Adii Pienaar

I stumbled onto a new Vanity Fair article by Randall Stross, in which he shares some behind-the-scenes insight into Y-Combinator after he followed the 2nd class of 2011 during their 3 months with the incubator. Whilst it was generally a fun read, one specific section left me appalled:

The most successful start-ups, Graham says, are the ones that completely remove distractions: “They just sleep, eat, exercise, and program.”

The Zenters were in Y.C.’s winter 2007 batch. “They got this apartment together a couple blocks from here,” says Graham, “and just got a bunch of Lean Cuisine and put it in the freezer, and they programmed and occasionally played tennis and ate Lean Cuisine.”

Standing to the side of the room, Jessica Livingston calls out, “They each lost 15 pounds!”

To distill the advice given to new Y-Combinator startups, Paul Graham & Jessica Livingston basically advised startups to spend most of their time working, exclusively eating frozen meals and occasionally going outside (probably just to confirm that the rest of the world is still turning). Reading between the lines, this is what I read:

• Work-life balance isn't important and it's okay to pour everything you have (every day) into your work.
• Frozen meals are a great way to allow you to work more, regardless of whether it is nicer / healthier to get a fresh meal.
• Losing 15 pounds because of your new "work-as-much-possible" routine is fine and we can all chuckle about that afterwards.

I don't agree. I don't think it's okay to compromise on a balanced life in the pursuit of a startup; and even much less so when you could be jeopardizing your health (to whatever extent). The potential reward just isn't worth that compromise.

But what bugs the shit out of me though, is that this advice is coming from people whom we - the startup community - regard as idols. Heck - how many tech startups entrepreneurs are out there that don't know of or actively follow / read Paul Graham? And this is even more true for Y-Combinator who has become the holy grail for all tech startups to aspire to; their popularity perpetuating a broken and one-sided mindset.

Finding a better way

About a week ago, I saw a tweet (which I wished I saved, so that I can attribute it accordingly) that touched on a personal nerve. The tweet read:

"Entrepreneurs are the only people in the world that are willing to work 80 hour weeks in order to eventually - hopefully - work 40 hours a week."

This reminded me of one of the core characteristics of being an entrepreneur (and the one that's appealed most to me since I started out on my entrepreneurial journey): Entrepreneurs make their own rules. Put them inside a box and they'll just build a bigger, better, different box.

Whatever your goals as an entrepreneur and regardless of your reasons for wanting to be an entrepreneur, I will bet that no entrepreneur does a startup for the exclusive reason to work 80 hour weeks.

So why are we all agreeing that it is okay to compromise on our lives in the pursuit of a supposed holy grail? Are we just wrongly worshipping workaholics? Maybe a 4-day work week isn't something all of us can do, but surely there's a more balanced way to do things (compared to 80 hour work weeks)?

And from reading about the experiences of self-made millionaires, the pot of gold at the end of that 80 hour work week doesn't seem to be all that it's cut out to be.

Startups will always be hard work

One of the first things that I tell young entrepreneurs is that they need to work harder than anyone else. Because I'd lie if I said that I've never pulled 80 hour work weeks and that I didn't believe that this is one of the reasons why I've been successful. But maybe it's not about working harder and simply about working smarter?

Ultimately it comes down to going back to our entrepreneurial roots, which is to question everything and make our own rules. 80 hour work weeks, work-only lives and shitty Lean Cuisine is only one option and even though this is being endorsed by our idols, doesn't mean it's the only option available to us. We shouldn't be taking that option just because Y-Combinator has made it popular.

I don't have the perfect recipe for the alternative, but I do know that my ideal life looks a lot different to that: I want to work hard and I want to succeed professionally, but I don't want to compromise on the other important parts of my life (my family, my health, having fun, creating new memories, experiencing new things etc.). These ideals just seem less broken to me.

Just because something is being endorsed by our idols, doesn't make it ideal.

Last night I started playing NFL Kicker 2013 on my iPhone, having previously been addicted to the 2012 version. The new version however only had one new feature: you could buy various power-ups / upgrades that would allow you to perform better or accelerate your progress in the game. Whilst the game was still fun, it felt lame that the game pushed so hard for me to pay for upgrades, instead of just earning them.

I've never been a massive gamer, but I remember a time when your progress in any game came down to your skill, execution & time (read: patience). I loved games like Railroad Tycoon, Age of Empires & Football Manager, because the only way to excel in the game, was to put in the time. I couldn't pay to actual money to do better.

I remember a couple of months ago, I really got stuck into Tiny Tower & I just absolutely had to build the biggest tower in the fastest way I could. So I spent about $30 chasing that pipe dream. The fun only lasted a week, before I realized that my attempts for instant gratification were futile.

In-App purchases in games just feels dirty. Why would I want to beat my friends in a game purely because I can outspend them? Where's the fun in making this a "my d%$k is bigger than yours" competition? Too superficial for me.

The best games will not need in-app purchases to "enhance" the gamer's experience and will rely on the tried & tested methods of engagement: make the game challenging & fun enough that I want to pour hours into perfecting my skills & execution.

I've been doing a few pre-sales & account-related customer e-mails in the last couple of days & the one thing that still surprises me is the quality (or lack thereof) of English that a large percentage of our customers use in their e-mails.

I know that English is not the most spoken language in the world, but 56%-odd of the Internet's content is English and only Chinese users even closely rivals their English counterparts. When I think about this, I'd thus assume that most Internet users would need a better understanding of English to get around the web successfully. This is also reinforced by the fact that English is only my 2nd language, but I've had to refine it over the years to stay relevant online.

What further compounds my surprise though is that I'd expect the WooThemes customers I'm interacting with to have better English. They're at least somewhat-technical and know enough about the Internet to be comfortable with setting up their own hosting space & WordPress installation. (Contrast this to an every day, Chinese internet user who only socializes / reads news online and who I'd thus expect not to have great English.)

From my experience, the lack of quality is also not region-specific; I've seen bad English from customers in South America, Asia & most surprisingly, Europe. Mmm.

Am I just being pedantic? Or have you seen a similar pandemic (word choice on purpose & for added drama) around the web?

I recently had a conversation with one of my team leaders about some of our newest additions to the WooTeam (whom we'd not met, since they're based remotely) and realized that we didn't know how old these individuals are. We soon concluded that we don't know their age, because we don't care about that.

This reminded me of a sports-related cliché that I was brought up with:

"If you're good enough, you're old enough."

This specific cliché related to how some sports coaches question the merits of including a youngster into their teams, fearing that their lack of experience will be exposed by their opponents. Time & time again though, other coaches have shown that by including an individual based purely on merit (of their abilities) mostly leads to success. If you're good enough, nobody seems to care how old or experienced you are.

This seemed very apt in explaining our (obviously subconscious) considerations when hiring new team members. We've been successful in establishing such a great team, because the only determining factors have been their personality (how will they fit into the team?) and ability (can they get the job done?). Age has just never been something we've even checked (possibly because we tend to ignore formal, traditional CV's when hiring).

And neither do we plan on doing so in future.

This post reminded me of the aftermath we dealt with at WooThemes earlier this year when our servers got hacked and our business was almost destroyed. Whilst that was one of the most challenging situations I've ever had to deal with, I was absolutely astounded by the reaction we received from our community. Instead of complaining & criticising, they were totally understanding, supportive & loyal.

If isolated, the situation itself obviously would not have resulted in such a positive reaction, but instead it must've been things we did prior to that experience that caused our customers to be so fantastic. Money in the bank.

So in thinking about the various ways that we've put money in the bank with WooThemes, I'd like to highlight a few things we've done really well:

• We've spent a lot of time building a brand that communicates our core values: excellence, responsive, progressive & authentic.
• We've always tried to under-promise & over-deliver.
• We've never been afraid to (openly) admit our mistakes.
• We've invested in our team, as they are the custodians of our work and our brand.

How are you putting money in the bank in your startup / company?