Startup is not your job

This is another article that makes a bunch of assumptions about its precise definition of a "Startup", then defines those definitions, then restates them as its conclusion.<p>But it doesn't mean you need to fit any of those definitions to be a Startup. Except in the mind of the author.<p>I run a successful little software startup that has as its first and primary goal: "Maximize Jason's vacation time". Every decision I make is made in that context. So profitability is important, as is low customer support requirements, as is technical simplicity (so I never have to cut a trip short because something breaks).<p>From that standpoint, articles like this that make it sound like a startup should consume your life and thoughts seem a bit silly. No it shouldn't. Not unless you want it to.<p>That's the cool thing about running your own business. You get to run it any way you please.

I don't understand why the idea that you should try and gain a competitive advantage by stretching yourself beyond limits is so popular in the startup community. Not resting properly (be it vacation or daily sleep) hurts your productivity and decision making ability badly. So overworking is simply not a rational thing to do.<p>Starting a new business is not a sprint, but a marathon. And all this romanticizing does a huge disservice to the people who buy the hype and end up burned out.

&#62; You don’t need time off. If you think you do, you’re in a Job and should stop thinking it’s a startup, because it will fail.<p>Strongly disagree. Start-ups fail for lots of reasons; burn-out being one of them.<p>Start-ups are just high risk/reward jobs without many of the guarantees or safety nets that the traditional employer/employee relationship can provide.<p>If you don't have your work life balance sorted out, then something will fail; be it your start-up, your relationships/marriage/family, or both.<p>If you get to the point of burn out and it's a choice of either burn-out completely or - by taking a holiday - a failed start-up then you can't blame the holiday, I'd be looking at the original idea and/or the execution.

Founder's Prayer (with apologizes to AA &#38; the original author)<p>God, grant me the tolerance to accept the limitations of my MVP, strength and determination to work on what must be worked on now, and wisdom to know the difference.

Also, could we stop pretending that every startup founder is in it to "change the world"?

<i>You don’t need time off. If you think you do, you’re in a Job and should stop thinking it’s a startup, because it will fail.</i><p>Or you're a human being and you'll be just fine.

Do yourself a favor: take time off and mean it. Who are you racing against? Probably just yourself.

So I'm curious, what would you define a job? True, running a startup requires you to make some concessions with your private time. But when you have what you describe as a job, assuming there is no need to excel (i.e., prioritising, pushing), seems a bit judging. Aiming to be good at what you do, doesn't that hold for anything?<p>So with that argument turned around again on startups, if you need time off, vacations, private me time or whatever to get better at what you do, you should take it. Excessive stress does not make a better person, nor a better life.

Agreed except for holidays. If you don't have a clear sharp line between work and life day-to-day, then you need those more than ever.

This time crunch is exacerbated even further when you're trying to bootstrap. 8 hour day job (at least) + at least 3 or 4 hours nightly trying to hustle your way through a product doesn't leave much time for sleep/breathing etc. let alone relaxing your mind in any substantive way. Plus the guilt you feel if you take a day off from the day job and don't spend that on what you're working on.<p>I'm trying to figure out better ways to maximize my time and squeeze the absolute most out of it, while maintaining some semblance of work/life balance. But it's a struggle, there's no doubt. There's the momentary victory of working out all of the scheduling but if you burn out, it's not worth much, is it?

Depends how you define "job". If a job is defined as repetitive, non-engaging, focused, simple work, then a startup is not a job. If define a job as anything, no matter how board, critical, and requiring abstract though, then a startup is a job.<p>In my opinion, a job is what you spend time doing to live your life. If you do a startup so you can continue to live, that's your job.