2014 - 👶 Birth of our first kid.
2015 - I decided to quit my job and go 100% self-employed.
2016 - 👶 Birth of our second kid.
2018 - I went all-in to found a startup with Andy and Lukas.
2021 - We grew to 50+ team members and a profitable company.
2022 - Goal: Grow to 150+ without increasing personal workload.
Don´t you have to go all-in on your startup and work days and nights to become successful? So as a startup founder, is it even possible to combine work and family?
Somehow I was lucky and managed to spend a lot of time with my family and still lead our company to success. What were my key success factors?
1. Co-Founders: Andy and Lukas always accepted me having kids and understood, that I am not able to work fully on weekends. Also, they understood when I had to leave during days when the family needed me. We knew from the beginning, that I wouldn´t be able to do as many hours per week as them - and we talked about that already in the very early beginning. It´s never been a problem from that day on.
2. Partner: My wife always supported my startup journey and also accepted, that I would work more than other husbands - to a certain point. And I think that´s fair. You have to define a weekly budget of working hours which let you spend enough time for your job and for the family, so all have the same expectations. I couldn´t always keep my promises, but I tried as hard as possible. We are not in the lucky position that we have family around who could support us with the kids, so the last 3 years were very hard and challenging, but we always managed somehow to deal with it.
3. Time management:
* My average week has around 50 working hours. More than most other people work, but less than most startup founders do.
* I don´t work on weekends and had to break this rule probably twice a year, which is ok-ish.
* I get up with my family, we do have breakfast together and I bring my kids to school / kindergarten. That´s often stressful, but I think it is important to start your day with your family.
* I am having dinner with my family around 5:30pm and bring the kids to bed at 8pm. Time in between is also family time.
* Usually I am working again then from 8:30pm to 12am.
* I use zero-inbox system and other time-management tactics to be as productive as possible.
4. Value of time:
Will your startup fail if you work 30 hours a week or be successful if you invested 80 hours per week? I would say, it depends. First, I think it is important that you focus 100% on your company, and not have 3 different ideas or projects in parallel. Second, you should focus on productivity and not the amount of time spent.
In my opinion, working 50 hours a week on a really high productivity level is doable and after that, productivity starts to decrease at a certain point. On the other hand - especially as a small team, you can grow way faster than others if you work overtime. In an early startup stage you can speed up by doing more hours - in a later stage you will be faster through better HR, Management, giving away responsibilities, fast and good decision making and other factors...
What do you think? Did you experience the same?
#startup #job #team #marketing #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #success #family #kids #parenting #startups #work #growth #entrepreneurs
2015 - I decided to quit my job and go 100% self-employed.
2016 - 👶 Birth of our second kid.
2018 - I went all-in to found a startup with Andy and Lukas.
2021 - We grew to 50+ team members and a profitable company.
2022 - Goal: Grow to 150+ without increasing personal workload.
Don´t you have to go all-in on your startup and work days and nights to become successful? So as a startup founder, is it even possible to combine work and family?
Somehow I was lucky and managed to spend a lot of time with my family and still lead our company to success. What were my key success factors?
1. Co-Founders: Andy and Lukas always accepted me having kids and understood, that I am not able to work fully on weekends. Also, they understood when I had to leave during days when the family needed me. We knew from the beginning, that I wouldn´t be able to do as many hours per week as them - and we talked about that already in the very early beginning. It´s never been a problem from that day on.
2. Partner: My wife always supported my startup journey and also accepted, that I would work more than other husbands - to a certain point. And I think that´s fair. You have to define a weekly budget of working hours which let you spend enough time for your job and for the family, so all have the same expectations. I couldn´t always keep my promises, but I tried as hard as possible. We are not in the lucky position that we have family around who could support us with the kids, so the last 3 years were very hard and challenging, but we always managed somehow to deal with it.
3. Time management:
* My average week has around 50 working hours. More than most other people work, but less than most startup founders do.
* I don´t work on weekends and had to break this rule probably twice a year, which is ok-ish.
* I get up with my family, we do have breakfast together and I bring my kids to school / kindergarten. That´s often stressful, but I think it is important to start your day with your family.
* I am having dinner with my family around 5:30pm and bring the kids to bed at 8pm. Time in between is also family time.
* Usually I am working again then from 8:30pm to 12am.
* I use zero-inbox system and other time-management tactics to be as productive as possible.
4. Value of time:
Will your startup fail if you work 30 hours a week or be successful if you invested 80 hours per week? I would say, it depends. First, I think it is important that you focus 100% on your company, and not have 3 different ideas or projects in parallel. Second, you should focus on productivity and not the amount of time spent.
In my opinion, working 50 hours a week on a really high productivity level is doable and after that, productivity starts to decrease at a certain point. On the other hand - especially as a small team, you can grow way faster than others if you work overtime. In an early startup stage you can speed up by doing more hours - in a later stage you will be faster through better HR, Management, giving away responsibilities, fast and good decision making and other factors...
What do you think? Did you experience the same?
#startup #job #team #marketing #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #success #family #kids #parenting #startups #work #growth #entrepreneurs
