Ask YC: Experiences with founder burnout?
Burnout feels incredibly illogical, because you can't do what you tell yourself you want to do. You can have a conversation with someone and get right fired up about an idea in-the-moment, but when you try to execute, a blanket of fog comes over your brain and you sit there like a deer in headlights. You can hardly perform at the level of a 10-year-old, no matter how much you tell myself that you want to continue. You try to explain this state to someone else and you get a blank stare; how could you be so "disabled" when you still look reasonably healthy and vivid in conversation? It's tough for them to see this as anything other than a conscious choice, on your part, to quit. But, you know that you keep getting up and trying to hack away at things -- and you keep hitting the same wall. Thankfully, my partners and investor are being very understanding, and they are the ones with the most to lose.
This is really, really tough -- my amazing and talented staff, my dreams and plans, all the relationships we've built, my reputation -- all of it is now at the mercy of the buzzing of my neurons and the chemicals shooting through my veins, caused by the way I've handled myself over the past 10 months ("full steam ahead, I'm 24 and invincible!").
Has anyone here burnt out before, or seen it happen? Has YC learned of any warning signs?
I would guess that being a part of YC itself would help prevent this, because of the opportunity for social support -- it can be really tough not having friends who know what it's like to be where you are, doing what you are.
As for me, I am pretty confident that eventually I'll be able to put myself back together and start something new again -- but I won't be operating anywhere near 100% any time soon, even though I certainly can't sit still as there's still rent to pay and I'm dead broke from having no salary all year.
38 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 89.4 ms ] threadWhy Startups Fail and Why Gigamon Should've Too http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2007/09/why-startups-fa.html
--Denny--
Think things through, determine what you need (and where to get it), and move ahead.
I've had the past couple of weeks off to think about everything, and I think that's why my posting is anywhere near articulate... Two weeks ago I talked to my partners and they recommended that I take some time to think about what I need to make myself healthy again, totally irrespective of what impact that would have on the business.
It was today when I tried getting back into work again by focusing on the most simple of tasks, and I got deer-in-headlights syndrome again -- for the first time since I started my break. One moment back-in-the-game and it felt like I'd had no break at all. So, more time is needed I think.
I agree 100% that health and relationships are most important. I noticed that I was no longer responding to emails from family and friends, and my health was declining. I tried to take action on these more recently but it was a little too late to have enough impact.
If the business was anywhere near stable, it would be a different story, but in our product development we're currently facing an uphill battle wearing rollerskates -- if we're not advancing, we're sliding backwards due to our burn rate and the seasonal nature of our market.
I am writing my own experience as a Crashed-and-"Turned" entrepreneur and I have a slot to publish next Thursday (10/25). Please check back.
<a href="http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/startup-for-less.html">Startup for Less - Survival Guide for Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs</a>
Good luck.
--Denny--
http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2007/10/riding-a-bike.html
Please enjoy.
--Denny--
When I was in your situation, I tried to take pseudo-vacations (i.e. I stayed home for a few days, instead of going to work), but they were never enough. Only by forcing myself to make a drastic lifestyle change, was I able to break out of the fog.
Burnout is your subconscious's way of telling you that you're on the wrong track.
I've found that every time I've felt burned out - whether in writing, coding, startup, life - it's because I was working on something that ultimately was going nowhere. I needed to revisit my assumptions, yet my conscious mind didn't know that. Burnout was a way for my subconscious to say "This isn't going to work, you're not working on the important stuff, take a step back and look at the big picture."
When writer's blocked, I delete the last 3 paragraphs I've written and take the story in another direction. This has almost always cured my writer's block; when it doesn't I delete the last page and take the story in another direction.
When coder's blocked, I revert to my last svn commit and start again, usually with a smaller task. I've thrown away up to a week's worth of work this way, which is another lesson: commit early and often. Commits should be an hourly or minutely process, not something you do after a whole bunch of work.
When blocked in general, I think about the last design decision I made and revisit. Oftentimes, if I'm blocked entirely and can't even get started on implementing a feature, it's because the feature is ill-conceived and needs to be redone. Maybe it's done with incorrect assumptions about how users will use the problem, or maybe it just doesn't serve any purpose. Revisit whether you need the feature at all.
If you find you can't work on your startup at all, maybe it's a sign that your startup is on the wrong track. Revisit your idea. I'm actually at that stage with mine: we scrambled to get a demo ready for YC, but now that I want to procrastinate and avoid work (our market is people who want to procrastinate and avoid work), I find that I don't want to use our product. But I've got some ideas about how to backup and try a different approach, and now I want to try them out and see if they can get me procrastinating with the startup itself.
The bottom line, you need to completely focus on something entirely different than your problem at hand to give your subconscious a chance to recuperate and give you a solution and new inspiration.
There are things I don't care for here in Innsbruck, but I have some nice trails about 5 minutes away from home, and plenty of tall mountains to ride up.
http://www.midnightridazz.com
http://www.openspace.org/
From the top of Black Mountain, you can simultaneously see SF, San Jose, and the Pacific.
"Take a month off. Go hang out with family and friends. Don't think about work. Eat well & exercise. Then we will talk."
It was the best advice I ever got. I realized while I was away that I was working on the wrong problem, and that with some reframing there was a way out. You can't get that perspective while you are in the middle of things.
In any case, it's excellent advice. The only reason I was able to finish grad school was because I took a couple well-timed vacations when I was in exactly the mental state that the OP describes.
At the end of the two months, I have to say, the old job didn't sound so bad anymore. I started grad school afterwards, so I was charged up, but I suspect that the time off was what I really needed. Looking back, it was actually one of the more innovative startups I've ever worked at.
You may be looking at deep long term burnout, but how long as it been since you've walked away from work long enough to reset your head? It doesn't have to be decades - a single year of 10 hour days where you often find yourself at the office on weekends can be enough to cause your mind to rebel and shut down. Think of your head as an employee that has been pushed too hard, and has retaliated by not producing anything.
I've learned to identify my short-term tendency to burn out and distinguish it from true career malaise. Maybe I just need more time off than the average person. I wish I could drive harder, but if I can't, I may as well know that about myself and minimize the damage.
If we had the stability to simply put things on hold, I would definitely take 6-8 weeks off before we decided what to do.
You sound like you need a strong drink. Start with that.
If you are still in China and, damningly, in one of their wretchedly filthy cities. Get out for a while. Go to the country. Go for a run or a walk or get in a sporting fight. Do something human. I have found that I need this antidote to engineering.
10 months is a long time to go at full steam, take a few days off and reset. Do not think about work at all, and go physically exert yourself, eat well and relax.
It will vary by the individual dramatically, but I usually find all I need is a few days to reset.
Best of luck
There is some excellent feedback in this thread. Let me add mine, which may be a little different. I go through what you are experiencing all the time. There are days when I can't stay awake at my terminal. Sometimes I hit a road block and wonder how I'll ever get by. I usually step away for a time, but here is my real secret...
Pick one little thing that needs to get done, no matter how small or unimportant it may seem. If I'm really down, I pick some mundane task like refactoring 25 lines of code, manually updating 50 records, or even changing some naming conventions. But not something big like solving a client-server architecture problem. Hell, that's the reason I'm already down. One other thing - the task must be in the heart of your project; cleaning off your desk or reading a journal don't count. Then do the task. Completely. You'll feel a little better, I promise. The next day, do it again, maybe with a slightly bigger task. And again. And again. Who knows, you may be feeling a lot better before you know it.
I have no idea if my advice can help save your project, but I do know you still want to. Use this group for support (I know I already do) and keep us posted. You are not alone.
1. I didn't write this in the thick of the battle -- I've already had 2 weeks with most of my responsibilities lifted. This is what's given me the presence of mind to write what I have. Also, the more 'down' I am feeling, the more I tend to write. Writing my thoughts comes naturally to me -- it isn't correlated with motivation or mood or anything of that sort.
2. I think advice on tactical stuff like achieving tiny goals daily can actually be detrimental to a person who's beyond a certain point of burnout, because these little changes can distract you from bigger issues that require bigger solutions. Don't get me wrong though, I appreciate what you're saying and I tried ideas just like you've described for weeks before finally realizing where I was at and talking it over with a mentor (who recommended that I act -- fast -- to prevent further degradation).
3. Maybe what you're sensing is that I still really do want to be successful in life -- because I most definitely do. But as for this business, in reality it requires my 100% commitment before it can budge another inch, because we have some big spending humps coming up and if I can't predict with certainty when I'll be back in the game in full force, it's too risky to front more cash right now... and right now all I can think about are the blue skies I need to be staring at while I take a real break, and how intensely awful this has been on my mind and body and how bad it would be to have it continue, now or in the future. So while on some level I do want this business to be successful, I would have a very hard time committing 100% to be available again at a certain, and fairly soon, date. I think that would be too risky for me, and for the investor.
Finding a less stressful job doesn't seem like it should be that hard, but maybe I've just been lucky.
What I've found helps is getting some (and setting some) explicit expectations up front. If your company repeatedly violates these, it's probably time to move on.
Recently at the startup I work for, we were doing a big push for launch (80 hour weeks, etc). One night I finally hit a brick wall and just couldn't be there anymore, like when you're just sitting there looking at the screen not able to work. My PM was being slightly a dick and not hearing me on this, so Office Space style I snuck out the back and just left. The team even had a conversation about whether they should fire me over this infraction, as if I'm their 90-hour a week wage slave.
Another guy stuck it out, but resented the company so much for it that he quit a few days later and wrote a scathing letter to the all hands list / posted it on his blog. Point being, don't let anyone push you around.
And if you're a little savvy with clients / marketing yourself, just know that you can always make 2x as much as a full-time job by contracting, where in theory you should have more control over stress, schedule, etc. (ability to choose decent clients / fire sucky ones, etc)
If I begin to feel even slightly burned out, I make a beeline for Wagamama in Harvard Square (or Faneuil Hall). At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, the combination of the food and atmosphere there are anodyne when I get tired of coding. I hope they expand out from the Boston area soon so you West Coast people find out what you are missing...
I think this is your brain telling you that you would rather be doing something else.
Best wishes for continued success,
Anthony Kuhn Innovators Network
The best thing I can say is now that you've had it happen, you'll be much more sensitive to it and can recognize the warnings signs.
Also consider building in regular self-evaluation and relax time, it helps keep everything in balance.
We all must learn to listen to our body before it tells us to stop. I experience that all the time in the swimming pool (I do ride my mountainbike, but I also swim since ever): the kids jump in, power themselves out in 5 minutes and have to stop then. The experienced swimmers go 10% slower and last for 2 miles. Do the same! And now take 2 or 3 weeks off. Thats the only way to recharge.