[Founder’s Real Talk #7] Taking vacations as an early-stage founder

Not sure if you noticed, but I wasn’t writing for the past two Fridays. The reason is I was traveling — the 1st Friday I was getting ready for the trip to Europe starting on Saturday, and the 2nd Friday I was in the middle of the trip.

This wasn’t the first trip I took when I became a founder of this startup — back in Apr, when this company was just 1-month old, my wife and I traveled to Tahiti for a week. (We were there for only half a week, but the trip there and back took almost 3 days together.)

But that trip felt like a working trip. My wife was closing her startup’s seed round during the trip, and ended up spending at least half a day on the phone with her lawyer and investors. I was also spending that half day on calls with my cofounder and team — the company was simply too young and too lean for me to take my hands and eyes away.

This time it felt a bit better. Both her and my startups had a bit more people and processes in place, even though far from enough for the machines to drive themselves forward, but we felt slightly more secure. So we ended up spending less than half a day each day on work — better than the Tahiti trip.

The real thing that made us feel better is that we learned how to prioritize better. Sure we still need to negotiate and draft some contracts, coordinate internally to drive projects forward, and roll up our sleeves to do some dirty work, but we found it easier to focus, and more productive.

We might be working on laptop or on the phone while taking train rides or late nights at the hotel, but with the shorter time available, we actually felt less anxious.

Also, the timezone is great. We had about 2–3 hours a day to overlap with our teams in the US, if we need to communicate sync or async. And with the rest of the time, we can actually get in the zone / flow to do actual work.

Moreover, being at a distance gives you a new perspective on how you see yourself, your lifestyle, your startup, and what you want to achieve in your life. It gives you a better sense of what’s actually important for you, and thus you know even more about what to prioritize, not just for your startup, but for your life too.

More focused, better prioritized, more productive, less anxious. It was pretty awesome.