[andy_adams]

I may be living in dream land, but I've been building my product without sacrificing my health, my family time, or my lifestyle. I've had to eat into some savings, and I've yet to make it a self-sustaining enterprise, but the idea that you need to sacrifice so severely for a business just seems irresponsible and exaggerated to me.

Am I alone?

[lubujackson]

Founding a startup is entirely a series of time management decisions. Build vs. buy vs. rent vs. skip. People that say you can't run a startup without sacrificing nearly everything are the same people that say programming on a schedule is impossible - it's only impossible if you don't FIRST focus on managing your time in an effective manner.

[omegant]

I am with you, certainly I have my startup almost always in my mind, and I "work" (reply emails, research stuff, etc..) at strange hours. But I have family and my time with them and with friends is very necessary. In fact I have noticed that certain matters need their time and it doesn´t matter how much you push them, they are not going to take of faster. There is a kind of social tempo that an idea needs to engage, I am learning to relax and wait for those waves in order to ride them (there is still a big proportion of work that needs to be done and that can accumulate very fast if you let the time past).

[crazygringo]

I agree with you. But it does mean that you need to plan, and maybe wait a year or two while you build up savings, etc.

There's a lot of evidence showing that working more than 40 hours a week is counterproductive for employees, and results in negative productivity after a couple of weeks. I don't know why running a startup should be any different.