A day in the life of a start-up

One of the best things about being a start-up founder is that you get to be all hands on deck. Not for you, the segmentation of work, the assignation of one task that makes a small part of a bigger project. You are the bigger project.

Such an eclectic job description is the perfect urban myth fodder. Some people think start-up founders live a glamorous life of galas, cocktails and top-notch conferences (we wish). Other people think the only way to be a decent start-upper is to work 100h per week, sleep approximately never and go for long runs. Often they believe it’s both — which is troubling, given there are only so many hours in a day.

The truth is, there are as many schedules as there are start-ups. In our case, we are building a quantified-self product, a time-tracker, so we are very sensitive to time-related questions. We follow the latest research, which tells us that people who say they work 70h per week usually don’t, and those who do are usually not very productive. We also believe in work/life balance. And sadly, our involvement in sports, galas and all things glamorous is minimal.

There are no typical companies, no typical people, and no typical days. However, there are trends and patterns that can be relevant if you’re interested in entrepreneurship, and since we track our time very precisely, we thought we’d provide you with what comes closest to a regular day for the three of us — and the insights we garnered about our productivity.

1. Emmanuel Pont, the pointy-haired boss

“As CEO of Smarter-Time, my workday is a mix of the very different things I do: management, programming, networking, strategising, fundraising… The proportions of those things can vary dramatically depending on the company’s needs. On average, over the last few months, I’ve done 41% programming, conception, and intern management, 21% news and strategy and 10% fundraising.

My personal patterns, however, are fairly regular. I get up around 8am — even though I am awake earlier, because my significant other lets her alarm ring for 30 min before switching it off. Then I kick off my day by browsing time-tracking, tech and startup news while drinking my coffee: information gathering is a big part of my job. I have to take the Métro to get to the office, but I claw some time back by reading articles in the Pocket app.

Then it’s a day at the office. Several times per week I go to appointments with investors, advisors or people who are interested in our field. Otherwise I stay at our incubator and do the admin and IT job that needs to be done.

I manage to stay focused for long periods of time by alternating “heavy” and “light” types of work. Heavy work would typically be programming and important meetings, mails, calls… When I am doing creative work, I often get “stuck” and need to refresh my brain by doing something completely different, mostly reading a relevant article.

I get off work at 7:30 and am home by 8. Sometimes I eat out, sometimes I cook and eat at home while watching a TV show or a Starcraft game stream. I usually keep some light work for the evening. I often have to deal with work-related emergencies, and sometimes I do a bit of programming on the app just for fun. I try to always take at least one hour to unwind in front a video game, mostly strategy games that help me clear my head but still keep me intellectually stimulated.

Sleep doesn’t come easy to me, and bedtime mostly depends on my girlfriend’s whims, so I use various tricks to fall asleep faster, like wearing yellow-tinted glasses in the evening and gulping down melatonin pills.

What I’d like to do differently: I feel like I’ve already gone forward in many ways, but there is still room for improvement: more sport, more books, do lighter work on the days when I’m tired, and heavier work when I feel good.”

2. Anis, plays Snake in the terminal

“One big thing I’ve learned since working with Smarter Time and getting hooked on productivity reads is that focus is everything. Life/work balance is hugely important to me, and I found out the best way to preserve it is, unsurprisingly, to keep the two separate. So I switch my professional mode full on when I arrive at the office, but I always switch it off when I leave, except in cases of emergency.

My workday is made 75% of personal programming-related work, 25% of managing our junior programmers (aka answering their often interesting questions the best I can). Our app relies heavily on innovation, which means I need to stay aware of the research in our fields: machine learning, location, phone sensors. A good chunk of my own programming and associated activities pertains to that research.

During my periods of solitary work, I take short breaks to make tea, grab coffee or read on my phone. The one thing that pulls me through, however, is listening to music. It helps me focus by keeping other distractions at bay. I have a very long Spotify playlist — and I keep adding to it every time a new One Direction song comes out (team Niall!) Also, like Emmanuel, I tend to alternate heavy and lighter work.

My evenings are my #yolo time. Since I became more productive during the day, I feel free to commit to my hobbies, which are mostly writing, reading, photography and video games. I do all these things alternately, while also setting some time aside to enjoy the company of my friends. Something else I like to do is watching TV shows: it’s a good flatshare activity, and it makes for a clean escape after a long day of work (who said brain-dead time?)

What I’d like to do differently: I feel I have improved quite a few things already, but my next frontier is my sleep. Not in a “help-me-sleep” way (I sleep well enough), but I attended a QS meetup in Paris a few months back which dealt with lucid dreams. I find the idea of being aware while dreaming fascinating!”

3. Anna, the visual chatterbox

“Of the three of us, I got the lucky draw: because I live in London while Smarter Time is based in Paris, I work from home. That means most days I can skip the ugly “Transport” category and get an extra hour of sleep. My morning routine is: getting out of bed, showering, making some tea and getting to work. I usually start with doing e-mails, to-do lists and general maintenance.

I used to go back and forth between work and distractions constantly, which was making me unproductive. So now I work in full focus mode anywhere from 45min to 2h, depending on the type of things I’m doing, then take a 10–15 min break during which I browse my social media, take a phone call or do my laundry. Or make tea.

My big break is lunch. I either cook something really fast, or have food delivered, or grab a sandwich. Then I can eat and watch a series, play the guitar or read a book in the garden. Occasionally I will go out for a social or professional lunch.

The afternoon is the time for long-term projects. I read articles on strategies I need to devise (marketing, PR), or I browse for design and UX news and ideas. I also do actual design work or write articles such as this one!

At about 8pm, the day is over. Usually at that point I’ve had 9h to 10h of solid work, which, when you throw in a few more hours during week-ends, takes my weekly workload to about 50h.

The evening belongs to me. Cooking, going to the theatre, binge-watching TV shows, reading, playing video games or attending singing lessons: the sky’s the limit. Before I go to bed, I always have a last look at my e-mails and my Slack, just to make sure there’s no pending emergency.

I have kept the bad habit of reading my phone before I fall asleep. To limit the effect on my sleep patterns, I use Twilight, an app that reduces the amount of light the phone emits and changes its temperature, so it feels more like evening.

What I’d like to do differently: I’d like to do more sports! (And go to more galas, but that might have to wait.) So I think I’ll try cutting back on the evening phone reading, waking up a bit earlier and going for a morning jog or swim twice a week.”