Comment by dmje | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmje | Hacker News Reader

The fact that it feels like it's written by an AI aside (because you know, someone obviously wanted to spend time on a beach instead) - there is an endless cadence to the "entrepreneur, money and life" article of which this is a part.

What always strikes me is that these articles rarely mention a sort of quiet, middle way entrepreneur group - of which I consider myself a member. Like most of the people I know who work for themselves or have a little product or a freelance business, I'm not in the game to "100x" anything, I'm not funded, I'm not interested in million dollar deals, and I could give a monkeys about hockeystick growth.

Instead I - and many / most of the people I know in this group - are just getting along. We've got a pretty good work / life balance. We get to look at the sea and do the occasional deal and sign some nice work up - we all pay for our mortgages and our families. We're doing business, we're doing entrepreneurship - and we're doing it pretty well without having to make these grand declarations about busting our balls until 35 and then retiring or working 4 hour weeks etc etc.

We probably don't ever make any articles like this because it's not the WOO story that everyone wants to read of rabid success or astonishing failure. We're just here, doing what we do and having quite a nice time doing it.

Ha, author here -- I'm probably a member of this group myself. I bootstrapped my first company and then ran a small consultancy for awhile.

Spent some time at a fund, but we primarily bought and operated SaaS companies as cash flow businesses. It's been base hits all the way.

I think if you're happy with building a business that gives you freedom and work life balance, this can be a great life. Personally, I eventually got tired of consulting even though it was good money and lifestyle. There were other things I wanted to work on that I didn't have time for, and I wanted to create something of my own, rather than just working on other people's projects.

But that's just my experience--I think if you're happy in the freelance / agency life, it can be great, but you are still ultimately selling time for money. Maybe this is a 4th path, the career craftsman--working a job you enjoy with people you like, and not needing your work to be as aligned with a "passion" or some sort of calling.

Just my $0.02 -- appreciate the comment and will have to make my writing sound less like an AI in the future ^_^;;

from the article:

The most common pitfall I see on the bivocational path is when work consumes so much of your time and attention that you don’t have the energy to pursue art in your spare time.

One common pitfall of the integration approach is what I call the “bakery trap.” It goes like this: someone likes to bake pies, so they decide to open a bakery. A year in, they realize that they’re spending all their time bookkeeping, managing staff, and trying to market the business—and don’t get to spend any time actually baking.

these are really very similar.

especially with your followup example of travelling for work and never making it to the beach.

because that is actually choosing your work so that it aligns with your hobby, and not making your hobby into your job.

that is fine, it's just different from directly integrating your interest with your work.

i once worked as a developer evangelist. i got to travel and give talks. i never made it to any beach either, but that didn't matter because going to conferences and hanging out with tech folks was the very thing i enjoyed doing, and here i got paid for it. perfect job.

so for integrating, you really have to make sure that the thing you enjoy doing is the very thing that pays you. or realize that while you managed to align your interest with your work you didn't integrate them and you still are on the bivocational path.

EDIT TO ADD:

and the key for the bivocational path is to set proper priorities.

i never let work get in the way with spending time with family, meet with friends or other activities that i'd do after work. don't work over time. don't allow work to become more important than your other activities. if they do, fight back or switch jobs.

and if anyone questions your priorities, straight out tell them that your family is your priority. (while you are single, this means building a family and finding a partner, which requires time to spend with your friends and on your hobbies)

unless you intent to never get married. then you may need a different excuse.

related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37760706

Interesting and useful reply, thanks - and sorry for being rude about you being an AI :-)

As someone mid-sabbatical with a plan to transition to something entirely self-run, it’s really good to read this comment.

I’ve done the busting my balls in big tech thing and burned out hard, which made me realize I needed to make a serious change. But it’s pretty common to find content focused on exactly what you describe instead of the “I’m just doing what I need to do so I can pay bills and lead a happy life”.

I want to build something successful, but not so successful that I’m back to burnout mode. Some people seem happier to burn themselves out for their own endeavor, but I just want to find a good balance between paying bills and enjoying life.

I’ve been building out a series of blog posts talking about the sabbatical itself, and how I’ve spent my time, and just wanted to mention that I’d be one of the first readers if you or someone like you decided to write about their “middle way” experiences.

I hope I can write about that eventually, but it’s all aspirational at this point.

Well you obviously didn't read the article, as the article very explicitly covers an approach that is "[..] the choice to make income in a way that leaves time to pursue meaning outside of work in the form of art, hobbies, or side projects." How is that any different than what you just spent 4 paragraphs describing?

It's incredibly ironic that you try to diss the article as sounding like it was written by an AI, when your comment reads as copy+paste echo chamber commentary on work ethics/money which isn't actually connected to the article you're supposedly commenting on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com