Tell HN: A new method to maximize hacking in a startup
What I'm trying to do is pause the chores/responsbilities/friends/lifestyle I have now, to increase the time I have to work on the startup because it's that appealing to me. I already sleep 6 hours and work 15 hours, so it's really not a big difference for me. It's the environment away from what I currently have that will enable me to spend more time on the startup. I'm 23, which is why I can do something like this before I have to uphold even more responsbilities. Also, a day has 24 hours, so not including sleep and the 15+ hours of work(breaks are included in that 15+ hours), I have 2-3 hours to myself.
I'm not feeling insecure or hitting a midlife crises- I'm trying to gain even more productivity time for my startup, and the only way I see around it is to temporarily take a break from stuff I'm attached to here.
ALSO: The only calls I plan are taking are from Hong Kong itself in case an emergency happens (A recent relative had a stroke and is in a Hong Kong hospital). Going to Hong Kong enables me to take trips to China, which is a lot of fun and doesn't require staying longer than a day to enjoy. I'm also choosing Hong Kong because I can borrow the vacant house for free (courtesy of my parents). Going to Canada is around 1k round trip for me, whereas Hong Kong is 1.1k round trip. I'd rather go to Hong Kong in terms of that preference. The remaining $900 involves around $200-300 for china (paying the visa to visit there, transportation, etc) and the rest is for food. I've considered going somewhere closer for a week, but I'll definitely burn out if I don't even have anything like China to look forward to. 2 weeks of coding non stop is fine but not 3 weeks( I've done 2 and barely managed to keep motivated towards the end).
I could also take an extra week in Hong Kong to do nothing but have fun if that settles any argument for people.
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THE PLAN
We go to Hong Kong for 3 weeks, living in a vacant house with 2 rooms (one for sleeping, and one as a makeshift office) doing nothing but coding. Literally sleep 5 hours from 3AM to 8AM, at work for at least 15+ hours a day for 6 days a week. I’m thinking this could work, because
1) no girlfriend, and no friends at all to visit- we’re only thousands of miles away from them,
2) no responsibilities- food will be delivered, trash/laundry taken care of by a maid (my parents offered to have their maid come up to our building and clean once or twice a week),
3) there’s absolutely nothing to do where we live! We’re surrounded by mountains, seniors, and the sea. The only thing we can do is run/workout which we plan on doing the remaining time that we’re not hacking away on our laptops,
4) the one day off we have off- we can use it to travel to China and explore and have fun there. In San Diego, there’s really nothing for us to do on our day off anyways- we usually just end up eating lunch, surfing the net, or just hanging out with friends at coffee shops. I figured that the thought of actually going somewhere fun and different like China would be very motivational to keep us working hard the remaining 6 days a week.
5) Oh, and forgot to mention- my cofounder is Korean, he doesn’t speak a word of Cantonese, which helps with keeping us stay focused.
Cons:
1) I’d say we’ll each be short 2k in expenses by going to travel to Asia and do nothing but code.
2) For that 2k each, we won’t even be doing much sightseeing- so basically a waste of a trip in terms of travelling. (
3) What other cons do you see?
What do you think about our isolated environment dedicated to nothing but coding?
We feel that we’ll defin...
21 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 59.0 ms ] threadSeriously though, this is a really weird plan. It's a huge amount of money to spend for something that almost certainly won't have the effect you want. Unless you want burnout and a serious case of "maybe we should have budgeted more time to take a look around Hong Kong, which is actually pretty cool".
Take a working vacation if you want, but it's not the place you're in that's causing you trouble.
The stuff that "distracts" us are responsibilities. They range from working part-time as a sysadmin to pay bills from taking care of family members who are in current need of my support, and having to deal supporting a friend who had to deal with an attempted suicide. I already sleep 6 hours, and spend the rest of my days working.
I figured that one hour less of sleep, and relocating myself temporarily will allow me to simply shift the remaining time that I don;t have for the startup for the startup. It's precisely because I'm excited to work more on my startup that I want to move things around.
We've traveled to many parts of the world and I've lived in Hong Kong before. Each time I do take a vacation there- it's really not the most ideal place for me.
I'm not looking for a vacation, and I'm not stressed or too impatient for success- I'm just looking for a change of pace.
If we had to, we could stay for 4 weeks, work 3 and take more time to look around Hong Kong then for the last week.
8 hours of productivity in a day sounds like a healthy work-life balance to me. You're just frustrated because you're not getting rich yet.
I'm starting to think I should open 'code jail' where programmers will pay me for the privilege of being dragged out of bed at 6am, given a pep talk, nutritious but unexciting meals at 6 hourly intervals, with one hour of forced exercise per day and limited opportunities for social interaction. Basically, I'll be like an extremely abusive boss/prison guard, but you retain the intellectual property for whatever you create while you're in code jail. Or boot camp, or whatever I decide to call it. You can pay me up front or give me 1% of the equity for every week of iron discipline.
I'm really not frustrated despite what people think. I'm just tired of the 9-5 work 8 hour schedule that I've been doing and wanting to change exactly that. Instead, view my situation as someone who;s so interested in working on their startup that they want to quit their 9-5 job. That's exactly like me, except that I want to be able to spend more time on the startup which means quitting the life/drama/responsbilities/work/ I have here for 3 weeks.
haha I'm up by 6AM already, workout, make myself a fantastic breakfast, and begin coding with breaks in between. I'm looking to add more time to my coding schedule, not because I'm frustrated or stressed or even inefficient.
Do weekend sprints where you can tell friends and family that you're going away / working on something but you can return to a normal existence afterwards. Maybe rent a hotel suite instead of paying to go to HK.
I take time off, and I'm really not stressed. In fact, I maintain a rigorous schedule of working out and running, and eating healthy.
I also don't drink or smoke even though most of my friends do(most of them were in College).
Thanks for the tips, but I'm really not impatient, and each step I take is carefully planned.
And your schedule sounds like too much coding and not enough sleep. Why don't you try getting 10 hours of sleep for a few weeks and see if that helps your focus at all. And longer breaks between coding sessions.
I get plenty of sleep as I do now (6 hours) and sleeping in past that normally makes me feel groggy and tired. I have a very healthy schedule, with lots of small but good breaks in between my coding sessions.
A couple of years ago I decided to do something similar. I rented a cabin at a state park a few hours from my house. It cost me about $200 for the week. I had a kitchen and TV, but no cell service or internet. I got a ton done.
So, I understand the idea behind what you are doing, but I don't understand Hong Kong at all. Maybe try it for a week somewhere close (but remote) and see if it works for the two of you as a team.
I'm doing precisely what you did with the cabin, except I need to be out of the country to avoid calls from my clients even when they know I'm on vacation. The only calls I plan are taking are from Hong Kong itself in case an emergency happens (A recent relative had a stroke and is in a Hong Kong hospital).
Going to Hong Kong enables me to take trips to China, which is a lot of fun and doesn't require staying longer than a day to enjoy.
I'm also choosing Hong Kong because I can borrow the vacant house for free (courtesy of my parents). Going to Canada is around 1k round trip for me, whereas Hong Kong is 1.1k round trip. I'd rather go to Hong Kong in terms of that preference. The remaining $900 involves around $200-300 for china (paying the visa to visit there, transportation, etc) and the rest is for food.
I've considered going somewhere closer for a week, but I'll definitely burn out if I don't even have anything like China to look forward to. 2 weeks of coding non stop is fine but not 3 weeks( I've done 2 and barely managed to keep motivated towards the end).
Figure out how to build your startup while maintaining a normal lifestyle. Working 15 hours a day isn't sustainable, nor is it desirable.
I've done similar amounts of work before, and I can tell you from a year-long experience going to comp sci school 8-10 hours a day (usually taking extra classes), working another 6-8 hours on top of that to pay the bills, sleeping 4-6 hours, and using whatever scraps of time left over on homework and a significant other that this is going to leave you worse off than that and it may drive you and your cofounder apart. What did I get out of that? A year that I don't remember and a year I never want to repeat again.
I would take 8-10 hours/day of intense, highly focused work on something I love over 15+ hours/day of work on something that doesn't seem to be really, really fascinating/engaging/interesting to you. All that I see you really being passionate about from your question is working a ton of hours each day to try to get something that you may not 100% enjoy out the door so you can focus on the next thing.