80-Hour work weeks and managing co-founder expectations
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Today’s question comes from an anonymous listener. I am a founder of a startup and I am planning to work 80 hour work weeks, but my co-founders think 40 hour work weeks are enough and if they do work more hours they want to be paid more. What should I do?
Jake’s answer:
In my opinion, 80 hours sounds like a lot of hours — too many hours. Most people don’t have the luxury of building a startup without having a source of income and to ask people to work on something full-time (and in this case, more than full-time) getting paid less than minimum wage is unfair.
Founder health + burnout
The expectation between you and your co-founders should be 40 hours a week. If the expectation is 80 hours you will all get burned out and you won’t be able to back out of the culture you’ve built.
It take years, if ever, to change the culture of a company and working that much is not healthy for you. Your startup shouldn’t be your entire life, even if it’s your baby. Businesses come and go all the time and tying your self-worth to the value of the company and can be a path to destruction.
Founder health doesn’t get talked about enough and it should really be at the forefront of conversations around building successful startups. You can’t build a healthy company if you aren’t health, and working 80 hours a week on the same thing is not healthy for you.
The other issue with working that much is that it often doesn’t actually get you closer to your goals. It makes you feel better than you are doing something, but you aren’t actually moving the needle.
Regardless of the expectations, you and your team should come to an agreement and get it all in writing. And, if you do agree on 40 hours and choose to work more, then don’t use that against your co-founders — that’s on you, not them.
Your startup shouldn’t be your entire life, even if it’s your baby. Businesses come and go all the time and tying your self-worth to the value of the company can be a path to destruction.
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