| I've been a cofounder a couple of times, never had any great success though. Getting close to 5 years ago I was working on a startup in addition to my normal job. I'd go to work, work all day, go to the gym for an hour or two, come home work on the startup for 4 or 5 hours. Then I'd spend all day Saturday and Sunday working on the startup. Then one day I just stopped working on the Startup, quit going to the gym, and was having to drag my ass to work where my productivity dropped to nearly zero. I ended up quitting the the startup and giving up most of my equity. The other founder went on to find another cofounder, they got an investment and are doing pretty good. Anyways I ended up feeling like crap for a few months and started to feel good again. I had started a new job as a manager at my old job had went to a new company and hired all the good people as soon as his non-compete expired. I was productive at work, going to the gym again, and had started several personal projects, bought a house and was making improvements there. I attributed this to no longer working in a place that sucked. Then I hit the wall again. Productivity in the toilet, quit going to the gym, just stayed home all day watching reruns of MASH. This time it was pretty bad, so I ended up going to the doctor. I was diagnosed bipolar type 2. Well that sure explained a lot. I'm on meds now that control it pretty well. I still have the swings, but they are not as severe as before. I haven't founded a company since I was diagnosed, but I did working for an early stage startup for a couple of years. A couple of changes I've made. 1. Really focus on saving money. If I decide to found another company I want to be able to quit my day job and focus on just that. Saving money is easier to do without the hypomanic spending sprees. Boy do I have some stories there. Like the weekend that I spent $300 on socks. 2. Set realistic goals for myself and time box what I am doing. I have to understand that I still have the depressive cycle where I am not as productive, but don't have the hypomanic cycles to make up for it. The big driver here is setting a reasonable amount of work hours and sticking to it. Hence why if I found another company I need to be able to quit my day job. 3. I vet ideas a lot more throughly now. In the past someone would approach me with an idea or I'd have one. I'd get all excited and run off and start implementing it. Now that I have the requirement that I'd quit my job to work on it, I research them better now. And I also ask my self do I really want to be in that business. I've turned down a few ideas just because I don't want to be in that business. I also look at the realistic return. Since I have to draw down personal capital to work on an idea, I ask myself, would I be better off just leaving the money in VTSAX? So far every time I've determined it is better to just leave it in VTSAX. |