Ask HN: Schedule of a solo founder?

Solo since 2017. Working from home has a negative impact on my productivity. Family members and friends assume you're available for smalltalk and other stuff just because you're at home and not at work. I like working from home. It's warm and comfy. Food and drinks are a minute away. I consider myself very productive nonetheless, because I adjusted my daily routine to my environment and don't try to force it the other way around.

So about a year ago I started waking up at 5 o'clock. It's awesome after getting used to it. It's quiet, sometimes still dark outside and nobody can distract you. I can put on my headphones and just hack away. I usually start by taking a piece of paper and write down a couple of things/features/bugs I want to take care of that day. The items on the list were usually spread out across Github issues and projects Kanban boards, but I bring them together one more time. The goal is to realistically summarise the ideal day on a single sheet. I then prioritise and guess the time effort of each task. I start with the most important + least time. I want to look at the list at the end of the day with 8/10 items ticked off. Helps stay motivated and not get burned out. It's very likely I'll get distracted or just throw the towel after 5-6 hours of work. It's much easier to do that if you've already finished a good amount of work. I mostly optimize towards self-happiness. It's not a war you win on a single day. I know a lot of people that are unhappy with themselves and their progress on side projects because they often start with tasks that are too large and they have nothing to push to prod at the end of the day. In between of work I eat with my dad and girlfriend, sometimes have smalltalk for half an hour, but that's about it. I stop working at 8pm and play a round of monopoly against my girlfriend or watch a movie with her. Good time to talk about how your day was like and so on. I sometimes struggle with it, but it's important to dedicate time to your loved ones, even if you think that every minute you don't work on your project is lost money. They're usually the ones that support you the most.

I consider solo founding a 24/7/365 job. It's hard and a lot of pressure, but its one of the few things I enjoy most in life, because each day and every single item you tick off your todo list fully benefits you and not your employer.

(Sorry, the comment turned out a bit chaotic.)

I think founder is straightforward. I target 5%-10% higher income next week, or roughly 30% more next month if sales cycles are not weekly (mine was highly dependent on government paydays). Most people might want to target revenue instead, or even active users.

What's keeping you from hitting that target? Just focus on that. Would marketing/sales give you more income? Flying to that conference and making a talk? Do you need to handle customers better? Should the tech team ease the burden from the rest of the team? Add another feature? Improve existing ones? Do you need to spend more time hiring? Do you need to raise money to hire those people?

Being a founder in tech is incredible - you get to work on only the most important problems, unlike a job where you do the same thing over and over and force yourself through plateaus. It's like you have an extra dimension to maneuver around in.

I'd have weeks where I drive around the city pitching to investors. I'd have weeks where I'm driving off to another state to meet suppliers. I'd have weeks where I'm on the floor dealing with excess customers, writing up customer service scripts for someone else to do later. Weeks where I'm promoting the company at a career fair, and interview people on the spot or within a day. One week, I got sick of the app color scheme, looked up designers, got a logo budget approved, worked close with the designer and got a perfect new logo in 2 days, and then redesigned the whole app scheme around the logo. One campaign, we had an overwhelming amount of orders (3000 people signed up in a day), so I hacked in an order/delivery management system overnight.

If you need motivation, I recommend the rock star approach of hanging out with your fans. Or rather, just look at who is giving you their hard earned money. We get lots of feedback, reviews, in app, chat, customer messages. Take some time to write a personal thank you to some customers. Handle some existing customers yourself, not just the new ones. Thank your suppliers/partners or have a chat with them. Handle complaints personally; don't expect staff to do most of them... it's not fun for them as they're powerless, and they don't pass the valuable data.

The most important thing I've learned is that you need to find a balance between discipline and spontaneity.

For example, it's good to maintain a few "anchor points" each day to break up your time and help you break out of negative cycles or unproductive moods. Things like going to the gym, maintaining a fixed wake up time or lunch time. This is the discipline side, which helps you to train yourself to stay focused on your goals.

But it's also important to listen to your own body and mind, and do things that make sense to you in the moment. E.g. if you're feeling too tired to work, accept it, go home and try again tomorrow. Avoid burnout. If you scheduled a certain task for 11am but when the time comes you're in the zone on something else, stay in the zone! This is the spontaneity part.

Discipline allows you to be spontaneous without guilt, because you know you'll eventually return to the basic system of moving towards your goal that you've established. Spontaneity allows you to adapt as you go to avoid unforeseen problems or take advantage of unexpected benefits.

That said, on a work day (M-F) my schedule looks roughly like this:

6.30am - wake up 7.30-8.30am - gym 9-9.30am - write down what i did yesterday, what i want to do today 9.30-11.45am - on task 11.45am-12.15pm - lunch 12.15-3pm - on task 3.30-4pm - take a break, make a snack, or go for a walk 4-5.30pm - on task. but if i'm tired go home early. 6-7pm - dinner 7-9pm - relax, read, play music, hang out with my spouse 9pm - wind down, start getting ready for bed

Solo since 2005. I don't really have much of a schedule. That is one of the attractions.

Usually I work 8:30ish to 5:30ish Monday to Friday, taking time off for errands and exercize. I also do customer support at the weekends. Sometime I do a couple of hours work late in the evening. Sometimes I take the day off. Depends on how motivated I am feeling.

You have to keep a balance between the many little tasks that need doing (e.g. renew the office insurance, check adwords is running ok) and the fewer big tasks that make the difference log term (e.g. program a major new feature). I have a visual to do list that tracks tasks in my own software ( https://www.hyperplan.com ↗ ) so I don't forget anything.

That feeling of not knowing what is the most important thing t0 work on next (new feature, improve website, create an explainer video, improve the documentation, tweak your PPC)? Get used to it. It isn't going to go away.

Although this is a great question and the answers will be broadly useful for lots of folks reading, I'd like to suggest a reframe for yourself:

It's impossible to know what the right schedule is without knowing where you time needs to be spent, and there's not really enough context in the post for us to help with that.

At $1k ARR you've passed the hurdle of getting someone to pay something, which is great, but you still have a ways to go to sustain yourself which means you should take a hard look at your runway and product.

Is the product adequate to grow or is it still somehow short of MVP? Is the biggest problem lead gen, conversion or retention? Who is the target audience and what's the thin end of the wedge?

Overall at this stage I'd be spending a ton of time talking directly to customers (or prospective customers) and trying to uncover the flaws or opportunities for your product that will validate whether it can be successful. Good luck!