that they like.

There's always time to launch your dream

Related Stories