My 2nd child was born just months before I quit my job to work full-time on my startup. My co-founder also had his first kid at the same time. We worked like crazy this last summer and just recently closed our first round of funding.
Perhaps we were crazy (our wives definitely thought so) but we pulled it off. We're also only in our late 20's :)
As the co-founder mentioned above, I'll just add that it's important to have the support of your spouse. It works for us because my wife understands that I'm only going to see the baby for an hour or two if at all during the week (I help more on the weekends). My wife doesn't work and she feels lucky to be able to spend all day with our son. I think it might be harder as a baby turns into a child and wants a little more attention from both parents.
With the proper support - definitely possible. I think doing a startup as a single parent with a baby would be near impossible.
I hear you but I disagree about not being able to pull off your first startup with a baby. I'm in the beginning stages of my first startup and I find that having children has inspired me to use my time as wisely as possible. I'm better with money now and because my daughter doesn't ever seem to want to stop moving I'm much more active than I was.
I don't really find myself needing to work a lot of hours to make things happen so I'm able to spend plenty of time with my daughter. I have another kid on the way and while I've scaled back my feature list slightly for my next release I'm not terribly concerned about the impact to the business for a few months while I wait for things to settle down. I might be the exception to this though but so far it's been good.
You're 100% correct about how great children are. Children are totally amazing. My daughter is the happiest person I've ever met. She has no idea what I'm doing or why but she loves having me around. Part of why I started this company was to (eventually) spend a lot of time with her as she gets older. I remind myself of that whenever I get discouraged.
I'm in year 4 of my startup(s) and I just had my first child earlier this year. It's been very doable for me, but maybe it's because we're profitable. I can definitely see how it would have been tough in the beginning when it was all night coding marathons though.
I think that the real answer to this lies in the support one has.
If you don't have a strong support network, can't afford for your partner (wife, husband, whatever) to stay home, can't afford a full-time nanny, or don't have any other form of dedicated help (parents, etc), the chances of launching a successful startup decreases with a baby in the mix.
Nothing is impossible. However, your chances of startup success go down if you're trying to juggle a newborn person with a newborn company. If you don't have help, I could see it being nearly impossible.
Thanks for this all. As a scared soon to be father, I don't know how I will ever fit my Hobby (coding time) in with kids and my girl. Its hard enough to make her happy. hah
Happen to agree with Jason on this one. So startups prior to marriage, working on my third when my first child was born. Moved to big corporate jobs with big perks for three years, then back to startups. We are at 3 kids (one of six weeks), and clearly the ability to work all night is constrained. And I am more tired.
However, I can guarantee on most days to have 90 minutes to 120 minutes of complete joy with my kids, and weekends that take me away from 'office work'.
And, that 36 hour weekend break is a weekly opportunity I have to review, contemplate, reprioritise--mostly holding this stuff in my head for the weekend. It was hard work at first and now it's something that I look forward to.
On the downside the costs of failure are disproportionately higher.
Right now, I'm typing with a 4 month old on my lap. I'm into a second year of my latest startup. My wife works part time. I babysit 20 hours and work 60.
Agree with other comments that fewer all night sprints, some support, and profitability are more of a prerequisite though.
Maybe YCombinator and a baby are not possible? (Unless you are pg)
I think it is possible but is really hard, even if you are a dad.
2 years ago i started my startup here in Chile, but in that time things didn't work and i had to return to a regular job, i married and had a beautiful little girl 2 days after the Big earthquake here in Talcahuano.
This lasts months i have been constantly trying to go back with my "old" startup, but is difficult.
A lot of time i struggle with the ideas give to my family a better future or a better present, because as long as my experience says you have to take a lot of family time in order to success in your dreams and projects, specially when you are in a "regular" job.
Thanks god, now with the help of my wife we are getting back to work.
I'm a few years older than Jason, learning Python, and just had my first child 2 weeks ago.
Calacanis is right about this much: having a kid is not overrated. It's amazing. However, I would echo another commenter here and suggest that what I've observed is that I waste less time than I did before the baby. Over the past few weeks I've been more focused and "in the moment" when I am working, because I know once my allotted work time is over, it's baby and Mommy time and rightly so. I've also, in general, been suffering fools less gladly. My time is worth more now.
The one thing I would disagree with Jason about is waiting until a specific time (he says 30-something). I think it's a mistake to reduce it all to a matter of age; it really does depend on the personalities and circumstances of the parents. Some people are not going to have the energy at age 40 that they had when they were 20, especially if you didn't take care of your physical and mental health when you were young. He's right to add that they use up a lot of your energy. Another reason to consider starting a family early. I'll be 60 when my son turns 18 and presumably starts college. Not everyone wants to do that, or can!
I'd modify those slightly: 1) I'd say that age-induced wisdom does help you parent well. Years of watching other parents have their mistakes and successes and the vicissitudes of your own life add perspective on human nature and parenthood. But it's not the be-all, end-all of parenting. 2) It is harder for women, and that's a major consideration, maybe the biggest one. For men, not so much. One of the benefits of being male is that you can keep having children (disclosure: my wife is significantly younger than me).
While men can keep having children longer than women, there are genetically-based mental health risks (schizophrenia, autism, bi-polar disorder) for children of older men.
This is very good and interesting advice that I actually haven't seen before. It particularly hit home for me because I'm young, single, and my career's started to really hit its stride. That said, I'm at a point where I feel like I need to choose from the more chill jobs or the more aggressive gigs such as equity jobs at startups, or even doing my own things.
As much as I'd like to do a startup at this time in my life, I get a feeling I'd really enjoy having a family as I'm a bit of a softie.
We had our first child when I was 26. It's a young person's game. Lots of late nights, lots of tiring days. I'm pretty certain that I will still work the same 60-70 hours a week when I am 40 or 50, on some startup or another. The idea that you can "get the work out" young and then wait to have kids is a fallacy (at least for me). I'd rather burn the candle on all ends when I'm still young enough to handle it.
So far so good.
EDIT / PS: Moving to Boston to be near family has been a lifesaver for us. Despite all the negatives (from a startup standpoint) of being here, there's actually very little chance I could work as hard if we didn't have the support.
> He's right to add that they use up a lot of your energy.
I've done two startups during our three years and two kids of parenting and the whole situation definitely requires large amounts of energy and effort.
But one cool thing that also starts to happen, for me it was after the parental bonds had started to strengthen and it did take a while, is that I've noticed myself actually drawing energy from them...
There's no other feeling in the world like looking at some little person and knowing they love you unconditionally.
That new project you worked months on that has zero traffic? The VC who walked away? Grief from your wife because you've done two unsuccessful startups now?
None of that is larger than the fact that your kids love you. Which for me, is awesome.
Another thing to add re: age is that the father's age generally tracks the mother's age, (plus a constant) and that is optimized downward. Even women who are 25 show a decrease in fertility and increase in birth defects over those who are 20.
Though I didn't have control over all the variables, I started my math on when to start having kids by first deciding the age that I wanted to be when the kids were likely to leave home. A good number sounded like 50 to me. We wanted 2 to 3 kids (2 years apart), so when my wife and I were 28 we decided to start the baby train rather than wait any longer (i.e. a better financial situation). My son is almost 2 and I have another due in Feb., so that should put me at almost 50.
I do miss having some of the free time that I used to be overflowing with, but I wouldn't change a thing (well maybe family close by to babysit the kids every Sunday --> never discount the value of having family near by ... assuming of course you get along well).
The weird thing about this article is that he doesn't mention his wife at all. The only mention of wives in general comes at the end ("if you don't do this you'll have a spouse who is not happy").
It seems to me that whether you can have a baby and a startup depends almost entirely on what your wife is like. There's no reason your wife can't take care of the baby on her own with you popping in every now and then to put the bread on the table; it just depends on how supportive she is.
(Yes, this post is horrendously sexist, no I don't feel like discussing that aspect of it, so if you feel compelled to stand up for the notion that men and women are entirely alike then just move on. For the case of a female entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at the same time.)
My reaction to your post wasn't one of sexism, but that I don't believe you are a parent yourself. Once you are a parent, the most important thing in the world is (or at least should be) your child. You're asking the wrong question (and probably not in the right mindset to be a parent yet, which is totally OK) if you're thinking "Why can't I have my wife be the mom and I can just show up for dinner?". As a new parent myself for the first time, I find myself every day thinking "What can I get done in X amount of time so I can go be a daddy".
Yes and no. It's complicated... and it's important to find the right balance for everyone. Perhaps the woman is happy to be a stay at home mom and dedicate herself to that. Perhaps she wants to do that for a year or two and then go back to work. Or perhaps she has aspirations of her own that, to be brutally honest, conflict with having a child to some degree, especially if dad wants to dedicate as much time as possible to a startup or his career.
Of course, you can talk about this stuff beforehand, but once the baby arrives, everything can change in any case.
It's not easy, but hugh3 is right, if nothing else, about the fact that the woman plays a huge role in things (duh:-) and not mentioning that is leaving out some of the story.
Indeed, there is no rulebook to follow when it comes to life matters, and I agree that a proper balance (which is a very individual item) is important. My reply to hugh3 was solely around what I perceive to be a statement made by someone who is yet to be a parent. It's misguided to place any kind of gender stereotype on who plays what role, and it only takes away from the larger message that once a child is brought into this world, the most important and influential job you can have is one of being a parent.
Being a daddy means many things. In the early years obviously your kid will need nothing but your attention. You could be banging cucumbers on your head and you would be bonding.
But as your child grow older shouldn't you also stand for something? Be someone they can look up to be inspired by?
My kid is the most important think in the world, but exactly for that reason I am not stopping everything I have build up so far. I want that to be an inspiration, not just someone he can play hide and seek with.
I don't think that considering your child the most important thing in the world is good for anybody (including your child):
1) Your wife is probably more important, than your child: in 20 years your child would be gone (to have separate life), but you would stay with your wife longer than that.
2) You can have several children. Would you name one of them as "the most important"?
3) If you consider you child the most important -- it may spoil the child.
That said -- children are definitely important part of your life.
Once you have kids ... They are more important than anything.
Nope. Not for my wife and I. Our marriage comes first, our children a very close second.
...your children should mean absolutely everything to you. Nothing else should matter in the world.
A lot of other things matter in my world. My daughter is just one aspect of my life (albeit one of the most awesome aspects!).
I grew up with parents who sacrificed way too much of their own lives "for the children", with horrible consequences (they fought constantly, and I grew up wishing they would get a divorce).
This could be true for humans in general, if humans weren't products of evolution. Ever notice that anyone who writes blog posts about babies on HN are absurdly pro-baby? It's because we wouldn't pass on our genes if we weren't.
It's possible for a father, perhaps, to consider the wife more important (after all, she can produce more babies!) but I doubt most mothers would agree that the husband is more important than the child, especially since a growing number of them don't even have one.
Re: 3, thinking that your child is the most important thing in your life has little bearing on how you raise them, except perhaps on the tail end where parents do not care at all and the child ends up being taken away by the DSS.
1) The reason why baby-posters are so pro-baby is not as much about natural selection, but more about different kind of filter: the one who is NOT pro-baby is less likely to write about babies.
Not that it matters in the context of this discussion though :-)
2) Wife can not only produce more babies, but also raise existing kids, support the family (financially and otherwise), and more.
The same is applicable to the husband.
3) Internal thinking affects your behavior. A lot.
So if you think that your kid is THE MOST important thing in your life -- you are more likely to make mistakes and bad choices.
I used 'child', but I did mean 'children'. Not going to travel down the road of semantics there.
I also don't believe I advocated, nor did Jason in his post, the stopping of everything else in one's life so that they can be a parent. "Most" important implies that there are other things of importance in ones life, and having accomplishments that can be shared with or serve as inspiration to our children is a wonderful gift to give.
As Einstein said, "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
I write in a gender independent style (unlike your comment!).
That is why I didn't bring up a "my wife" or "your wife." Many of the folks who responded to the email were women running startups who have stay at home dads, or dads as primary caregivers.
Additionally, there are families with one parent, three parents, four parents and any number of gender permutations. (Think divorced folks who remarry/re-partner... thus the child having 3 or 4 parents).
I tried to address the issue of a startup founder and a baby, and figured it was implied that your partner (or partners) need to buy in.
You are correct in that you need your partner(s) buy in, but incorrect in that the person has to be a wife!
Finally, it's wildly offensive to say women should not run a startup. I'm guessing you are troll in order to get a reaction here, since you're making such an outlandish statement AND saying you won't discuss said outlandish statement (in a discussion forum).
When exactly did he say "women should not run a startup."?
> "I write in a gender independent style (unlike your comment!)."
That seems fairly silly considering 95%+ of founders are men. Women founders are an edge case. Whether that's how things should be or not is a question for another day IMHO (Ask women why they don't want to be founders), but acknowledging the fact that 95% of founders are men, isn't being sexist.
I think his point is completely valid - if you have a supportive spouse, you can be 50% involved in baby, or you can be 1% involved in baby. If it's 1% then it won't really impact your success in a startup (Although you'll most likely live to regret it).
>> When exactly did he say "women
>> should not run a startup."?
At the end of his message he writes: "For the case of a female entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at the same time.)"
>> Women founders are an edge case.
While it might be true that female founders are a small percentage, that doesn't mean they don't deserve the respect of being included in the discussion on equal footing.
They are equally capable of being founders, as such it's best to use gender-neutral language out of respect.
Another way to think of this, is that women wanting to vote was an edge case.
Another way to think of this is that black founders are an "edge case" according to your description. That doesn't mean you should exclude them from the discussion.
The words we choose are very important, and being inclusive costs you nothing but a little bit of empathy and diligence when thinking about the "edge cases."
And yes, his point about having a supportive spouse making it easier is correct. However, in many cases that spouse needs to make money to support the startup spouse--which precludes them being the primary caregiver. Which goes to my point of "start in your 20s, family in your 30s" advice.
> When exactly did he say "women >> should not run a startup."?
At the end of his message he writes: "For the case of a female entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at the same time.)"
Do I really have to explain what's wrong with that?
Is it really worth everybody's time for me to come up with a silly analogy like how "Jeff Goldblum cannot carry a sheep and a chainsaw simultaneously" is not the same thing as saying "Jeff Goldblum cannot carry a chainsaw?"
Finally, it's wildly offensive to say women should not run a startup.
No, I said women shouldn't run a startup and have a baby at the same time. Apart from the fact that having a baby unavoidably takes up more of a woman's time than a man's on a biological level (how is babby fed?), the general observation is that women psychologically want to spend more time with their children than men do.
Men and women are largely interchangeable, except around breeding time, where their brains and bodies become very different. Their brains much less so than their bodies, but there's still a lot of instinct built into the human psyche.
As a more general point, while you'll sometimes go wrong with generalizations of the form "women like A while men like B" you'll go wrong less often than you will with the belief that men and women are completely interchangeable on all levels.
As a parent myself I would like to turn it around a little.
The question is not whether you should or shouldn't pull of your first startup after you have a kid, but what you want your kid to know you as.
Many parent's cocoon once they become parents and become very risk averse.
But there is no more risk doing a startup than there is keeping your job. There is no jobs that are safe. No certain income.
By forcing yourself to become more risk averse (which starting a company perception wise would be) you are actually making yourself and your family a favor IMHO. You grab the bull by the horns and build a situation were risk is an active part of the game instead of being the pink elephant in the room.
Living in Denmark we obviously have many more safety measures than in the US (and also rather high taxes) but as I said at the end of the day you are not more secure in a job than you are in a startup.
A lot of people are saying "no, it's possible", but as far as I can tell none have already built a successful company (by Silicon Valley standards) while raising a baby; they are all "in-progress".
Has anyone actually done it and care to share their experiences?
Jeff Vogel's been building computer games for 16 years, and his kids are younger than that. He runs his own company, but it's probably different than the companies people around here imagine themselves making. Anyways, http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/ . He has a bunch of baby stories (which are quite hilarious) http://www.ironycentral.com/babymain.html .
I think those of us saying it's possible mean that it isn't impacting what we do in such a negative way that we feel it is altering our chances. I don't think my journey would be drastically different without kids.
If you want a concrete example though, I know both the founders of Omniture had kids on the way to their IPO and eventual $1.6 billion acquisition.
I have three kids (ages 4, 6, and 10) and built examprofessor.com which launched in 2006. The company is profitable, but not wildly successful by Silicon Valley standards.
I am not the sole founder, but I venture to say I have done (and continue to do) my fair share of the work. I work on the design, sales, the user interface, programming, support, server maintenance, maintenance, accounting - nearly everything.
The key to success? I try to make the product a little better each day, even if the changes are tiny (code comments, etc.). I am not able to sit down and bang out code all day due to family obligations, but persistence, focus, and making smart, calculated changes, over a longer period of time can make for a pretty fantastic product.
Also, doing your own support + programming puts you in a unique position to listen, work on, and fix issues that cause the most problems.
In my personal opinion, true success is when you've achieved a level of success your happy with while also maintaining perhaps even strengthening your family relationship.
Was going to throw in "while keeping your sanity", but there are a few people who's loved ones already knew they were crazy to begin with ha-ha.
As the father of a four-year-old and the founder of two post-child startups, I can say that it's still possible to work on a startup and have a kid.
The biggest change you'll find is that there's basically zero time left for your personal coding and hacking interests: setting up that home Samba server or writing an open-source project that isn't startup-related just never seem to have time to happen.
I highly recommend finding a way to work from home as much as possible for the early years. The hours you lose on your commute are valuable time. Both startups (dotspots.com and gri.pe) are both zero-office affairs which meshed reasonably well with my family life. It also helps to be a Canadian: the expenses to cover food, utilities and mortgage aren't that hard to meet.
I'm a new Dad, in my late 30's and I'm starting up a new business. It's not easy, but I have support. Although my wife and I are a team, she's taking on most of the work during the day (and in the night). She believes in me and wants to make sure that I have the bandwidth to do the things that I need to do. When I'm not working, I do my part to help with my son. We try and give each other "me time" breaks as much as possible. It's still early, but things are working out.
The article definitely touches on one thing that is definitely true. Time is now no longer a luxury, it's a gift. So, you must make the most of it. This is driving me to be as efficient as possible. Which is something that I really need and I think it's going to benefit me.
I think the one thing that actually drives me more so than before is that now when I'm working on my business, I feel a lot more motivated to get things done and being successful. My calculated risks are a little more calculated than before. I feel as though this is going to be one of the secrets to my success.
Bottom line: I see this as an advantage...as long as you have that support.
Brandon, the founder at ChallengePost (I work there. @jason is an investor in us) has 3 young kids... yes, 3! I honestly don't know how he does it, but it works.
I hate to be this negative, but the parenting threads on Hacker News have been almost uniformly useless to me. The one comment that stood out was: "Most of the advice you hear will work for everyone else's kids, but not yours".
Only you are the expert on your life. Reading other peoples' anecdotes is fun, but at the end of the day not often very helpful.
The one piece of advice I would give is to read this book:
4 kids and 1 year into a startup here. It is not easy. If you don't have the support of your wife (and you want to stay married), don't even try. You have to prioritize very well, and force yourself to take breaks for your family. You don't want to be absent for a year or more of your kids life, you'll never get that time back. You'll also need a more income or savings to cover basic expenses. It is a very difficult balancing act.
def agree with Jason's bottom line comments:
1. kids + no resources + first startup = #fail
2. kids + resources/support + second or third startup = totally fine/you’ll be inspired."
For me its all about having resources and support, Jason is quite fortunate because he is wealthy and can afford all the extras like nanny's, night nurses, etc, so the load on his spouse is much manageable.
On the flip side if your not wealthy its going to be much harder and puts you in the position that you need to take a decent salary if your going to go full time on your startup, which means you need traction and funding or a profitable business.
Parenting is a fabulous example of bootstrapping - you get much craftier, less wasteful, and in fact may have more time on your hands because your at home more. Once the kids go to sleep - start hacking away at your projects.
I would also say that when you have kids you appreciate some of the perks of normal job more like vacation time, steady income and health care benefits etc.
We've been bootstrapping our company for 2 years now and I have 2 kids (4 and 2 yrs) and it has somehow worked but not without a lot of extra challenges. I'm hoping that at this point we have enough traction to take it to an Angel/VC and get some funding so I can digg in 150%.
To answer the question outright, yes. Popular topic these days on HN. I am a 29 year-old female founder expecting my first child soon, based in Tokyo and I applied to YC recently.
I have been blessed with an incredible support system. My husband and I both worked hard and saved over the last four years, my technical co-founder is an experienced parent of two in his 40s, the community here in Tokyo has been unbelievably supportive and, not to mention my family and close friends who are all aware of my YC application and have agreed to help us in both relocating to the valley and helping us on a rotating schedule to support us and help with our baby, if we are indeed selected.
We have the resources and the support, as Jason has suggested is most critical. I personally think this is a perfect time for me to pursue my start-up, especially in Japan. Women in the workplace and policies here are still significantly behind those in the US.
I've always taken huge risks and gone after what I wanted. This is no exception.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadMy 2nd child was born just months before I quit my job to work full-time on my startup. My co-founder also had his first kid at the same time. We worked like crazy this last summer and just recently closed our first round of funding.
Perhaps we were crazy (our wives definitely thought so) but we pulled it off. We're also only in our late 20's :)
With the proper support - definitely possible. I think doing a startup as a single parent with a baby would be near impossible.
I don't really find myself needing to work a lot of hours to make things happen so I'm able to spend plenty of time with my daughter. I have another kid on the way and while I've scaled back my feature list slightly for my next release I'm not terribly concerned about the impact to the business for a few months while I wait for things to settle down. I might be the exception to this though but so far it's been good.
You're 100% correct about how great children are. Children are totally amazing. My daughter is the happiest person I've ever met. She has no idea what I'm doing or why but she loves having me around. Part of why I started this company was to (eventually) spend a lot of time with her as she gets older. I remind myself of that whenever I get discouraged.
How are you able to support you and your daughter? Is your startup already profitable?
If you don't have a strong support network, can't afford for your partner (wife, husband, whatever) to stay home, can't afford a full-time nanny, or don't have any other form of dedicated help (parents, etc), the chances of launching a successful startup decreases with a baby in the mix.
Nothing is impossible. However, your chances of startup success go down if you're trying to juggle a newborn person with a newborn company. If you don't have help, I could see it being nearly impossible.
However, I can guarantee on most days to have 90 minutes to 120 minutes of complete joy with my kids, and weekends that take me away from 'office work'.
And, that 36 hour weekend break is a weekly opportunity I have to review, contemplate, reprioritise--mostly holding this stuff in my head for the weekend. It was hard work at first and now it's something that I look forward to.
On the downside the costs of failure are disproportionately higher.
But that said - focus counts for a lot.
Agree with other comments that fewer all night sprints, some support, and profitability are more of a prerequisite though.
Maybe YCombinator and a baby are not possible? (Unless you are pg)
A lot of time i struggle with the ideas give to my family a better future or a better present, because as long as my experience says you have to take a lot of family time in order to success in your dreams and projects, specially when you are in a "regular" job.
Thanks god, now with the help of my wife we are getting back to work.
Calacanis is right about this much: having a kid is not overrated. It's amazing. However, I would echo another commenter here and suggest that what I've observed is that I waste less time than I did before the baby. Over the past few weeks I've been more focused and "in the moment" when I am working, because I know once my allotted work time is over, it's baby and Mommy time and rightly so. I've also, in general, been suffering fools less gladly. My time is worth more now.
The one thing I would disagree with Jason about is waiting until a specific time (he says 30-something). I think it's a mistake to reduce it all to a matter of age; it really does depend on the personalities and circumstances of the parents. Some people are not going to have the energy at age 40 that they had when they were 20, especially if you didn't take care of your physical and mental health when you were young. He's right to add that they use up a lot of your energy. Another reason to consider starting a family early. I'll be 60 when my son turns 18 and presumably starts college. Not everyone wants to do that, or can!
1) The wisdom that comes with age does not really help much dealing with kids, but that wisdom would definitely help to run successful startup.
2) With age it's harder to have healthier babies. Especially for women.
So it's better to slow your start-up development (or even postpone it if necessary) and have kids first.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-fathers/200901/old...
As much as I'd like to do a startup at this time in my life, I get a feeling I'd really enjoy having a family as I'm a bit of a softie.
Something for me to digest.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
So far so good.
EDIT / PS: Moving to Boston to be near family has been a lifesaver for us. Despite all the negatives (from a startup standpoint) of being here, there's actually very little chance I could work as hard if we didn't have the support.
I've done two startups during our three years and two kids of parenting and the whole situation definitely requires large amounts of energy and effort.
But one cool thing that also starts to happen, for me it was after the parental bonds had started to strengthen and it did take a while, is that I've noticed myself actually drawing energy from them...
There's no other feeling in the world like looking at some little person and knowing they love you unconditionally.
That new project you worked months on that has zero traffic? The VC who walked away? Grief from your wife because you've done two unsuccessful startups now?
None of that is larger than the fact that your kids love you. Which for me, is awesome.
:)
I do miss having some of the free time that I used to be overflowing with, but I wouldn't change a thing (well maybe family close by to babysit the kids every Sunday --> never discount the value of having family near by ... assuming of course you get along well).
Cyril Connolly said “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.”
It seems to me that whether you can have a baby and a startup depends almost entirely on what your wife is like. There's no reason your wife can't take care of the baby on her own with you popping in every now and then to put the bread on the table; it just depends on how supportive she is.
(Yes, this post is horrendously sexist, no I don't feel like discussing that aspect of it, so if you feel compelled to stand up for the notion that men and women are entirely alike then just move on. For the case of a female entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at the same time.)
Of course, you can talk about this stuff beforehand, but once the baby arrives, everything can change in any case.
It's not easy, but hugh3 is right, if nothing else, about the fact that the woman plays a huge role in things (duh:-) and not mentioning that is leaving out some of the story.
Being a daddy means many things. In the early years obviously your kid will need nothing but your attention. You could be banging cucumbers on your head and you would be bonding.
But as your child grow older shouldn't you also stand for something? Be someone they can look up to be inspired by?
My kid is the most important think in the world, but exactly for that reason I am not stopping everything I have build up so far. I want that to be an inspiration, not just someone he can play hide and seek with.
1) Your wife is probably more important, than your child: in 20 years your child would be gone (to have separate life), but you would stay with your wife longer than that.
2) You can have several children. Would you name one of them as "the most important"?
3) If you consider you child the most important -- it may spoil the child.
That said -- children are definitely important part of your life.
Nope. Not for my wife and I. Our marriage comes first, our children a very close second.
...your children should mean absolutely everything to you. Nothing else should matter in the world.
A lot of other things matter in my world. My daughter is just one aspect of my life (albeit one of the most awesome aspects!).
I grew up with parents who sacrificed way too much of their own lives "for the children", with horrible consequences (they fought constantly, and I grew up wishing they would get a divorce).
It's possible for a father, perhaps, to consider the wife more important (after all, she can produce more babies!) but I doubt most mothers would agree that the husband is more important than the child, especially since a growing number of them don't even have one.
Re: 3, thinking that your child is the most important thing in your life has little bearing on how you raise them, except perhaps on the tail end where parents do not care at all and the child ends up being taken away by the DSS.
Not that it matters in the context of this discussion though :-)
2) Wife can not only produce more babies, but also raise existing kids, support the family (financially and otherwise), and more.
The same is applicable to the husband.
3) Internal thinking affects your behavior. A lot. So if you think that your kid is THE MOST important thing in your life -- you are more likely to make mistakes and bad choices.
I used 'child', but I did mean 'children'. Not going to travel down the road of semantics there.
I also don't believe I advocated, nor did Jason in his post, the stopping of everything else in one's life so that they can be a parent. "Most" important implies that there are other things of importance in ones life, and having accomplishments that can be shared with or serve as inspiration to our children is a wonderful gift to give.
As Einstein said, "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
To most parent's their children is the most important so I don't think you need to spell that out, we know.
Therefore I can only assume that you meant something different. If not then fine, then I just don't understand the purpose of your post.
I write in a gender independent style (unlike your comment!).
That is why I didn't bring up a "my wife" or "your wife." Many of the folks who responded to the email were women running startups who have stay at home dads, or dads as primary caregivers.
Additionally, there are families with one parent, three parents, four parents and any number of gender permutations. (Think divorced folks who remarry/re-partner... thus the child having 3 or 4 parents).
I tried to address the issue of a startup founder and a baby, and figured it was implied that your partner (or partners) need to buy in.
You are correct in that you need your partner(s) buy in, but incorrect in that the person has to be a wife!
Finally, it's wildly offensive to say women should not run a startup. I'm guessing you are troll in order to get a reaction here, since you're making such an outlandish statement AND saying you won't discuss said outlandish statement (in a discussion forum).
> "I write in a gender independent style (unlike your comment!)."
That seems fairly silly considering 95%+ of founders are men. Women founders are an edge case. Whether that's how things should be or not is a question for another day IMHO (Ask women why they don't want to be founders), but acknowledging the fact that 95% of founders are men, isn't being sexist.
I think his point is completely valid - if you have a supportive spouse, you can be 50% involved in baby, or you can be 1% involved in baby. If it's 1% then it won't really impact your success in a startup (Although you'll most likely live to regret it).
At the end of his message he writes: "For the case of a female entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at the same time.)"
>> Women founders are an edge case.
While it might be true that female founders are a small percentage, that doesn't mean they don't deserve the respect of being included in the discussion on equal footing.
They are equally capable of being founders, as such it's best to use gender-neutral language out of respect.
Another way to think of this, is that women wanting to vote was an edge case.
Another way to think of this is that black founders are an "edge case" according to your description. That doesn't mean you should exclude them from the discussion.
The words we choose are very important, and being inclusive costs you nothing but a little bit of empathy and diligence when thinking about the "edge cases."
And yes, his point about having a supportive spouse making it easier is correct. However, in many cases that spouse needs to make money to support the startup spouse--which precludes them being the primary caregiver. Which goes to my point of "start in your 20s, family in your 30s" advice.
At the end of his message he writes: "For the case of a female entrepreneur I'd say no, you probably shouldn't have a baby and a startup at the same time.)"
Do I really have to explain what's wrong with that?
Is it really worth everybody's time for me to come up with a silly analogy like how "Jeff Goldblum cannot carry a sheep and a chainsaw simultaneously" is not the same thing as saying "Jeff Goldblum cannot carry a chainsaw?"
I'm assuming that it isn't.
No, I said women shouldn't run a startup and have a baby at the same time. Apart from the fact that having a baby unavoidably takes up more of a woman's time than a man's on a biological level (how is babby fed?), the general observation is that women psychologically want to spend more time with their children than men do.
Men and women are largely interchangeable, except around breeding time, where their brains and bodies become very different. Their brains much less so than their bodies, but there's still a lot of instinct built into the human psyche.
As a more general point, while you'll sometimes go wrong with generalizations of the form "women like A while men like B" you'll go wrong less often than you will with the belief that men and women are completely interchangeable on all levels.
The question is not whether you should or shouldn't pull of your first startup after you have a kid, but what you want your kid to know you as.
Many parent's cocoon once they become parents and become very risk averse.
But there is no more risk doing a startup than there is keeping your job. There is no jobs that are safe. No certain income.
By forcing yourself to become more risk averse (which starting a company perception wise would be) you are actually making yourself and your family a favor IMHO. You grab the bull by the horns and build a situation were risk is an active part of the game instead of being the pink elephant in the room.
Living in Denmark we obviously have many more safety measures than in the US (and also rather high taxes) but as I said at the end of the day you are not more secure in a job than you are in a startup.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/09/jasonheartb...
Has anyone actually done it and care to share their experiences?
If you want a concrete example though, I know both the founders of Omniture had kids on the way to their IPO and eventual $1.6 billion acquisition.
I am not the sole founder, but I venture to say I have done (and continue to do) my fair share of the work. I work on the design, sales, the user interface, programming, support, server maintenance, maintenance, accounting - nearly everything.
The key to success? I try to make the product a little better each day, even if the changes are tiny (code comments, etc.). I am not able to sit down and bang out code all day due to family obligations, but persistence, focus, and making smart, calculated changes, over a longer period of time can make for a pretty fantastic product.
Also, doing your own support + programming puts you in a unique position to listen, work on, and fix issues that cause the most problems.
Rome wasn't built over night, so they say.
Was going to throw in "while keeping your sanity", but there are a few people who's loved ones already knew they were crazy to begin with ha-ha.
The biggest change you'll find is that there's basically zero time left for your personal coding and hacking interests: setting up that home Samba server or writing an open-source project that isn't startup-related just never seem to have time to happen.
I highly recommend finding a way to work from home as much as possible for the early years. The hours you lose on your commute are valuable time. Both startups (dotspots.com and gri.pe) are both zero-office affairs which meshed reasonably well with my family life. It also helps to be a Canadian: the expenses to cover food, utilities and mortgage aren't that hard to meet.
The article definitely touches on one thing that is definitely true. Time is now no longer a luxury, it's a gift. So, you must make the most of it. This is driving me to be as efficient as possible. Which is something that I really need and I think it's going to benefit me.
I think the one thing that actually drives me more so than before is that now when I'm working on my business, I feel a lot more motivated to get things done and being successful. My calculated risks are a little more calculated than before. I feel as though this is going to be one of the secrets to my success.
Bottom line: I see this as an advantage...as long as you have that support.
... the man doesn't sleep!
Only you are the expert on your life. Reading other peoples' anecdotes is fun, but at the end of the day not often very helpful.
The one piece of advice I would give is to read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/When-Partners-Become-Parents-Couples/d...
It's an account of a study that looked at enough couples for actual trends to emerge. My wife and I found it incredibly useful.
For me its all about having resources and support, Jason is quite fortunate because he is wealthy and can afford all the extras like nanny's, night nurses, etc, so the load on his spouse is much manageable.
On the flip side if your not wealthy its going to be much harder and puts you in the position that you need to take a decent salary if your going to go full time on your startup, which means you need traction and funding or a profitable business.
Parenting is a fabulous example of bootstrapping - you get much craftier, less wasteful, and in fact may have more time on your hands because your at home more. Once the kids go to sleep - start hacking away at your projects.
I would also say that when you have kids you appreciate some of the perks of normal job more like vacation time, steady income and health care benefits etc.
We've been bootstrapping our company for 2 years now and I have 2 kids (4 and 2 yrs) and it has somehow worked but not without a lot of extra challenges. I'm hoping that at this point we have enough traction to take it to an Angel/VC and get some funding so I can digg in 150%.
I have been blessed with an incredible support system. My husband and I both worked hard and saved over the last four years, my technical co-founder is an experienced parent of two in his 40s, the community here in Tokyo has been unbelievably supportive and, not to mention my family and close friends who are all aware of my YC application and have agreed to help us in both relocating to the valley and helping us on a rotating schedule to support us and help with our baby, if we are indeed selected.
We have the resources and the support, as Jason has suggested is most critical. I personally think this is a perfect time for me to pursue my start-up, especially in Japan. Women in the workplace and policies here are still significantly behind those in the US.
I've always taken huge risks and gone after what I wanted. This is no exception.
http://takara.posterous.com/resigned-from-my-job-having-a-ba...