[Ed. note: This is in response to a post by David Hauser entitled, “The Startup Side Project Bubble” which you can read here: http://buff.ly/10Lw9ek]
So many founders forget something simple: You do not own your employees.
They are human beings with their own passions, interests and lives. You have a vision of a reality you want to create. After much labor and hard work to get it off the ground, either funding or your own revenue allows you to hire help. Those people are choosing to devote a significant portion of their lives to your cause to help make it possible. Take a moment to appreciate that.
In David’s post he argues that employees having side projects is bad for them and his business. This is so backwards.
First, telling someone what they should and shouldn’t do in their free time is a tremendous insult to them and their personal judgment. It’s also incredibly short-sighted.
You want employees with side projects.
Especially for the creators at a startup (ie- the people that design and build your product), there is tremendous benefit to them having side projects. A few of those benefits are:
- Experimentation. An outlet to experiment with new technologies before suggesting the company use them; no amount of research compares to having used a new framework and being able to provide first person accounts of the tradeoffs.
- Independence. A place where they can make all the decisions (for better and worse) versus the negotiations that often happen in a company. You can also call this their creative release.
- Mastery. The ability to further hone skills in a self-directed fashion, getting them to the 10,000 hours to mastery faster than standard work hours alone would provide.
- Relief. Providing some variety in their life’s work can help avoid the burnout that comes from only working on one thing for too long.
- Focus. Motivating them to get their work done efficiently because they don’t have every hour of the day to work on it. The saying goes, “If you want something done, ask a busy person” for a reason.
- Contribute. The ability to help the greater tech community through contributions to open source projects, which wouldn’t exist without many people having side projects.
- Network. They’ll often work with people outside their day job on these side projects, which will grow their learning and network. It might even provide the next recruit when you need more help at your startup.
And I’m sure there are others.
Great employees are a package deal.
In the early days of a startup, you want athletes, which are often entrepreneurs themselves. Later, you want specialists who have deep expertise in their skills. By their nature the same skills you value each day in either group’s work for you also lends itself to having these side projects: In early employees that means a breadth of knowledge, while later, the depth of knowledge that comes from side projects is what makes many great later stage startup employees.
I would not be running product at KISSmetrics if I had only put my head down and worked on my past jobs (I wouldn’t even be in tech now most likely…I have a degree in Electrical Engineering). The skills that are core to my job came from side projects like Greenhorn Connect, taking the time to learn new skills in my free time and reading voraciously. Every founder wants to hire people with passion for their craft and a wide range or depth of skills. This is a package deal.
“Why don’t you quit your job already?”
Taking a step back and looking at David’s argument, it seems centered around the idea that if an employee has a side project, they should quit their job immediately and start a company. While they should definitely quit their job if they’re ready to make a run at it as a business, they may not do that right away because of a few reasons:
- Funding. They lack the personal funds and see the foolishness in fundraising when they don’t even know whether an idea has legs whatsoever. Not all side projects have clear paths to revenue/bootstrapping either.
- Motivation. Many side projects are for fun and passion. Sometimes those become businesses worthy of full time attention, but usually they are just an enjoyable thing to do with only part of their time.
- Stability. Depending on what else is happening in their life, it may not be the time to start a company. If they’re getting married, just moved to a new city or a close family member is on their deathbed, they may not want the upheaval of launching a startup on top of that.
None of these reasons prevent a person from being a valuable contributor to your startup. In fact, someone may work for your company and add tremendous value you’d otherwise never receive.
This is a seller’s market.
If you have hard to find skills like design, product management or engineering, it’s a great time to be a startup employee. Companies must compete for you. With salaries skyrocketing, it takes more than money to attract talent. Having a good culture, treating people well and supporting them as individuals become important factors as well.
David’s views may work for him, but I caution other founders from adopting his cynical attitude towards those with side projects. The potential gains far outweigh any losses in hours David seems so concerned with and run the risk of turning off potential great team members.
The key is there is a difference between side projects and things to help you learn and starting a business. If you are starting a business you should go out there and do it. We have supported many former team members do this over the years and we are proud of them.
David,
Thanks for reading my response and taking the time to comment.
I don’t think it’s as black and white as you’re contesting and your article did not come off like that’s what you were saying.
I do not doubt your support of people who have left Grasshopper to launch their own ventures. However, I think it’s very difficult to necessarily tell the difference between a side project and a startup. The tone and message of your post seemed to imply that people should have neither if they work for you despite the benefits I’ve focused on discussing above.
Thanks,
Jason
It is a matter of semantics or wording then, side project is the wrong word maybe. Startup business, revenue generating entity that you want to grow, use any of those.
As a startup employee, I don’t just work for you. I’m your partner… that’s what motivates me. But it doesn’t give you the right to tell me or even presume to tell me when to go at my side project / business full time. It’s really none of your business –and if it is, you should be supportive of their side projects/startups, rather than be insecure.
To think that a founder believes they have this right is ridiculous. @Dh: Why not explicitly state this in the contracts and job postings, and see the quality and type of candidates you’ll get. Everything in Jason’s post rings true to what creatives bring to a startup when they’re free to pursue their dreams outside of their full time job.
+1 Jason for the response and class.
Take care,
@mustefaj
And being supportive doesn’t mean encouraging employees to leave your startup to go fend for their project full-time.
We have had people work with us for years with side projects, the ones that were successful in growing it into a real business that creates jobs and revenue were not able to do this part-time.
Has nothing to do with job descriptions or contracts, you are missing the point. If you want to grow a business you should give yourself the best environment to do so. Forget about the startup you work for, the job you have or anything else I said. We need more startups in this world and ones that are out there creating meaningful economic change.
David, I read your article and I found it a bit confusing at times Too many mixed messages in your comments as well. You seem to be advocating for companies to hire employees that don’t have a side project going on, as a guarantee that they will be fully engaged and committed to their full-time job this way. I really don’t agree with this line of thinking. It’s ridiculously naive to say the least. I understand that “it’s not good for startups or for companies to have employees that are partially engaged in both [side projects and day jobs] and committed to neither”, and yes “not everyone is an entrepreneur”. But I personally would prefer to have employees as part of my team who would rather come alive and do something on the side that they’re truly passionate about, someone who’s creative, ambitious and with its own hopes and dreams, instead of having people who simply choke back vomit where they wake up another day, doing something they hate, working for someone they don’t respect, in order to put food on the table.
You can’t and you shouldn’t control whether designers, developers or any other professional wants to experiment with small-scale side projects while working for your company. You simply can’t. It’s like trying to use cruise control in wet conditions. The weather will prevail. But the key here is to understand that in there is in fact tremendous benefit to employees having side projects as Jason mentioned in his article. You should focus instead in implementing a recruiting process that helps you in finding, attracting, and retaining top talent. Not in speculating, assuming or running your business under retrograde philosophies and backward ideas about how “side projects create a talent bubble of people who aren’t fully engaged”. Good luck with that.
And BTW, in order to work on building a “real business” that helps people solving a problem or meeting a need, you should know that entrepreneurs will fail many times as a result of working on crazy and often silly ideas just like Twitter was one day.
This post echoes the sentiment that top performs work with companies, not for companies. I think it’s important for founders and management to realize that there is a two way relationship i.e. value compromise. Give your employees the freedom to expand their interests and harness their full potential and you will get dividends and value back beyond expectations.
Jason – THIS is a moving forward kind of article. Dead on Thank you for writing this. I posted the link on my linkedin update.
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