[patio11]

"Startups take over your life" is a social construct. It happens because we expect it to happen, because we model it as "success", because we demand it from ourselves, and because we look at anyone who it isn't happening to as a failure.

My business is, in many ways (such as measuring by hours), the easiest job I've ever had.

[jacquesm]

I respectfully disagree. Your business is not a start-up of the kind where that is likely to happen, but there is more than one kind of start-up.

The kind of start-up where you have a fairly large capital outlay, where you have to hire a bunch of people from day one and where there is significant pressure from windows of opportunity and a race to market can easily go out of control in this respect.

The other thing that can turn your world upside down is a real success, or a real setback when you're moving ahead full steam.

[patio11]

Forgive me for being all Toyota-y, but we have a specific definition of "out of control", and it is not "the specific anticipated consequence of a policy which is culturally celebrated and is considered one of the defining features of our industry."

I have some other issues with the assumption that any CRUD app can reasonably be said to be racing to market in 2010. Many "real" startups, for whatever definition of "real" one wants, have been technically viable for every single day of the last ten years. The race is also a social construct. The world will little note nor long remember the first mover in groupons (hint: not Groupon).

[jacquesm]

CRUD apps are only a very thin slice of the whole spectrum though.

When you have a few hundred K of your own hard earned cash and a few million of investors money, as well as the livelihood of a number of people riding on your start-up succeeding or tanking and you hit a significant road block there is a very big temptation to dig in and try to save the company at the expense of your private life. Even in situations not quite as dramatic the temptation is there.

It may work, it may fail, there may be private consequences, there may not be. But that all depends on the circumstances, and those are not specified.

[ahoyhere]

Yes, and to go into a business like that, and shape it in such a way that you have to work it like that, is a choice - ergo a social construct. An accidental, not platonic, trait of startups.

[takrupp]

Agreed. You maybe work a bit more hours (but honestly, if you want to compete at a 9-5 you are really working more like 8-7pm anyways.), but the hours happen when and where you want them to happen, which can maximize time with loved ones.

Case in point, sometimes my girlfriend works at my office. How is that possible at a normal job? Or taking a week off just to go work at your parents cabin? That kind of out-of-office working is just not possible or a great idea in the normal work force.

One thing I will say: Doing a startup by yourself would be almost impossible with a serious relationship. You need at least one partner to watch your back when you can't be on duty (which happens twice as often in a serious relationship, I've found).

[kranner]

Is it fair to compare your last job as a Japanese salaryman, in terms of number of hours worked, to the average programming job? Aren't the hours really long for Japanese salarymen?

[wglb]

I would disagree a little.

I have been in several startups, and a couple of projects in not-large companies. Much of this time it was a struggle not to be doing the project all the time.

The things that we were working on I found seriously personally exciting, and in fact, the most recent one, my advisor in the effort all but forced me to keep "reasonable" hours. Reasonable converged on 12 hours.