Setting 'rules' for family involvement can help the work/life balance
Starting a small business - especially during a recession - is difficult enough. But running a startup while raising a family can be one of the biggest challenges an entrepreneur can face.
To provide entrepreneurs with some insight into how he managed to do both, serial entrepreneur Steve Blank - who started eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978 - urged small business owners to set "family rules" about their work/life balance, and to always keep in mind the big picture.
In an article in VentureBeat, Blank advised entrepreneurs not to fall into the trap of working constantly, or at least as much as they did when they were single.
"As I got older I began to realize that how effective you are is not necessarily correlated with how many hours you work," Blank wrote.
Instead, Blank set a series of guidelines for his work/life balance, such as always coming home for dinner by 7 p.m., putting his children to bed every night, and having a date night with his wife once a week.
Above all, he told entrepreneurs to ask themselves, "what will your epitaph say?" as a way to always keep in mind the big picture.
According to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, almost 70 percent of entrepreneurs were married when they became entrepreneurs, and almost 60 percent had at least one child.
