What do you think about this (quoting a discussion at thefunded.com):
I Don’t Believe in Work Life Balance as a Startup Person. Am I Wrong?
In the discussion on thefunded.com, the person who asks the question is co-founder and CEO of a startup, and is working 60 hours a week.
I wish we all would work like there’s no tomorrow, at least until we reach certain status where we can be confident that we have reached product market fit… However my co-founders have their families and they have to go home when work hours end … I am very dissatisfied because I feel like we can do much more if we tried harder.
If you get into that discussion, you’ll see that the startup community there is divided. There is no consensus.
Just yesterday blogging guru Chris Brogan posted an eloquent argument for balance in his Pay Yourself First:
But when you wonder how I’m getting as successful as I am, oddly, it’s because I’m doing the opposite of what you’d suspect. I’m working fewer hours now than I used to work last year. The trick of it all is that I’m working the right hours, and I’m managing my time and demands on my time much better.
This question keeps coming up. I jumped on a similar discussion a couple of years ago, when I posted Is Startup Life Life, which followed a public debate about work/life balance triggered by this zinger from Jason Calcanis in his How to Save Money Running a Startup:
Fire people who are not workaholics. Come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. Don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it. Go work at the post office or Starbucks if you want balance in your life.
Me? I’m not sure. I hope for that happy medium, the gray area that isn’t either black or white; a startup that people believe in enough to work like mad, but one that gives them meaningful work to do, and one that hopes they manage to preserve a life as well. As if that were possible.