Ravi Mohan's Blog

Friday, June 22, 2007

Zenter - Working Habits for a succesful startup

I am still "offline" but this was so striking I wanted to record my awe. from here, (emphases mine)

What was a typical day or week like at YC?

We basically lived by the following schedule 7 days a week for 3 months. 10am - Noon: roll out of bed and stumble into the living room to sit at the computer, check email, blogs, news for the day and start coding Noon - 12:30: eat our $2 Lean Cuisine lunch - My personal favorite is Swedish Meatballs 12:30 - 7pm: Heads down coding, music played all day long and we alternated days to pick the play list which worked well 7 - 8: Kick Robby's ass at Tennis on the apartment courts. I think I may have won 3 sets over the entire 3 months. But they were always like 6-4 and it got us out for some exercise. 8 - 9: Make and eat gourmet dinner - mostly tombstone pizza, but occasionally Red Baron when they were on sale. Care packages from family were also extremely helpful to make sure we didn't eat too poorly. 9pm - 4am: Code like the wind - maybe do a design session or two if we are trying work through something particularly hard. 4am - 10am: sleep

I am impressed!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks! I'm glad you found our story interesting. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty easy to live that schedule. You just need two things:
1. Work on something you love
2. Put yourself in a position where failure is not an option

- happy thanksgiving
Wayne

Ravi said...

Wayne,
Your comment came at the exact moment I needed some encouragement! I am on the verge of doing something (not a startup) that would call for an effort of that calibre.

Talk of serendipity!


Both your conditions are met, so I'll start working. You guys are an inspiration.


Thank You for your comment. Very kind of you to take the time.

Have a great Thanksgiving!