Loading...
Answers
MenuWhat is the correlation between launching a startup and having health problems? Do you have to sacrifice your health to succeed?
This question has no further details.
Answers
No reason whatsoever. Sacrificing all of your time (consequently trading that in for your health) is a very dangerous and unsustainable approach. I've seen many entrepreneurs burn out quickly because of this.
When I'm coaching other entrepreneurs, I always encourage putting yourself first (food, exercise, leisure) to be at your 110% for your startup and family.
Yes. I00% correlation. If you really want to succeed in a big way, then I recommend simultaneously contracting HIV, Ebola, and the black plague. Get started chain smoking as well!
Replace "launching a startup" with any other variable and the answer will be the same.
What does it profit you to successfully launch a startup and not be able to enjoy the "spoils of war" or, worse, to have to spend your spoils on medical bills? Similar to the check engine and other lights that come on in a vehicle, health problems are the warning signs that a part of the body is malfunctioning. To ignore those signs and keep driving (regardless of where you are in the startup process) is to put yourself, passengers and other drivers at risk. Follow the owner's manual and go in for service as prescribed, i.e., get the appropriate rest and relaxation, eat well, exercise, etc.
If life expectancy averages remain the same, your body has to last well past your startup into your 70s and 80s. When you burn out early, you short-circuit the agility needed for your later years. It doesn't help that metabolism decreases as you get older so if you don't make time for exercise, good eating and rest now, your body will ignore you later ...
The work-related health problems we see today tend to be linked to stress, sitting at a desk all day, working late hours, not taking the time to eat healthily and exercise regularly, not taking proper time off at all. These factors can be just as prevalent in an office job as in a startup environment.
Personally, I used to get migraines in my corporate job. I thought naively that creating more of an independent and flexible lifestyle would automatically make me more healthy and relaxed. As it turns out, I'm the same self-motivated and ambitious person I was before, and I'm working harder than ever! Now I have a different kind of stress today, and I'm enjoying every minute... but I'm afraid I still get migraines from time to time! Health is a factor of your genetics along with your lifestyle choices.
The whole concept of work-life balance is an artificial dichotomy and it's more a question of an overall sense of balance across the different aspects of life that are important to you and your wellbeing. In my case, this means keeping myself challenged and fulfilled; earning enough money; spending time alone and with friends and family; eating well and staying fit; learning new skills and having new experiences; travelling; having fun; and so on.
When it comes to the question of what it takes to succeed, the key is first to define what “succeeding” means to you. What are the goals that you want to achieve? And, most importantly, why? Real success comes from setting meaningful goals. One of my favourite quotes is this:
“It doesn’t really matter how fast you’re going if you’re heading in the wrong direction.” - Stephen Covey, author of the classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
So even if you’re achieving those goals, you’re ticking them off at an impressive pace, what is the point if you don’t actually care about the result? Or, worse, if the result is detrimental to you in some way, including perhaps your health?
Having the right goals in place is fundamental to successfully achieving them and for that achievement to really contribute to your happiness and life satisfaction. So I encourage you to define what that 'ideal' balance is for you, and what 'success' means.
Let me know if you want to chat further about your specific situation and your goals!
Your health does not need to suffer as a result of launching a start up. The correlation is a very good question to ask and it often is our bodies response to something being "not right." Those that have an intimate relationship with their bodies, often are the most successful in other areas of their life. Our bodies talk to us in the form of "dis-ease." Successful business leaders and champions know this, and have a daily practice that feeds their ultimate health. My clients experience success when the invest first in themselves and a disciplined daily practice that includes support. To your health and wealth!
Sacrificing one's health to launch a startup, or to launch anything for that matter is a choice. Unless it's not a choice because one feels powerless in terms of their capacity to prioritize what they value.
If a person values health, they'll find a way to preserve their health while they launch the startup.
On the other hand if health is not something that one values, then sacrificing health is not a concern...sadly this is the case for many entrepreneurs as my experience with clients has shown me.
I'm a proponent of not just preserving, but using health to leverage one's capacity to launch a thriving business.
The two are not mutually exclusive but in fact one can fuel the other as experience has taught me.
Hope this helps,
Ken
Consciously if one smart entrepreneur defines delegation or responsibilities metrics then not all the stress and todo fall as his / her pie. At times you feel like doing it all by yourself to stay on top of competition however you can define what's timely to beat market and focus on that one, rest you can delegate. Balance the health by bringing companion in healthyhealthy living lifestyle. One can be your pet or friend or spouse. Take their help in setting up a routine. It will help not to lose health over your startup aspirations. Good luck.
Balance: I've been involved in a few start-ups, a health insurance company and a telemedicine company to name a couple. Both were exciting and interesting products, but also created a bit of anxiety for me. As a result, I realized the importance of maintaining not just my physical health but also my emotional health. I found exercise to be the best way to address my anxiety by literally burning it off which in turn improved my physical health. Enrolling in a structured program at a fitness facility and working with a personal trainer turned out to be the most efficient use of my time and paid off the most. In the end, I think launching a start-up can actually improve your health if you turn some of the adversities you may face, such as anxiety, into an opportunity to exercise and seek out health.
Related Questions
-
What are digital products or services you wish existed and why? How would they help you and/or your business?
As the owner of a web development firm, I am always inventing our own digital products and services. Any service that is web-based and accessible to mobile devices work as long as they solve a business need. The digital products I wish would exist are: 1. Home building services including videos by experienced builders 2. Mail and package weighing digital services 3. More security services for document transfer services. BruceBC
-
What is a good/average conversion rate % for an e-commerce (marketplace model) for customers who add to cart through to purchase order.
There is quite a bit of information available online about eCommerce conversions rates. According to a ton of sources, average visitor-to-sale conversion rates vary from 1-3%. This does not mean the Furniture conversions will be the same. The bigger problem is that visitor-to-sale conversions are not a good data point to use to measure or tune your eCommerce business. All business have some unique friction factors that will affect your final conversion rate. It's very important to understand each of these factors and how to overcome them. The best way to measure and optimize is to take a conversion funnel approach. Once you have defined your funnel you can optimize each conversion rate to better the total effect. For example: Top of the funnel: - All web site visitors, 100,000 / month First conversion: View a product page, 50% of all visitors Second Conversion: Add to Cart, 10% of people who view products Final Conversion: Complete Checkout, 80% of people who put items in a cart In this example we see that only 10% of people who actually view products put them in to a cart, but 80% of those people purchase. If you can figure out why visitors are not adding items to their cart and fix the issue to increase the conversion rate, revenue should increase significantly because of the high checkout rate. You can use free tools like Google Analytics to give you a wealth of information about your site visitor and their behavior or there are some great paid tools as well.DM
-
Business partner I want to bring on will invest more money than me, but will be less involved in operations, how do I split the company?
Cash money should be treated separately than sweat equity. There are practical reasons for this namely that sweat equity should always be granted in conjunction with a vesting agreement (standard in tech is 4 year but in other sectors, 3 is often the standard) but that cash money should not be subjected to vesting. Typically, if you're at the idea stage, the valuation of the actual cash going in (again for software) is anywhere between $300,000 and $1m (pre-money). If you're operating in any other type of industry, valuations would be much lower at the earliest stage. The best way to calculate sweat equity (in my experience) is to use this calculator as a guide: http://foundrs.com/. If you message me privately (via Clarity) with some more info on what the business is, I can tell you whether I would be helpful to you in a call.TW
-
I finally found my billion-dollar startup idea. Now what?
The idea is a very small fraction of what it takes to earn the first million. Certainly billion. What actually matters is your ability to *execute*. Entrepreneurship means "having the talent of translating opportunities into money". Or, as Alexis Ohanian of Reddit said, "entrepreneur is just French for 'has ideas, does them'." As much as it may seem that transitioning off your 9-to-5 is the biggest hurdle, it's not. If you can't "get out of the gate" then you're also not ready to deal with the real challenges of business, like "competition that has 1,000x your funding" or "suppliers that jerk you around" or "customers who steal your intellectual property". It's easy to have a "billion dollar idea". I'd like to mine gold off of asteroids; I'm sure that would be worth billions. I'd also like to invest in Arctic real estate that will become coastal vacation property after fifty more years of warming. And, of course, to make a new social network that everyone loves. But saying these things is very very different from accomplishing them. Prove your concept by first taking a small step, such as making the first dollar. (Maybe try Noah Kagan's course at http://www.appsumo.com/how-make-your-first-dollar-open/). If you can't figure out a way to "make it go" without a giant investment, then you're kidding yourself about your ability to execute the business. If you *can* figure out a way to get a toehold, then by all means do it now! Happy to advise further, feel free to contact me for a call.AS
-
A tech startup fully outsourced. What problems would be in this situation?
The ideal way would be to hire the engineer while the project is still under development. You and the engineer should follow up with the outsourced partner in the process. This will give hold to the engineer and later more staff can be trained in upgrading or follow on versions of the product/service.SM
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.