Snippet 5 - How To Avoid Burnout As An Entrepreneur: James Hoffmann
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So the hero bullshit of entrepreneurship of like I must grind myself down. I'm a fucking hero working super hard I'm doing it right and it's such bullshit and it's such a toxic aspect of all work and I hate it But I definitely worked 110 hour weeks for like months ground myself down to the point of deep misery and there is no quicker way to hate a thing you love than

than to work on it like that, right? Like I really love coffee. I definitely got to the point where I was like, I should quit coffee. I should just, I hate this. I hate this. I hate my life. I hate working in this. I should just do something else. 'Cause I worked in a stupid way and I burned myself out physically and emotionally because people do that because the world says, good for you, get the grind on. You know what I mean? It's your thing. It's yours, pour yourself into it. And you're like, no, don't, don't do that. That's really bad.

What you should do is start with enough capital that you can hire people to work with you, pay them properly, and then work in a healthy manner. Do you know what I mean? Like, just have work and home. Be separate. That's helpful. Turn off. Don't work at weekends or don't work some days a week. It's very satisfying, early doors, to pour yourself into a business. It is rewarding. It's enjoyable. But you're just burning through yourself so fast.

And so I regret not starting with probably twice as much money, hiring more people out of the gate and going home at five o'clock. Do you know what I mean? Like just be done. Just turn it off. Turn off the, go home. Enjoy life. You can build this thing. You don't have to sacrifice yourself for this. The downside is you need more money to start with. So that's, that's the trade-off.

We didn't have that money. We didn't know we needed it. We had enough to buy the physical things, not enough to build the systems, hire the people. And so we just worked ourselves to the bone and it was miserable and I regret it. And it was a mistake. Oh, okay. On that point. So-

I feel like sort of at least in the online discourse around starting businesses, circa 2013 to 2019 was the era of the hustle culture movement saying that, look, you're starting from nothing. Your 20s are for hustling. You've got to grind yourself to the ground, work on weekends, work on evenings to start that thing. Since pandemic, I think, has accelerated this, there's a lot more like that kind of approach of actually sustainability is important, etc., etc.,

um but what a lot of the kind of pro-hustle people say is that look when when you don't have that startup capital like and you're working your crappy job and you need to start the business there is not much you can do other than kind of work between i don't know 7 pm and 2 am and also work on weekends and all that kind of stuff and i guess you're just hoping it's just a season of time so that you can build enough money build a business off the ground because it will take blood

theoretically it takes blood, sweat and tears to get a business off the ground from moment one. And a lot of entrepreneurs that I've spoken to who have done that kind of grinding themselves to the ground say that, yeah, it wasn't ideal. It wasn't really a happy time, but without that period of crunch, which for several years potentially, the business wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

So I guess my question to you is do you think that you would have been able to do it in a more nicer? Sustainable way or do you think it was necessary to put in the blood to to get this get this off the ground? I think I think that the tricky bit is that if I had had the understanding that I have now and A little bit more capital then yes, we could have built the same business far more enjoyably I don't think it had been a bigger business necessarily But it would have been a more enjoyable process to do that and I think certainly

You know, I may start more businesses in the future and and I know that I got a little bit of

Hustley when YouTube started to kick off for me and I you know I mean I was like I gotta feed this a little bit because you know he feels when you when it feels like you pouring just straight gas on flames and there's just Every everything you put in comes back ten times. You're like mom mom mom mom Yeah, but then you still end up with their world where you going with this like what's that? Yeah all the big questions It doesn't you might get to where you don't know where you know you get to a point slightly quicker But what's the point you're trying to get to hmm?

Does it need to happen quicker? Is that better? So, look, I'm not saying that there's a perfect way, right? Like, to...

back in 2008 to raise another 100 grand would have been really hard. You know, the system that we live in makes it much easier to raise 1 million than 10 grand. Really? Yeah. We can get a 10 grand bank overdraft. But I feel like if you go and pitch big and you make big promises, yeah, you can raise lots of money on the promise of lots more later. But if you want, I'd just like a 10 grand overdraft, please. The bank's like, no. Yeah.

Yeah, you're like I turn over like 30 grand a month and they're like, uh-huh. I'm like 10 grand You know, I mean like pre financial crisis you could get like a month's turnovers overdraft was the sort of rule of thumb Yeah, and post financial crisis the banks were like nah Which is really unhealthy for for loads of small businesses It was it really restricted access to capital from 2008 probably 2015 was really difficult right if you wanted less than 100 grand and

The moment you wanted serious cash to make big promises to roll out this giant thing that little IPO or there'll be an exit Much easier Jeremy and for a while as I could easily raise it to million quid Yeah, I in a way that I couldn't raise 200 grand That's what that's messed up But that's that's the way it was back then the list still is now provides me of that quote Which is that I think you probably come across it that it

If you owe the bank 200,000, it's your problem. If you owe the bank 200 million, it's their problem Weird weird system of capitalism, but that's what I mean like it's messed up and you know But yeah, so so, you know, I'm perhaps talking about this idealized world where I could have found another hundred grand in

somewhere in a way that that didn't you know result in me signing over control or Direction or you know, I mean some aspect that would be later important But I do know that had we accrued more capital at the start We could have worked in a way that was less damaging to our physical and mental selves Yeah, and and you know, I think you can justify us culture all you like but

I just I don't think I'm proud of those years the way that I worked I mean am I proud of the way we got to yeah, maybe sure but I don't like that that was the the route and I certainly wouldn't wish that on anyone else and I would wish for or encourage a system or a way of working that wasn't that and

Do you know what I mean? Like I would hope for other people, you know, I don't feel like I suffered, you should suffer too. That's a sickness that infects our culture. I'm a, I suffered, I would like you not to suffer because this sucked. That's sort of my feeling about life.

So yeah, I'm not saying there's a perfect way. It's a messed up system. But that's my experience and how I feel about it at the end of it. So I guess, okay, so let's say if we could rewind 13 years and you have the same understanding you do now, but you're in those market conditions. Yes. It sounds like you probably would have spent more time trying to figure out how do I actually raise the startup capital I need such that I don't burn myself out rather than, oh, can't raise a hundred grand. You know, there's always other things we could do if we knew the value of it. But I guess...

At the time when you're at that stage of life, you're like, oh, I'll just work harder. Yeah, that's absolutely it. And certainly everything around me told me that was the right thing to do. You know what I mean? The culture around entrepreneurship was, yeah, you work. You can put those out. No one else can do it for you. It's your business. Get out what you put in. And I believed it. But I don't...

You know, I don't want someone watching this to hear me say, yeah, you should hustle. Yeah, you should suffer. You know what I mean? I don't feel comfortable saying those words to someone.