It has been hard finding time to make blog posts recently. As anyone who has been through a startup knows – there are never enough hours in the day. To make things even more challenging for me, I moved up to San Francisco to join Xobni while my wife and kids stayed down in Southern California to finish up the school year. So most weekends I’m down South and most weekdays I’m up in San Francisco. That pretty much rules weekends out for blogging – I have a lot of missed time to make up for with the family. But I’ll definitely be posting as often as I can – it’s fun and helps me to crystallize my thoughts…
Andrew Chen
Brant Cooper
Dave McClure
Eric Ries
Jamie Siminoff
Steve Blank
You’re in the eye of the hurricane right now, I would keep a log but it may be hard to figure what happened without some reflection after the fact. Plus you are running against a shot clock at Xobni, it may be easier to post between gigs. “Life must be lived forward but can only be understood backward.” Soren Kierkegaard “Many men can make a fortune but very few can build a family.” J. S. Bryan
Thanks Sean. Totally agree – family before fortune. The separation from my family is only short-term. The break in our routine has helped us all appreciate each other even more. For me, there is no better feeling than walking in the door and having my kids yell “Yeah! Daddy is home!” and then running up for a long hug. So I am very careful not to sacrifice family time. Compare that to the majority of the professionals that works the 8am – 6pm grind – it’s so routine that they can easily take their family for granted. As far as the day to day in the eye of the hurricane – I love it! The intensity level at Xobni is off the charts right now. Everyone is very smart, passionate and working their tails off. This is a very fun hurricaine to be in the middle of.The one other area I’ve been focused on is making sure I don’t sacrifice my health. In other startups, I faced pretty serious illnesses (kidney problems, bladder cancer)… When I joined Xobni I signed up for regular sessions with a personal trainer. This has kept me disciplined about making sure I get enough exercise. This helps with stress and keeps my mind focused. I also decided to cut out alcohol for fear of putting toxins in my body… Anyway, may seem weird, but I’m terrified about working myself into sickness. So for me – family, health and startup are all in pretty good balance. And it’s nice to be able to throw myself into Xobni without feeling guilty about not being home at night.