Surviving startups as a family

It’s been a few months since my last post. Well, I’m one half of a couple that thrives on start ups. What do you expect!? Our lives change directions overnight. With a less than 4-5% success rate, we’ve had quite a few companies shut down mid school year, mid apartment lease, even mid vacation. As abrupt as most of these exits from folded companies are, we have the drill down - call Kaiser to start the process on health insurance, bubble wrap the kids till the insurance kicks in a month or two later, look for guitar lessons for the husband at the local community college (perhaps this will be the sabbatical that ends with a tune we recognise...), apply for unemployment, explain to the kids why dad’s home reading a lot, look for ways to cut costs because it’s time to dip into those savings, and of course my husband’s favorite- take an afternoon nap!  

To survive as a family in a startup environment is challenging, riddled with uncertainty, filled with periods of intense frugality but ultimately rewarding. The trick is to keep an even keel through bouts of euphoria (there’s a deal on the horizon- we might finally get to cash in on those few percentage points of equity and make our millions!) or deep troughs (our business just got delayed by crucial weeks because of some random technicality.) The spouse closer to these problems will of course be dealing with these issues more emotionally, but my job is to keep the balance at home no matter what. The kids still need to get to that soccer game, homework is still due tomorrow so you know, life has to go on regardless of what the future looks like.  

More so this time around because we’ve taken a deeper plunge. Disillusioned with the kind of jobs he was being offered and the lack of ingenuity in any of the startups he looked into, my husband decided to start one of his own along with a friend. This meant the family had to be prepared for more than just a few months of uncertainty, a closer economic huddle, another relocation and did I mention a lot of uncertainty?

It’s been almost nine months since the last time my husband worked for someone else and so far it’s been a great learning for all of us. My husband of course has the actual company to build and the excitement, on most days, is palpable. But for our two grade school age children, this opportunity could not have come at a better time. While many of our peers worry about the materialistic world constantly tempting their children, the only ‘Apple’ products our kids own are made by them ...out of paper. Most of the things we need are bought at garage sales or Craigslist and they know new toys are only for birthdays. Then too, the budget is a whopping $30.

The difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’ is clear to all of us because we’re all in this together!

Over the years my husband and I have devised various strategies to deal with this constant upheaval. Perhaps if there’s interest I could detail some of them on a later post.