Stuck in a cubicle supporting family

You're obviously in a tight spot, it's difficult to bootstrap a startup, keep a full-time job and have a family all at the same time. Believe me, I know.

I think I can give you some insight since I'm in a similar position: I'm finishing my MSc, a part-time web developer at a large company, run a small web dev company I founded (now with a team of 3), work as a sysadmin for a couple of companies and also developing a new web startup (now in the process of raising seed funding). This has been going on for the last 3 or 4 years and I've managed to still have enough work-life balance to keep my girlfriend throughout all that and be happy.

I don't have any kids and that must be a huge challenge. They're also the reason why you must keep pushing forward, but don't get lost in all the things you have to do. Only use your time to help you reach your ultimate goal: more quality time with your family, better quality of life, etc.

Set clear and manageable goals

It would be great if you could have your product with all bells and whistles; however, that is not an option. Go with a Minimum Viable Product and embrace the lean startup ways of bootstrapping.

Build small, fast, validated stuff and put it out there. That means you'll have your product in the market as-soon-as-possible, albeit not a perfect product, and that will allow you to have some revenues from your startup. That helps you in several different ways:

• you'll have "spending money" which you can use to grow the startup faster. You can hire/outsource some of the design and focus on building the market or vice-versa. Of course there are things you can't outsource but set a clear strategy for your first income and use it in order to reach your goals faster
• your family will see value in what you're doing. It's really hard for someone outside of the startup, even close loved ones, to see the value of your product right from the start. Seeing that it is actually making money (read: perceived as valuable by others) will help them understand why you want to spend more time on that.
• having a good product (even an MVP) in the wild and actually interacting with customers will help you realize much sooner if you're going in the right direction, build a community of early-adopters and create traction for your product. The more interaction, the faster things start moving.

Keep track

If you want to succeed, you have to keep track of what you're doing, what you've done and how does that fit into your roadmap.

1. it's a web product, so take care of the infrastructure. Invest some time implementing a continuous integration system that allows you to release and revert versions by sections (think groups of customers) and at the push of a button. This will save you countless hours taking care of "bad" deployments, enable you to test features in a much easier way and you'll also sleep better at night knowing that no "invalid" code goes into production - that means no refunds, complaints, etc.
2. find a project management tool that works for you. I personally use chiliproject, but anything that keeps track of tasks, bugs, and code repositories works. Build a roadmap, assign versions, dates and try to keep tasks small enough to be "built" in 1 to 2h. In each task's description put the first steps to start it, that helps when you're tired and want to work.
3. communicate clearly: with your family about your goals (they should be goals for everyone), with your customers about your products strategy, with everyone who wants to hear about your startup. It's important that people around you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it.

On a closing note, the most important thing is to keep time for yourself. You'll need some time to relax, unwind and just do stuff you like, be with your family and enjoy your life. That's what we work for.

Hope that helps,

Tomé Duarte

I'm going to take the contrarian view and suggest that your current project is doomed to failure.

1. You don't appear to be an optimists or have the drive. This post is a contrarian view here because other entrepreneurs tend to be optimists, and we'll frequently encourage others. It's the only way we can handle all of our endeavors that do fail and without giving up.

2. You already have competition, they appear to be having a difficult time in the space, and you don't describe yourself as highly skilled. So I wonder how you would beat the competition or attract customers yourself.

3. You have a difficult time prioritizing your startup over your day job and enjoying life with your family. You more than likely have better priorities than many of us. However, many successful entrepreneurs do so by putting their business first, which frequently results in other parts of our life being strained.

So at this point, you have a choice, accept reality or overcome adversity. If you read all of this and are still determined, then you may have what it takes. Just realize that you're going to have a much better chance of succeeding if you start making some changes.

If, however, a negative post like this is enough to make you want to give up, then I'd honestly say you should give up, search for a better job, and enjoy your family. Entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, and we wouldn't be doing you a favor by leading you astray just because we're self promoters.

CubicleSlave, I am in a similar position. I have three small boys (one of whom has autism) and I totally get both your exhaustion and how hard it is for others to understand it. I have been chipping away at my startup after hours for three years now, and I'm weeks away from launching with a MVP. It's taken me this long because I have debilitating arm pain that slows me down (if I work too much at my startup it's agony to do my day job), and both of my business partners have been unproductive (one dropped out).

My strategy is to just keep doing a little every night. At the moment I can only do half an hour, but the startup is always moving forward. When we launch, I may not be able to put in enough time to make it the next facebook (er.. Google+ :) ). It may only end up being the equivalent of a small pay rise, but what keeps me going is:

1) It's a new idea that will help a lot of people who are currently hurting with no help. The only way a competitor will eclipse me is to help these people even better, so I still win.

2) I've come too damn far to give up now.

So all I can say is, you have to play the cards you've been dealt. If you only have a little time, only use a little time. Take smaller steps and get some sleep.

Based on your edits and your comments it sounds like you are an unhappy, inflexible person. Please don't take offense at that - it is a quick (possibly inaccurate) observation based solely on what you posted here:

To summarize:

I'm stuck in a cubicle feeding my family, fattening up my landlord and fending off creditors

You seem to resent your family and you clearly are playing a victim regarding landlords and creditors

Obviously you don't have kids either

You are quick to make unfounded assumptions

I can't imagine how my family could help.

You are not looking at the big picture.

Whenever I was away from the project, I lost track of it...

You might be a little too controlling/obsessed with control of the project.

No time to stop and smell the roses.

This is a shame.

Family life is a prison sentence, certainly not something I enjoy.

I am sorry for you. And your family.

Until you have kids you have no idea what busy means. Seriously.

That is arrogant and ignorant - many, many productive people manage to start productive businesses with a family/kids. I know of people who had jobs, raised a family and went to medical school, business school or law school at the same time. Instead of seeing yourself as a victim try to do something about it.

Stuck in a cubicle supporting family

You are right - this says it all.

This is more about your attitude than anything else. I'd suggest fixing your personal life and work happiness first - the rest will follow.

I am not sure you will be able to resolve this but I hope you do.

You mention you start at 11pm and then go to 3am - why not just do one hour a night? Or perhaps start an hour earlier?

Steve, I would say one of the things that makes entrepreneurs unique is their optimism which at times can be delusional.

There is always a million reasons why something wont work. Lay out everything you have going for you. List all the possible things you have going for you. Somewhere in that list is a solution.

Also remember that your idea is just an idea. Its the execution of the idea that really matters. Google wasnt the first search engine. Being first to market can be important but keep it in perspective that your execution is the most important aspect. Keep an eye out what people are doing but dont let it consume you.

If you are crunched for time/resources try and get the most basic version of your product out on market. Strip out all the extras and get a core product out and move on that. If it builds a little bit of traction more opportunities will present themselves.

Good Luck!

Martin

You have a good idea (I assume the idea is still good enough inspite of competition closing in on it) and not enough resources (timewise).

Here are some options:

1. Make some sacrifices in one or more of the other areas to free up resources (time)

   • Work - at your day job - Can you reduce your efforts there and just do enough to get by? This is what MANY folks do.
   • Family - if you can get some help from other members (wife/in-laws/parents) - enough to get time 2-3 days of the week where you can work on your startup
   • Money - do you have any money you can sacrifice and pay some offshore developers (ondesk.com?) to get something accelerated?

2. IF NONE of option 1 is doable - the only alternative is to get another dude/dudette on board with your idea - as a co-founder or otherwise, share some equity and go get'em!

NONE of the above is easy. But neither is starting a startup.

But you seem like you really want to do it and that counts for a lot! Go get'em!

-Siva

PS: I have used ALL of the above :)

The simple answer is to aim lower.

Not that productive with web work? Outsource it or find a partner.

Too big of a project? Try a simpler product.

Need something NOW? I know of a landscaping company where the owner clears over 100k... He started with a push mower and some hustle.

Just need some inspiration? Peldi @ Balsamiq did it (kids + full time job + startup when everyone else was asleep). http://blogs.balsamiq.com/peldi/2011/03/13/bos2010/

Something that I did when I was starting my startup:

Every weekend (friday night, saturday afternoon/night and sunday morning I worked at least 4 hours in my project). The same thing for holiday and vacation. My Christmas bonus, I spent with a freelancer. But what helped me at most was to have a partner, that could share the load with me and bring the motivation when I was almost giving up (the opposite was as well true).

Before you do/start anything, you need to change your attitude. Your post resonates a lot of blame and hatred especially toward capitalists who you desperately want "seeding" from.

I was touched by your question and your situation. BUT.

You cannot do everything at a high degree: You cannot feed your children, every day, play with them everyday, feed your wife and spend quality time with her everyday, work in a cubicle everyday and deliver quality focus, attention dedication and time into all of those meanwhile expecting your own new web startup business to take off magically...

"SOMETHING's GOTTA GIVE"

Meaning you've gotto find someone else to take some of your current tasks, e.g. let your grandmother play with the children a few days of the week etcettera.

Then, within that newly freed up space, you will find the energy, time and space, both physically and mentally, to start spending the quality to your new business.

Nothing has ever been achieved without dedication, love, attention, focus and time spent on to it.

Finally, once you've changed your situation, glare your positive aura! e.g. change your nickname from CubicleSlave into something more positive like NewBorn or FreeTheSpirit. Good luck mate!