6 Sacrifices Founders Shouldn't (But Do) Make

It’s 4am on Friday night. This newsletter goes out in 3 hours.

It’s been done for hours, but I stayed up to keep working on other things even though I plan to go to the gym in the morning, and have a nice afternoon date planned with my wife.

For most people that would seem odd… at a minimum. Why not just leave work til Monday (or at least tomorrow)? But founders are different.

Often this means making tradeoffs. No, not the kinds I talked about last week that can help you build a more resilient startup. Founders also make sacrifices outside of work that most people wouldn’t.

And we shouldn’t in some cases, but we do it because we’re driven by a mission we feel compelled to see through. Here’s what those tradeoffs are and how I recommend handling them 👇

6 Sacrifices Founders Shouldn’t (But Do) Make

Financial Stability

Ownership is the key to building wealth, but a startup’s chances of success are so low that it’d be foolish to become a founder if your goal is to make money.

In fact most founders could almost certainly make more money, more reliably, by getting a job.

After working at Uber and Airbnb for 4 years in roles of increasing responsibility it would’ve been easy for me to sit comfortably and coast through the next 20+ years.

Some people do this. This post on Hacker News is particularly wild. The poster says he’s “on a $1.5 million run rate” for the year by holding up to 10 software engineer jobs at a time.

Instead founders do the opposite.

When I started my last company I put $25,000 on my credit card before I even knew it’d be a business. Then my co-founders and I put over $200,000 into it when we had a big early expense before we were in a position to fundraise at attractive terms yet.

Crazy? Definitely (and 100% not recommended). Thankfully it worked.

Even if you’re not doing anything quite that crazy, you’re probably making some form of financial sacrifice to invest in building your startup.

The good news is that if your startup works out you’ll end up in a better position than you would have, and if it doesn’t then you’ll have learned the skills to be worth more on the hiring market anyway.

Mental Health

Let’s be honest.

Running a startup is stressful. When things are good, you’re balancing a ton to grow faster. When they’re bad… well, it can be tough to manage.

My best advice for managing mental health as a founder? Experiment and find a system that works for you.

For some people that’s working with a founder coaching or traditional therapist. For others (like me) it’s prioritizing unproductive solo time, going on long walks, and taking time off when I need it for a change of scenery.

When my last startup didn’t work out it was tough to process. I had high hopes for it, and it had tons of momentum. Once I realized it wasn’t going to make it I knew I needed to unplug.

I ended up taking 3 months off and spending the winter in Cape Town with my wife. My biggest worry was which winery we’d visit each weekend. The point was to be unproductive.

As a result I’ve been able to be all-in on now growing this newsletter business from $0 to $600,000 in annualized revenue in 5 months.

I’ve lived with other founders who haven’t done this — they’ve just tried to grind through it and ignored their own signs of deteriorating mentally.

It always leads to burnout eventually. A founder once screamed in my face in a walk-in closet for 15 minutes because they were upset at other people. Don’t let it get to that point.

Partner & Family Time

One of my favorite essays from Y Combinator’s founder Paul Graham doesn’t have anything to do with startups — it’s about having kids.

He starts by saying “before I had kids, I was afraid of having kids” and I think a lot of founders feel this way.

When you’re heads down grinding and trying to build the future it can be easy to consider anything that takes time away from that as something to avoid. I know I used to think that way, at least.

On top of that, one of the biggest force-multipliers in your life will be choosing the right partner. If you choose well, you’ll have someone by your side supporting you in the ways you need it (whether that’s an intellectual sparring partner you trust, being willing to move across the country with you, or just someone you enjoy unwinding with).

I don’t have kids yet but my advice is to prioritize a real path towards these things rather than assuming it will happen later, and then holding on tight once you have them. They’ll be with you longer than your startup, even if it’s a massive success.

Other Goals

Normal people aim to be well-rounded. They set aside time for various hobbies and goals. Maybe they want to train for an ultra-marathon, read a book every week for a year, or join a local weekly pickleball league.

Most engineers at Google certainly aren’t thinking about fixing bugs on the weekends.

Founders do the opposite. Founders don’t set goals, they set a north star. And that north star tends to be growing their startup.

They put as much time as possible into directly working on their business. And when they’re not working on it they’re probably still thinking about it.

Granted many successful founders I know do have other goals they consistently devote time to. But most would tell you that in the early days they had to sacrifice those things to varying degrees in order to keep the company on the right track.

Health & Wellness

Stress eating. Inconsistent sleep. Missing the gym.

It’s easy to slip into bad habits with these when you’re stressed about your startup. Ironically these tend to make focus and consistent progress with your startup harder.

But, I get it. Changing your mindset about this is hard.

One way of thinking about it that’s worked for me is to think of yourself as an athlete. Founders need to be at peak performance to navigate the idea maze, and have the stamina to see a startup through to success.

Your best chance of actually doing this is to be at the top of your game.

I’m not saying you need to go out and get a hyperbaric chamber like NBA or NFL players, but prioritizing health consistently will pay off in the long run.

Social Life

Founders are the only people who choose to avoid working 40 hours (for someone else) in order to work 80 (for themselves).

Those extra 40 hours can only come from nights & weekends (or very early mornings).

When you aren’t working it’s often to go to industry meetups, hackathons, or other ways of networking. Aka not really a traditional social life.

Building relationships in non-professional settings is one of the best ways to increase your luck surface area. You’ll be exposed to new ideas and recharge your mental energy. This alone is worth it, especially if you’re young.

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