[erulabs]

Hey Cj!

28 is still very young - you'll be fine! I am also a founder, and do wonder sometimes if I'm not working hard enough - ie: stripping away everything in my life. I'm a bit older than you, and worked myself to the bone in my 20s without much equity to show for it - and now I pace myself a bit. That said, I often notice times where my 20 year old self would have simply not slept, and instead I sleep for 6 hours and call it a necessary compromise.

Sometimes I feel good about this, responsible. Other times I feel guilty, a slacker or worse: old.

Looking back, do you think you would have accomplished as much as you did had you balanced your life - for example, "spent" those 4 years going on the occasional date? I often hear the "yes, I burnt myself hard for my startup", from successful founders, and I don't often hear the conclusion to the thought: "would you have done it differently?"

[cj]

> Looking back, do you think you would have accomplished as much as you did had you balanced your life - for example, "spent" those 4 years going on the occasional date?

A resounding “yes”. Not because I would have been less burnt out, but because I would have less tunnel vision (which is a symptom of focusing on 1 thing so hard for so long). Less tunnel vision = broader perspective. I think I would have contributed more to the growth of our company faster had I slowed down and not turned down every social engagement to “reply to just a few more emails or push that last bug fix”.

I would 100% have done it differently. Looking back, those “last few emails” and “last few bug fixes” were not nearly as important to our company as keeping my social circle (and by proxy, dating life) intact.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say I regret it, because a lot of good things happened that may not have if I weren’t as focused. Probably easiest to sum it up by saying if I could tell my younger self 1 thing, it would be that being a successful founder / having a successful exit will only be as rewarding as the people you have to share it with (family, friends, significant other). Money on its own to a single person is worth very little

[ip26]

I often notice times where my 20 year old self would have simply not slept, and instead I sleep for 6 hours and call it a necessary compromise.

I remember doing that when I was twenty. I also remember how useless I always was come 10AM, and how I could fall asleep standing by noon.

By and large I don't think I'm any less able to pull an all nighter, get really drunk, eat trash, or do the other things. I think I'm just a lot more aware of the consequences.