I worked my tail off for a year in China. I had two other founders/partners back in N. America -- I was the only one on-the-ground, and I was also the youngest & most inexperienced.
I basically stayed there until I was physically, mentally, and emotionally sick. I was living in my office and had no salary (expenses covered, nothing more), a tough schedule (mornings & evenings needed to get back in touch w/ N. America), my first experience in management (6 staff or so), and had almost zero encouragement from my partners, because our expenses only increased with time as we realized what we were really getting in to (China is not exactly WYSIWYG when it comes to business) -- and I had no contact with the main decision-maker, who was the only person with any real experience in what we were doing (for political reasons I had to go through founder #2 to get to founder-investor#1).
I was literally stressed out of my mind. I lost a good portion of my short-term memory (until I quit). I could no longer predict what I was able to do in the future -- no ability to manage my own commitments & performance. Forgot why I wanted to live. Took up smoking.
I kept going as long as I did because I believed in the value of "sheer persistence". I wish I'd taken more drastic action sooner.
My experience was probably not typical, and so it's probably not worth drawing generalizations from it. But -- I'm incredibly glad that I quit. Today I'm learning new things and I'm happy to be alive -- I feel like a vibrant human being again. And I'm still excited about startups... but not to the point of self-destruction.
That's the big problem people fail to mention when they talk about persistence - the trick is to be persistent at the right things! Being persistent at the wrong thing is sometimes hard to recognize until the point where you go down with the sinking ship.
I believe the problem here is just microfocus. When people focus too much on one thing, they tend not to take a step back every now and then to see if things are still the same as when you started. Let's say I want to start a business in china making valves for microturbines. I spend half a year and progress is very slow. It's time to realise that things are bad, take a step back and review the process. If things are hard, you are doing something wrong.
Sometimes it's neccesary to work hard. But sometimes is not a year. One has to take life in 6 month chunks, and you only have about 140 of those. You lose one, you will never get it back. A year is two of those chunks. It's too much time to be unhappy in.
I'm one of the fastest developers I know because I was taught the technique - when things start going slow, stop, zoom out and analyse the reason why it's going slow. Then go back in, but approach things differently. This time you want to maintain the quality of work, but reduce the time spent on it. It's not difficult to optimize that.
BTW, this'll be familiar to anyone that's learned a musical instrument. The way you get speed in music is to slow down the tempo until it's at a level where you can easily play the piece (with a new piece, this is often 1/4 or less of actual speed). Then you work on control and rhythm only, until you've got it perfect. Then gradually bump up the tempo for as long as you can maintain control. If you start getting sloppy, slow it down and practice more at the lesser tempo. Eventually, you'll be able to play it perfectly at tempo, with a good reserve if you wanna speed it up for effect.
I think this is a trait common among entrepreneurs and other high achievers. I have a similar story, and it's good to find, test and expand your limits. It's good to know that you can crunch in the short term without fear if it's necessary. And it's good to improve your ways of going about things so it doesn't happen again.
Sort of. I stayed in south east asia to live cheap & learn python. Supporting myself on a few hours of work per week makes it easy to tinker, have fun, and figure out what to build next by "playing".
So I'm not in the midst of a startup right now, but when it comes to my next serious effort, I can't really imagine myself doing anything else.
Comments
Also, I have my own anecdote.
I worked my tail off for a year in China. I had two other founders/partners back in N. America -- I was the only one on-the-ground, and I was also the youngest & most inexperienced.
I basically stayed there until I was physically, mentally, and emotionally sick. I was living in my office and had no salary (expenses covered, nothing more), a tough schedule (mornings & evenings needed to get back in touch w/ N. America), my first experience in management (6 staff or so), and had almost zero encouragement from my partners, because our expenses only increased with time as we realized what we were really getting in to (China is not exactly WYSIWYG when it comes to business) -- and I had no contact with the main decision-maker, who was the only person with any real experience in what we were doing (for political reasons I had to go through founder #2 to get to founder-investor#1).
I was literally stressed out of my mind. I lost a good portion of my short-term memory (until I quit). I could no longer predict what I was able to do in the future -- no ability to manage my own commitments & performance. Forgot why I wanted to live. Took up smoking.
I kept going as long as I did because I believed in the value of "sheer persistence". I wish I'd taken more drastic action sooner.
My experience was probably not typical, and so it's probably not worth drawing generalizations from it. But -- I'm incredibly glad that I quit. Today I'm learning new things and I'm happy to be alive -- I feel like a vibrant human being again. And I'm still excited about startups... but not to the point of self-destruction.
That's the big problem people fail to mention when they talk about persistence - the trick is to be persistent at the right things! Being persistent at the wrong thing is sometimes hard to recognize until the point where you go down with the sinking ship.
I believe the problem here is just microfocus. When people focus too much on one thing, they tend not to take a step back every now and then to see if things are still the same as when you started. Let's say I want to start a business in china making valves for microturbines. I spend half a year and progress is very slow. It's time to realise that things are bad, take a step back and review the process. If things are hard, you are doing something wrong.
Sometimes it's neccesary to work hard. But sometimes is not a year. One has to take life in 6 month chunks, and you only have about 140 of those. You lose one, you will never get it back. A year is two of those chunks. It's too much time to be unhappy in.
I'm one of the fastest developers I know because I was taught the technique - when things start going slow, stop, zoom out and analyse the reason why it's going slow. Then go back in, but approach things differently. This time you want to maintain the quality of work, but reduce the time spent on it. It's not difficult to optimize that.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki/?SlowDownToSpeedUp
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SharpenTheSaw
BTW, this'll be familiar to anyone that's learned a musical instrument. The way you get speed in music is to slow down the tempo until it's at a level where you can easily play the piece (with a new piece, this is often 1/4 or less of actual speed). Then you work on control and rhythm only, until you've got it perfect. Then gradually bump up the tempo for as long as you can maintain control. If you start getting sloppy, slow it down and practice more at the lesser tempo. Eventually, you'll be able to play it perfectly at tempo, with a good reserve if you wanna speed it up for effect.
The part that often gets overlooked is knowing what you want. Once you've figured that out, don't quit until you get there.
Glad you're feeling better.
I think this is a trait common among entrepreneurs and other high achievers. I have a similar story, and it's good to find, test and expand your limits. It's good to know that you can crunch in the short term without fear if it's necessary. And it's good to improve your ways of going about things so it doesn't happen again.
so are you still working as an entrepreneur or not?
Sort of. I stayed in south east asia to live cheap & learn python. Supporting myself on a few hours of work per week makes it easy to tinker, have fun, and figure out what to build next by "playing".
So I'm not in the midst of a startup right now, but when it comes to my next serious effort, I can't really imagine myself doing anything else.