HACKER Q&A
📣 badpun

Did anyone here with normal-to-low levels of energy has had success?


I'm wondering if it's possible to successfully strike on my own, as say a startup founder or an indie gamedev, if my body is just not compatible with working 60 hours per week, as is advocated by the likes of Jon Blow or John Carmack. Did anyone here accomplish anything hard, while only being able to work for say 20-25 hours per week? BTW I'm not interested in accomplishments while working for someone else (i.e. in a job), as I've had career success already and know that it can be done under such limitations.

  👤 newaccount74 Accepted Answer ✓
I make about 10k€/month (revenue) from an app that I sell. In the beginning I've probably had a few weeks where I worked more than that, but on average that's probably how much I work.

The important thing is to understand that work compounds. If you keep at it, you'll eventually get something useful, no matter how slow you are.

Also, I'm very careful of chasing new stuff. It's easy to think you have to work on feature X right now, and a few months later you realise that feature was useless. If you spend 60 hours a week working on feature X, those hours were completely wasted. Much better to wait a few months and think about the feature before working on it. If the feature is actually important in the long term, a few months later won't make a big difference.

👤 tomcam
I've done it twice. My gig for the last 20 years was a 4 hour work-week kind of thing. Years before that I actually made a good living selling a programming language (late 80s).

The tradeoff is that any venture like this is usually unproven. Your friends and family will probably not be impressed when you start, and of course launching any business is massively risky. Your spouse may be nervous for months or years. While I made out like a bandit, during that time I was also concerned about being tied to a single source of income. I tried several other ventures that failed, although never more than I could afford to lose.

👤 lnwlebjel
Productivity = focus * time

Yes, time is important - but depth of focus is almost as important.

👤 baremetal
If you have a nice runway (plenty of cash), you can be a success at it. Just work as much as you are able to. Pick something that is doable for you, and do it. Dont set yourself up for failure by picking too large of a goal.

If you dont have a long runway, then no.

👤 DerekBickerton
Well if you mean doing small sprints where a lot is accomplished in a narrow window of time, then yeah, I've been successful. But the project didn't grow from there, since it required high energy input, and was complete, without being iterated on, which is what small-steps over a long duration of time (months, years) would accomplish for those bigger more demanding projects.