[slap_shot]

I'm a founder that let starting a startup wreak massive havoc on his marriage. This shit is real.

My suggestion to anyone in a serious relationship that is starting a business:

Cofounders often layout an operating agreement when they start a company. A founder and their spouse should do the same: layout your expectations (time, money, opportunity costs, life responsibilities) and frequently have open and transparent conversations about if each party is still comfortable with the arrangement.

Hearing the author see his pivots and realizing he would cut off his arm before folding the company (hyperbole, I know) signals he is probably crossing the line of what would have been put in the operating agreement.

A good technical founder is forgoing $500k+ a year in comp for a high-percentage chance of nothing. That has an immense effect on a relationship. Watching a spouse who is that committed and failing has to be absolute hell.

[ska]

> A good technical founder is forgoing

It's easy to make this SWAG on the opportunity cost , but I'm not sure it's true. I've known a lot of technical founders, and probably more than half of them were psychologically incapable of staying in a cushy mid-six comp position at a big company, even when they had the chops. It's part of what drove them to do something else. Others were more driven than technically talented, and sometimes that works well.

The "why be a founder when you can get rich at a FAANG" narrative is a bit too reductive, and misses out that people do these things for a broader range of reasons that EV.

Similarly, I've met technical people who are far stronger than the median FAANG engineer, but would never work there, because they can't self-identify as someone who would take that job. You can just as easily say: "why do you work at save-the-world-little-co for peanuts when you could be making 700k at BigTechCo?"

Sometimes people do these things mostly because that's who they are, or who they see themselves. If you are in a relationship with someone like that, it's part of the package. Totally agree you should have a clear understanding of what that means, going into such a venture.

[slap_shot]

> half of them were psychologically incapable of staying in a cushy mid-six comp position at a big company, even when they had the chops. It's part of what drove them to do something else.

This is an incredibly good point. I, myself, left BigCo to launch aforementioned startup, and mentally, I was accepting that if went to zero (it did) at least I was spending the prime of my career doing what felt like the most meaningful thing I could be doing. I did not, however, create my recommended operating agreement or get the buy-in of my wife.

[ska]

> I did not, however, create my recommended operating agreement or get the buy-in of my wife.

That sounds like a hard learned lesson, sad to hear it. You definitely aren't alone in that.

[slap_shot]

Not the first one and certainly not the last...