How Much Work Is Too Much Work?

JFW, I like Ryan's response. I want to add from a different angle too. I too recently quit my (well paying!) job to start something of my own. The upside is very high and of course the market risk is high too. I thought I'd not think much about the cash flow because a) I have saved and will be able to go on for 1-2 years without any income and b) my wife has a well paying job for financially stability. Obviously you downgrade your brands/habits etc but at times I even feel guilty about a $6 sandwich!

My point is that you'll probably be affected mentally too; where it could be a nuisance(best case) to outright stress that distracts you and breaks your drive from your actual project. I too suggest a 80/20 or 70/30 time split (weighted more on your project). Once you're not worried about the cash flow, you'll likely make better business decisions. Also, market acceptance is usually 2x to 4x the time that's in your (=visionary) head.

If you've got only 2 more weeks of development left, just go for it I say. Once the product launches, you'll have some more time (or at least flexibility) to take additional clients while marketing your launched product. So you'd pretty much be following what Ryan and I are saying. Beyond 2 weeks, say 2-6 months, I would choose the 70/30 track. But you're you! Either ways, all the very best and congratulations on the road so far!

It really depends on how quickly you can monetize your project and what the sales cycle is for your normal clients, and finally how long can you go without revenue before you start considering selling blood plasma for Ramen. I'm going to assume you've already done the analysis to determine if your time invested in the project is going to produce sufficient returns for the time invested (including lost cash flows from alternative projects).

The first question (how long until revenue shows up from the project) is likely hard to answer, and usually takes longer than anyone anticipates, especially if it is a new product/service/whatever that requires development of customer awareness and education. So you're going to have to go back to the clients to backfill revenues while you're working on marketing the new project. Assuming that your timeline is correct (Mr. Murphy has a law about this), you should have an idea of how long it takes to turn a client lead into a client job into more revenues in your bank account (the length of the sales cycle). Using this sales cycle info plus the project timeline plus padding, is this a comfortable length of time for you to go without cash flows? Now double it, because you actually need to have a comfortable margin and everything always takes longer.

Beyond these logistical issues, ask if there is a benefit to slogging so hard on the project. Is there some compelling reason why it has to be done quickly? Certainly it helps to be able to dedicate decent sized chunks of time to a new project in order to sustain momentum, but unless there is an insanely urgent reason why this must be done NOW, it is often beneficial to task-switch and give your brain a chance to process problems in the background. Studies show that we are more prone to mistakes, and less efficient when working crazy long hours. In fact, there is a turnover point where mistakes and lost productivity give you diminishing returns at some point (this varies from case to case), so try to judge when you've hit this point.