A Day In The Life Of An Early Stage Startup Founder

Spoiler Alert — It’s Every Bit Of A Grind As You’d Expect.

Wake up at 6 am, be to work by 9 am, get done at 5:30 pm and go straight to a meeting, work at the coffee shop where you had the meeting until 10:00 pm, go home and work until 1 am to finish your work. Wash, rinse, repeat, and do it all again the next day (weekends included.)

This quick timetable depicts the glorious life of a startup founder in the development phase. Two months ago when I had my idea, I knew I would have to go all in and indeed I have.

Everyone loves hearing the stories of startup founders who have made it (like Zuck, Serg, and Elon.) What people usually overlook is what it took for them to get there.

Sure, people talk about Elon Musk working over 100 hours a week, and about how Marissa Mayer was pulling 130 hour work weeks while on maternity leave, but do people comprehend that sort of commitment?

“It’s easy to talk about the startup grind, but it’s nothing like actually living it.”

The Struggle Is Real

Keeping up the startup grind isn’t easy to do. You have to sacrifice a lot to pursue the things you want. It’s just what you have to do.

At some point, you have to ask yourself, “do I want to indulge in pleasures now, or do I want to put the work in and be great.”

It’s not easy to give up on a lot of things, but you can make it happen. The hardest things to give up will be: - Sleep- Relaxing Weekends- Vacations- Sick Days- A Social Life

You have to learn to prioritize when you are building something of a significant magnitude, and you will often find the things I listed lose priority fairly quickly.

A big struggle can be when your idea is a side project, and you have to work full time. This can be draining, but you have to do what you have to do.

You have to keep coming back to the idea — if you don’t do it, no one will.

Even worse yet, someone else will.

Get Your Grind On

In the end, you just need to hustle and grind to get where you want to go. Invest in yourself and believe in what you are doing.

You can achieve incredible things when you put the work in. It won’t be easy and it never will be, but that is what makes it worth it.

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