Sahil Parikh is the founder of Brightpod, project management software for Web-based marketing teams.
"The secret of health for mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate problems, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. " - Buddha
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For a busy founder startup, downtime is important to reflect on the things you worked. Everyone needs to stop, pause, relax and rejuvenate. The last thing you want is to burn before your business takes off.
In fact, I can not believe that some entrepreneurs are preaching work all day and slogging out without interruption. It would be a slave to your business. Personally, the whole point of building a business is to make it work without you. If it can not, then you are as good as self-employed.
So let's say you decide to take a break during the next week. Thoughts on your servers, clients, upgrades will slowly glide. Worry is the enemy.
The key is to plan, prepare and off. This message will go through the points to help SaaS founders plan better before they set off the grid and relax a bit on their much needed getaway.
As an avid traveler, I used to be a little worried about my business. However, over time, I trained my mind to let go of work and instead enjoy the holidays without stress.
"I had thousands of problems in my life, most of which has never really happened." - Mark Twain
plan better
Go last week with each of your team members and plan deliverables for your return. I normally expect three to four important tasks for everyone with the priorities identified.
I also discuss worst-case scenarios so that the core team knows what to do in case they need to manage a crisis. Make sure everyone is prepared so that they should not interrupt your time in case of problems.
Everyone manages the support
Respond to customer emails should be a team effort and should not depend on one "support officer." A Brightpod while the world, especially the developers, are looped in incoming email clients via Intercom. this way, customers receive a timely response each day and there is no single point of failure . single
Managed hosting
I am always greeted with Rackspace - I personally love their level of support if something goes wrong Pay a premium support is not. having to deal with the headaches in an emergency.
Besides, i want my team to focus on building software and not worry about the network and server problems. server management are not heart of our business, building software is daunting.
Daily backups
We all backup data daily and in case of failure, everything can be restored. It helps me sleep better at night and of course, enjoy my vacation. Backup is so important, it is amazing how some of us can manage to overlook this small but important task.
are the bills paid?
A week before I'm heading, I do a quick check to make sure all our bills are paid (eg accommodation, SaaS, etc.). I also make sure my credit cards are cleared to travel (national or international) are not expire while I am away and they have sufficient funds for expenses of automatic cases.
I also keep a separate credit card should be used for SaaS services. Again, good to have the backup, always.
checks Schedule email
On a break, I'll check my email twice. Once after breakfast and once in the evening
You can not be always worrying about something that goes down. It's just a lame way to live.
Say Screw
Being on vacation is MY TIME that I won it. Nobody can take it away from me. Sometimes, you just say "screw" to everything that is harassing you and just enjoy the moment.
More importantly, trust your team to offer while you are not present. This will be an amazing year to know if your business can run without you.
Enjoy your next break and thank you for reading! Would love to hear your comments on how you and your business ready for a stress-free getaway.