Tell HN: I want out
Originally I started my company with a very close friend, and it was great. We decided we can't be cold calling all day and getting contracts, so we brought a business guy.
It's been three months now, we have employees, many clients, and my phone is going off with texts every 5 seconds.
I have never felt so much anxiety in my life. This is the direct opposite of what my goal was. I don't want employees. Or a company. At all.
If I leave, everyone will hate me. I was the one that painted the vision, the direction, did most of the work. I just want to earn decent money and be able to do what I want to do whenever during the day.
I honestly thought I was super tough and I can take this on. I actually really just want to kill myself. I so
Right now I'm working 14 hour days and everyone gets mad when someone tries to leave while the others are working. There is no FREEDOM. The whole point of this venture WAS FREEDOM. Beers at 2pm? Sure! Not "um we have 8 pages left to design for tomorrow, nobody is going anywhere" says one of the developers. This attitude, day in, day out. Always something to do, always due tomorrow. I don't have the spine to delay my clients or deliver anything less than perfect and it's breaking me. My developers don't want to do anything besides work, which I mean is fucking great, but this is the flip side.
I can't ditch my clients, my business partners, my friends, my employees. I don't know how to get out. I so furiously pitched my friends to start this company, I brought them ALL into this. I hired everyone, I convinced them to jump ship from their jobs and work with me. If I bail now, every word I said, anything I did, will mean nothing.
106 comments
[ 1327 ms ] story [ 4074 ms ] threadWhat you need is a long vacation. I would recommend you to find the right sub-ordinates/partners to take your place for the time being and plan a 2-3 week trip to a place where you can relax. :)
The whole point of building a company is that different people can do what they are best at and solve a problem. All members of an organization are a cogs in the wheel. They all need to move together to get things done smoothly. Being an entrepreneur has a lot of pressure but when you already have a company set up, with employees, with business people etc, you should focus on building strategies. Delegate more, hire the right people, apply the right management techniques which suit your work culture. It's all about having the right people under you so that you can just lead the company in the right direction.
Trust me, a vacation will have a big influence on you right now and give you a different perspective too :)
Take care and don't take any rash decisions.
- Sumeet
The job at hand isn't killing you, the anxiety is (probably)
If that doesn't work for your co-workers, you fundamentally have an unsustainable company, which is no more your fault than theirs.
When clients and your work make a claim for your personal time, you need to put a stake in the ground - directly or indirectly by not responding outside working hours.
It also sounds like you may have a problem with your planning and workflow, if you've got e-mails and texts coming your way like a hailstorm. Since you're a founder, you're fortunately in a position to dictate how communication and project management works. Because no one deserves a flurry of e-mails and texts.
A book you might find useful is 'The Business Side of Creativity': http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294978649
That said: what stops you from having an all-hands meeting and saying "Is this REALLY what we want?" If it isn't, it is your business. Change it. Client needs to be able to text you at 8 PM? Client will be assisted in finding a more appropriate service provider. Employee feels that nobody can go home at 6? Employee gets told by his boss "Go home. It will be here tomorrow. There are companies that pull all-nighters every day. This is not one of them."
Also: raise your rates.
Higher rates help filter out demanding clients and also make it "worth it" when you do get a demanding one. Higher rates helps focus you, with 20 cheap clients you'll feel like going bonkers. With one or two high-paying clients you'll feel focused.
With higher rates and therefore more focus you also provide better customer service during the day. That will help reduce the amount of off-hour communications (this is also a boundary thing that Patrick already mentioned, be firm). Clients that understand that they get what they pay for and are comfortable paying a higher rate usually let you do what they are paying you to do and only communicate on the set meetings over minutiae.
Receiving a text every 5 seconds doesn't sound right.
You're probably running around putting out fires right now, but I recommend you make the time to sit down for a couple days and draft some basic guidelines for working with client and managing projects and teammates.
Without this you'll probably keep on getting down the "let's just get that one more project out the door" rabbit hole.
I've probably been through very similar things myself, feel free to drop me an email (in my profile) if you want to chat about it.
1) If you have too much work, raise your rates until you don't.
2) If you don't like the environment you are working in, change it or leave.
This! I ran my first company for 6 years. When I left, I felt guilty as hell. I didn't know if the company could survive without me. Turns out it did GREAT without me-- arguably better than when I was running it. No one tells entrepreneurs that changing paths is a LOT harder than if you have an honest job... It's not as easy as 2 weeks notice, but it's a helluva lot easier than you think it is.
Several companies later (and about a year ago), my wife and I took off and traveled for about a year. I highly recommend it.
I cannot give you any first hand advice, because I've not been in any situation like that, so please take anything I write with a grain of salt. Just good intentions here, because I really feel you man.. it's very though to stand your man, when you feel or know that everything depends on you.
Instead of making you the single point of failure in the structure, the vision you have should not hinder you from ever reaching that vision. I think you need to focus on what is exactly the thing your clients really want and that requires talking with clients 1 on 1, making a few a/b test and communicating the core values to your team. Why spend 4hours on design, when your client really just wants a login-system that works (for example).
You have really great employees, but talking about an exit would subconsciously demotivate everyone, even those with the best intents. I don't know and cannot give you any first hand experience, but whatever you do, take at least 1-2days off-work to think about the goals you want to reach with your team. They should finish whatever is left and stop hand-holding each other in order to push everyone else to work as hard as they do. A successful company is not only about hard work, but good organization and execution of ideas. This could feel like either an iron-man like marathon or cool vacation, depending on how you manage and motivate people.
You've pointed it out correctly, you're at a crossing, which could result in success for the company or burning out yourself and your employees, depending on how things are managed. Your gut feeling was right and asking others for help is surely the right way.
Update: You should check one of the many good articles written by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/love.html (How to do what you love)
For the organization, the time for sprinting is over, and time setting up the organization for the routine of the marathon has arrived.
For you, take a vacation of a day today. And another day. Rest. And think about your life.
For the organization: Time to reject some clients, in order to:
1) reduce the queue of work
2) give the whole team a sensible work life
3) have a sensible company culture that allows everyone to have a life, health, relationships and leisure.
4) the leader is the example of health and culture. Lead and do, and promote better health for everyone
5) be able to properly delegate (and have people to delegate to), to your second-, third-, and fourth-in-command, who each have enough slack to take on managing the way you have been until now.
patio11 helpfully describes one classic consultant method to reduce your queue of work, while sustaining the company: raising client prices / rates. Another is to select your jobs and clients. What do you really want to do and work on? Manage your collective work life.
Raise the rates right now 50% for the next new client, and warn old clients the rates are going up in three to six months.
Result:
1) sufficient income to support what actually is required to be done to serve the clients and to serve you, the workers
2) reduced work-queue
3) better quality clients that understand the value of you and the company's work
4) enough income to fully staff and support all of the work, and to support your staff too
5) enough slack on the part of the staff to think ahead, and not work only in crisis & panic mode
6) plus work-environment improvements that include vacations and similar recognition of work-life balance that acknowledges demands of your labor on each of your lives.
I think the question to be asking is "What steps can I take to transition my responsibilities to other people without negatively affecting the company and my colleagues?" If you can find an answer to that question--hiring someone who you groom to replace you, making the business more institutionalized and self-sustaining so that you don't need 14-hour days, etc.--you'll be closer to getting there.
It's pretty incredible how many people I see who start their own companies hoping for freedom, and find the opposite. Responsibility often means less freedom, and having clients and employees beholden to you means more responsibility. In some ways, being employed can mean being more free. There was a great article on HN recently pointing out that the true level of freedom for entrepreneurs is likely to be found not at founding your own company, but specifically at founding your own moderately successful company--once great success comes, you have much more responsibility.
It's your company, if you want to leave on time that is your prerogative, me I'd go pull the master breaker and shout "home time, fuck off" ;).
You sound like someone rapidly approaching burn out, you need to give yourself some time away from a screen to try and get some perspective on what you are doing.
more importantly, the hours and days of the work week are probably a key thing cofounders should a) agree on and b) imemediatly role model as "the culture". c) make sure new hires understand / see / feel the culture.
..someday this is how i'll get to my 4 day work week with my mythical company ;)
The boss not wanting to appear lazy therefore works harder still.
The worst kind of feedback cycle.
"The beatings will continue until morale improves"
ive found getting out with the team for lunches regularly ..like alomost every day helps a lot . this is where the boss can strike up conversation and set the tone.
the boss can also reward folks for having focus and disipline during the work day.
one counter argument that will occur is that people want to work/code on the weekend or late at night "because they like to". My response is: "i would love it if you had non-work hobbies on the nights and weekends - learning those skills can be fun :)"
i dunno, no doubt its hard, but its shit to be burned out.
Ditching everything vs Burning out - classic balancing act of a startup innit
Running full pelt at a marathon only to hit 2 miles exhausted - time for tortoise to take over - he actually makes it!
First off, you CAN leave the business you started if you're getting burned out. Second off, I would try to pinpoint why you dislike working on your company. Does the problem not interest you? You keep referring to everything you are doing as 'work' and paint your coworkers / cofounders as your jailors. If you're not interested in solving that problem, you need to get out or you will bring the company down with you.
Now, you have to ask yourself if you dislike working in GENERAL. That may be a possibility and if you still want to have the dream lifestyle you've always wanted, I would look into freelancing part-time or starting a small lifestyle business that pays your bills and then some but doesn't require much effort.
If you want to fix your current situation/ burnout, try googling around for advice - http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-12/how-to-avoid... - and set expectations with your team on the hours you are available as well. If you just want out, then what's stopping you from getting out and starting over. You can't be passive aggressive about this; it's going to be awful if you stick around, don't deliver, don't show enthusiasm, and aren't willing to fix it and it's going to be awful when you have to tell everyone you're leaving. Starting a company takes more stomach than picking between these 2 decisions and you've already done that so either of these should be a cake walk in comparison!
Realistically, I don't think owning a company will give you massively more freedom than being an employee of one. But it does put you in a position to enshrine freedom as a goal for everyone in the company, employees and owners alike. Economic necessity will mean absolute freedom is never possible. But in my experience, it's very possible to have good work/life balance, flexible hours, and a fun workplace so long as the leadership is on board.
You might also consider asking whether you're setting the right expectations with your clients. If you're constantly making promises that force you to work 14-hour days and always be in crisis mode, perhaps that could be adjusted.
Edit: Downvote? I'm serious about this. Trading is the only activity I know that gives you
1) income
2) no boss to report to
3) no employees to take care of
4) location freedom (e.g. can be done from anywhere)
5) relatively low starting costs
6) low starting risk (you don't need to work 2+ years to figure out if your company will actually make money)
7) a market you know will always be there
8) an ability to be totally hands off with algorithmic trading
Most people think this is a pipe dream — perhaps that explains the downvotes. It's not. I live off semi-algorithmic Forex trading and know many others who do too.
I've been learning a fair amount of modeling and statistics lately and algorithmic trading has started to look a bit more viable as a side project.
I honestly thought I was super tough and I can take this on. I actually really just want to kill myself.
First, you are super tough and this 'Tell HN' is proof of that. When you hit your absolute limit, you reached out for help. That is amazing and everyone here should be proud of you.
Second, if the anxiety is so severe that you want to kill yourself, you have a choice. You can keep doing the same thing you are doing now. Or, you can make big changes. If you keep doing the same thing you are doing, unfortunately, this is only going to get worse. If you want to fix this, you need to make some big changes.
Other commenters have suggested some good changes already. I encourage you to follow their advice. However, my email address is in my profile. If you need someone to talk to, please use it. I can even send you my phone number, or my Skype ID so that if you ever need a friendly voice that likely doesn't know you and who will never judge you, you can reach out. Alternately, go check out http://www.7cupsoftea.com/.
I've felt this exact same way, where I was so anxious that my own death felt like the only way out. You're going through something horrible and posting here represents a herculean effort.
Now, this is an ugly topic to bring up and I don't expect you to answer this on a public forum, but do you have a plan for how and when you will harm yourself? If you do, this is a medical emergency. Please take steps to protect yourself. Unfortunately, in most places, if you tell a medical professional that you have a plan, you are immediately committed for observation. So, be careful, but also take extraordinary steps to care for yourself.
I'm sorry that I don't have a solution. The best I can offer is my support. Use my email address if you need it.
Set 6 pm as the going-home time for EVERYBODY. If something is late because of this, that means the company should not have made commitments it can't keep (and you should take a strong interest in not making the same mistake again).
As someone said, don't answer the phone past a certain time. Most phones have some kind of do-not-interrupt mode. Use that. If people have an emergency, at the very least they can call and leave voicemail.
How about bringing a refrigerator and some beers into the office? Lead by example. If you're drinking beer at 2 pm, that tells everyone else this is the kind of startup where drinking beers at 2 pm is OK. People who are too uptight to deal with that will leave: let them.
It's _your_ startup. Run it the way _you_ think is best. What's stopping you?
"Beers at 2pm? Sure!"
You may want to recalibrate your expectations. I mean, this sounds a lot like you want your cake and to eat it too. What do you consider decent money? If you want to do whatever you want whenever and have beers at 2, you may have to settle for a considerably smaller income than you consider "decent".
Remember to have fun. Make it fun. Hire fun people.
Learn how to say no to business that isn't strategic but will bring in quick cashflow. Obligatory Jobs story
"“He said he was very impressed with what I had done, and that he agreed about the potential for the future, but ‘frankly I’m not interested in working with you on this.’ I asked why. He said: ‘You have to understand. This is something that nobody in the world yet understands. I can’t be distracted. I’m trying to make the best hammer I can make, the best hammer in the world. You can use my hammer to tear something down, or you can use it to build something up. I really don’t care what you do with my hammer. I just want to make the best possible hammer. And what you are doing is a wonderful bit of construction, but to me it’s a distraction.’"
The dev deathmarch needs the hours. But you dont have to be there tracking down production bugs at 1 am. Leave early and show your gratitude by springing for paid long weekend vacations to vegas or whatever.