Accelerating WorkHound Week 10

4 min readAug 17, 2015

Keeping a relationship while accelerating

There are a lot of sacrifices made during an accelerator.

(Quick overview of this blog series at the bottom of page)

Keeping a relationship while accelerating

There are a lot of sacrifices made during an accelerator. Andrew quit his job, I pressed pause on other endeavors and we’re gone from home 5–6 days a week in Omaha.

But the other sacrifice comes from the family, friends and significant others during an accelerator.

My girlfriend Ana has particularly made a huge sacrifices to keep our relationship strong during this make it or break it time period. We’ve managed to get into a good rhythm over the 10 weeks to ensure our relationship stays strong during and after the accelerator.

Here are a few tips that have helped our relationship over the past 10 weeks:

Constant communication

Wake up text messages, mid-day check-ins, evening phone calls and good night texts have become a solid cadence for Ana and I. They’re small touch points that let each of us know that despite our busy lives — the other person is important.

Set the next in-person meeting, stick to it like a client

On Friday evenings I usually pack up and head from Omaha to Des Moines to spend the weekend with Ana. Knowing the specific date we’ll see each other next is extremely important, as it avoids a nasty guessing game. In addition, its a terrible thing to be late for these meetings. I dropped the ball once and showed up a few hours late to a less-than-pleased Ana.

My excuse was that work held me back, but the truth is that work holds me back enough during the week. Somehow I rationalized this as okay, but when I thought about how I would treat a prospect — I would never be late. So why would I be late with a person I love? I’ve made sure not to repeat this mistake since.

Share wins and learnings

Ana is a part of my team, so she needs to be kept in the loop. Emphasizing accomplishments and learnings are huge, as it keeps her engaged with our progress, emphasizes the value of the time away from home and gives us something to celebrate together.

When together, make the time intentional

Just being home isn’t good enough. I’ve fallen victim to opening the laptop and getting into the work zone. I quickly realized that time at home has to be dedicated, if only for a few hours at a time. To balance this, we usually do a Friday dinner, have some sort of Saturday afternoon activity and do a date night on a Saturday. Those three chunks of time bring us closer together each week and still allows for time to catch up on any tasks.

Know when you’ll be back to “normal”

Normal never happens when you’re launching a new endeavor, but being home consistently is a start. That hasn’t been the case over the accelerator, with every week since June spent in Omaha or on the road. For us, we agreed that at the end of the accelerator, more days would be spent at home. Knowing when some of the madness ends is helpful.

Go to bed at the same time

It works. Just do it.

Get a dog (or some other companion)

This also works. Ana told me to put this. Because it worked.

Thank them

They are making a sacrifice just as much as we are and it needs to be recognized constantly.

Shifting gears in the final weeks

We’ve got three weeks left in the accelerator and it’s make it or break it time for us. It’s double down time to focus on what needs to be done to win long term. For us that’s a few things: launching the first beta program with our first trucking company, finalizing the financial model, fine-tuning the pitch deck and perfecting the pitch.

There are lots of little things that we could be doing, but these things lose some of their importance in the final few weeks. Now is all about maximizing our output with the capacity we have available, which is a delicate balance.

Quick Overview

(See Week 1 post for more details)

At WorkHound, we’re tackling a big issue in the trucking industry: the 97% driver turnover rate. We’re building a platform to allow drivers to share feedback with their companies. Companies then receive the aggregated feedback to improve the driver experience.

This is our weekly post highlighting our learnings and actions each week in the Straight Shot accelerator out of Omaha.

Other Updates:
Week 1 Update // Week 2 Update // Week 3 Update // Week 4 Update //
Week 5 Update // Week 6 Update // Week 7 Update// Week 8 Update//
Week 9 Update //