7 Tips That will Motivate You To Work On Your Startup On Weekends.
Working on your startup requires a great deal of motivation and resilience. Especially if you are working with no salary, and watching your bank account shrinks like hell. Or maybe you have a great job and a nice salary, but want to start a startup so badly that you have to get yourself working on it when you get back home from work — in the evenings, and during your most precious free time that you love so much — your weekends.
For the past year and a half, I have been working 24/7, on weekends and holidays on my new startup — Mobifile. You might say that I’m a workaholic. I like to tell people, that I am just extremely passionate and obsessed (in a good way) with our product, idea, and team.
Getting myself to work around the clock, was and still is a continuous effort, in which I learned a few things about myself, and how to get myself motivated to work in my spare time. Here are 7 key ways which helped me, and might help you to motivate yourself to work in your spare time and on weekends, and might help you start your next big thing.
1. Build A Great Team — Don’t work alone, get yourself a team — people you love and respect, and that you enjoy spending time with. Your team is going to be your family for the next several months, and hopefully for the coming years. I was fortunate to have a co-founder who is my best friend, who shared an apartment with me. We’ve seen each other in highs and lows, and we know how to support and motivate each other. Our third team member is a friend of my little brother Jonathan, and is a brilliant young man, who became a good friend of mine as well. That way, when you go to work on weekends with your team, you are actually going to meet some good friends, have some laughs, and build some cool things with them. And like every good group of friends, do not stop talking after the meetings end. Keep chatting during the day with your team, share with them your day, talk on the phone, and send them pictures on Whatsapp or Slack.
2. Find a Cool Workspace to Work In — Finding a great workspace is one of the key ways to motivate yourself and get your ass off your couch to work on your startup. Find yourself a cool coffee shop not too far from home that is open until the late hours and on weekends. Get to know the owner and staff. Make yourself feel like at home when you go there. If you prefer working from home, get the apartment clean, your desk clean, have lots of books about startups surrounding you, and actually read them! (I just finished reading Peter Thiel’s “From Zero to One” — I got a signed copy when we presented Mobifile on the Web Summit in Dublin, and I highly recommend it, and now I am reading “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries which is a must-read for every entrepreneur in my opinion). Set your apartment so you and your team could work together. And visit every time in a different team member’s flat. Oh… and get yourself some damn good coffee machine!
3. Take Lots of Breaks — Sitting for 5 hours straight won’t make you more productive, it will make you look like a chair or a couch! Work for 45 minutes, and then have a short break, laugh with your team, go out for a 5 minutes walk, eat something. After you got yourself refreshed, go and work full power again. If you see that you need a longer break, take it — You deserve it!
4. Exercise Every Day — Working on your startup doesn’t mean that you need to be in front of your computer all day. Go out and exercise every day, this way you will gain more power and strength to keep on with working on your startup, especially on weekends! And who knows, you might meet some interesting people in the park, your running team, or while doing a marathon, that might be entrepreneurs too, investors, or just people who might be excited about what you are building, and going to be your first loyal users.
5. Set Personal and Team Goals and Milestones — It is important for you and your team to set personal and team goals and milestones. I’ll give you an example. I am not a coder, and I didn’t know how to write code in my life. I mean, I am a mechanical engineer, so I did some C and MATLAB programming courses, but I have never built a website. The rest of the team are all brilliant programmers, but I decided, as the biz-guy in the group, that I will build our website. So I learned, first HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and then AngularJS, and I have to admit that our first website was simple, and not so impressive, but now, I think I got it right. Check it out for yourself www.mobifile.co (I even built a blog for our company www.mobifile.co/blog). I set a personal goal for myself, that helped the team and our product as well. And you know what’s great? When you are working with people you love and appreciate, you can ask them for anything, and they will help you learn and grow even on weekend and crazy hours. It will also help you grow as a team and as a startup.
6. Get Some Sleep — Some people are able to function, and be sharp, sleeping only 2 hours at night. Well, I can function, but I learned that I am far more productive and effective, when I get my 7 hours of sleep. I get more things done, I am more creative, and quicker in my decisions. So even if you work on your weekends, get some good sleep, before you start. What I also learned is that sometimes, when you start a startup, you have no choice but to sleep only 2 hours at night, and it’s completely Ok, if you feel tired and not concentrated for a while. That’s as long as you keep going, and do your best — even if the only thing you want to do is wear your pajamas and go to bed. Your dreams will be much sweeter, when you know you did your best for your startup.
7. Take The Time To Be With Your Life Partner And Share With Her/Him Your Startup Experience — A lot of people told me along the way, that being an entrepreneur and starting a startup, is far more difficult to do when you are in a relationship, and that I better do it while I am still single. However, I learned that having a relationship, is one of the best and motivating things that make me go on with my startup. What’s important to know, is that if you share your experiences, decisions, and ideas with your life partner, it might make you a better entrepreneur and help you grow your startup. I am extremely lucky to have my amazing and supporting girlfriend motivating me, and share with me this experience. So, my advice is — don’t neglect your personal and romantic life, just because you don’t have time and you are fully dedicated to starting your startup. It’s not less important and it might support you to get things done, with passion and support.
Have you worked or still working on your weekends to build your startup? do you have some more tips to get things done on the weekend? Please share in the comments below.
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Illai.
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