Money Saving tips turn into…have a life and get fired.
Recently I have been seeing alot of talk about the work life balance in the startup community. On a Seattle Startup mailing list talking about the 4 day work week and then today Jason Calacanis and Tech Crunch have been posting back and forth about their ideas for a work life balance at a startup.
Calacanis posted a great post about money saving tips for a startup. His ideas include
- Buying lunch for the team and having meetings over lunch- Save time and not have other meetings.
- Buy Mac’s- more expensive up front, but save money on IT.
- Buy second monitors- makes people more productive and happy.
- Don’t buy a phone system- Most people can use cell phones, only buy phones for the people on them all the time.
- Buy the hardest working people computers from home so that they can work at home and on their own time.
- Get an expensive automatic espresso machine and keep it fully stocked with milks, nice beans, and syrups.
- Don’t waste money on PR or recruiters.
and the one that has created all of the publicity around the web…
- “Fire people who are not workaholics…. come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in your life. For realz.”
I thought the list was a great starting point on where to save money, and keep productivity up in a startup. I was going to blog about the article when I first read it, but before I got around to blogging about it TechCrunch attacked Calacanis with a post titled “Calacanis Fires People Who Have a Life.” Pulled a few quotes out of the post and basically slammed Calacanis for the last quote. As Calacanis later put it in a follow up post, that headline sure sounds like it’s out of the valley’s gossip blog, Valleywag.
So the questions is; Can you have a life and work at a startup? I think that you definitely can. I think that you need to work more than 40 hours a week at a startup and be very flexible in the hours that you work, but I don’t think you need to give up on the rest of your life either. I think that you can work 60 hours plus a week and still have a life. It seems like you can be a “workaholic” if you want to call it that, yet still have a balanced life. So many people want to say that if you work more than 40 you’re forgetting about the rest of your life and I just don’t think it’s that simple. It’s totallt dependend on how much you enjoy your work and how you’re able to change between your personal life and your work life.
Can you work more than 40 hours a week and have a life? 60 hours? When is it too much?
Also, any thoughts on Calacanis’ money saving tips? If I were to create a small startup I think I would take the majority of them to heard. Not because of him, but because I’ve been a part of the startup and I think that these could really work.
Calacanis’ How to Save Money Running a Startup
TechCrunch: Calacanis Fires People Who Have a Life
Calacanis’ response: Can you have a life and work at a startup company?
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Interesting Otis. I’m a huge fan of balance. When I worked away from home it was in a setting where burn out was everywhere. People poured their life into their work for very little pay and an exhausted lifestyle. They ate unhealthy, their families suffered, and so did they. However, they were helping people. They gave their best to strangers all day to come home and give their worst to their families.
So, my perspective is not one of a business mind. More of a mental health / family centered perspective. My parents have their own business and therefore I come from that perspective as well.
Yes, you can work more than 40 hours a week and still have a life. I think 60 is pushing it! It also may depend on what you call a life and how you cope with lack of sleep:-).
How are you energized? Are you working to gain power, money, prestige - what? If your personal life energizes you, you will be a much better employee if you get to do it.
My parents work all the time. They are burnning out. It’s been a long haul for them. They have sacraficed much for what? A big house and beautiful property - when do they get to take advantage of that? A successful business - yes but it will only last so long. What?
Probably not the way you wanted the discussion to go but you hit a button:-).