Shackles of Freedom —photo: housingworksauctions

People idealize what it must be like to start their own company, thinking that they’d have so much time and freedom to work whenever and wherever they’d like. Anyone that is serious about their own startup knows that is not so easy; but that doesn’t stop me from trying!

Shackles

First, there are the typical responsibilities of life of family and kids. Most people quickly learn that, in practice, working at home can be challenging—barking dogs punctuating important discussions on phone calls; kids needing attention and banging indecipherable passages into your business plan or testing CD/DVD tray as peanut-butter sandwich toaster; or a significant other that assumes that since you’re at home, you must have a lot of free time to do chores.

Second, the demands of (again, seriously) starting a company means meeting with lawyers, bankers, designers, engineers, and, more importantly, maintaining and building your business network.  These demands keep you from straying far from home for long.

Balancing Act

Running a Startup is a Balancing-act —photo daniele.vigna

As with anything in life, finding a balance is a challenge. A startup venture takes a strong commitment of time and energy. It is important to keep one eye on the business and another on your own life, lest you burn yourself out. The balancing point is rarely a comfortable trough—easily found and easy to settle into—but, rather, a razor-thin tightrope full of struggle and compromise. If you’re endeavoring to start your own business, you have been warned! And be prepared to perform your startup balancing act for the circus.

Living the Dream

But I like circuses. I do not have a dog (or fish) nor kids to tend to and my number one priority for the business is to focus on implementation issues. So I put myself to the challenge of mixing work with play.

Since I had put off use of my season pass to Squaw Valley in order to participate in the Founder Institute program, I shirked my networking duties and left Seattle for Lake Tahoe to use what was left of the pass. My plan was to get my skiing back up to snuff and work on the application.

I was fortunate that the snow was still good despite it being spring so I wasn’t too disappointed to have missed the epic snow of February. The mountain was my “gym”—though not as convenient as putting on shorts and grabbing my gym-bag—I would start most days with some time on the hill. Being springtime, the snow often became unskiable as it turned to sloppy, sticky mush, so I would head back and try to get some programming done.

Even play has its challenges —Bill Lee, Squaw Valley, 2011

Settling into a rhythm of work and play was a challenge. Coming back from the gym, too tired to program meant many nights, working until 4am. But this was my personal challenge to “live the dream” and it was a balancing act. I was not as productive as I would have liked but I began to settle into a rhythm where I was able to be productive. Practice makes perfect, I will be better at it next time, as I strive towards my dream of building a successful startup company and earning my level III ski instructor’s certification.

If part of the reason that you want to start your own venture is to live your dream of independence, it can be done, but don’t expect it to be without its challenges. How do you want to live your startup-life?