Can You Build a Startup in Less than 40 Hours per Week?

There are tons of famous Founders who have built world-changing companies in less than 40 hours per week — I just can't name a single one.

I'm not talking about the later stages when a company is already successful. I'm talking about the "garage band years" when it's just the Founder(s) doing every possible job and scraping to get a single paying customer.

The idea is that we can simply put in our 40 hours, work really hard, then turn it all off and live a regular life. Which sounds awesome. So why is it that every time we hear the origin story of a Founder, it's always the same — they worked insane hours for an insane amount of time to get to an incredible outcome?

Time is Money

Let's start with the correlation of hours to our success and survival as a startup.

As we build our startups, we're perpetually running against time because in most cases, we're running out of money. If Time = Money, then Money = Survival. Every day that goes by reduces our chances of survival, which means putting things off for another day has a truly existential consequence for our startup.

Simply put, the fewer hours we work, the less we produce, which extends the amount of time it takes for us to be successful. Since every day we're running out of money, the more time we take to get things done (fewer hours worked), the lower our chances for survival.

The assumption here is that working more hours leads to more productivity, and by proxy, a higher likelihood of success. That's based on the idea that particularly at startups, there is always exponentially more work to be done than there are hours or resources to get it done.

40 Hours at a Startup vs. a Fortune 500

This is very different than a mature business, and this is where people get lost in the comparison. If you work for a Fortune 500 company, you can focus on servicing customers and evolving the product — but all of the infrastructure to do it was probably taken care of long before you ever got there. You can comfortably work your 40 hours per week and the ship will move ahead just fine.

But in a startup, we're building the product, team, and infrastructure for the company itself, while also then working on servicing customers. You see, what only requires 40 hours at a mature company to operate requires exponentially more hours in a startup because we're simultaneously building so many things that don't exist.

The hours that need to go into all of that infrastructure and work have to come from somewhere. If it's not coming from the Founders or the early team, how else will the work get done?

Can We Just Leave Work Undone?

In order for us to build a startup in 40 hours per week or less, we have to be OK with leaving work "undone." Comparing that to a Fortune 500 job, that's kind of OK. We'll still get our paycheck, the company will still exist, and there will be yet another day to take care of it.

But for our startup, that's often not the case. Any work that doesn't get done is once again extending our timeline to being viable. It's another day, week, or month that we may not get paid, or if we've raised money, it's one less day before our money runs out.

So it's not just about whether we're working 40 hours per se. It's about whether we're willing to cap our work at whatever limit and still expect a viable outcome. We know that our startups are going to be all-consuming, so having no cap is also dangerous to our own health. But how do we determine where to place that cap?

The History isn't Very Optimistic

I'm on the far end of this spectrum as the guy that works a ton of hours. I work about 50 hours per week as a baseline, and I consider that a vacation. That's half the hours I've worked for most of my 30 years as a Founder, so my original baseline is admittedly brutally skewed.

But here's the thing — I actually don't know how to work fewer hours. I don't know how to leave work undone. I don't know how to go to sleep knowing I could have improved the viability of our product or our company.

I've got the privilege of having worked with countless Founders along the way, and I have yet to meet a single on — a single Founder — that has been able to build a successful startup in less than 40 hours per week. That doesn't mean it can't be done; it just means I personally have yet to see it.

Have you done it? I would love to hear about it. I'm not dying to spend more hours on my startup, so if I can get the same outcomes by using your techniques, please for all that's good in the world, tell the rest of us!

In Case You Missed It

Should We Focus on Profit or Growth? Just because we're a startup doesn't mean we are entitled to profit or growth — so what do we focus on when we really want both?

We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success Every moment we spend pursuing an undefined goal is a complete waste of time — especially personal goals.

Don't be Afraid to Take Big Swings (podcast) Successful Startups did not succeed because they fear failure. Success comes when the Founder keeps taking swings and managing failure as they come because they’re focused on getting a hit!