Running a startup and working for it feels like routing a ship through stormy waters, one moment you have terrifying highs, the next you have challenging lows. It is a fact that startups are at restless race against the flying time to invent, capture the market attention, and captivate loyal user base. To achieve the success and grab the crown demands spending more is not just money but also carries efforts, dreams, dedication, and hours. In the other side, we could see the reports showing extended periods of overwork led to reduced productivity due to extreme exhaustion as it affect work-life balance by straining out personal relationships and overall well-being.

Without making it draggy, let’s jump into the article to explore is it really essential to invest more hours and time to tap startup success by decoding its pros and cons.

Why dedicating extra hours is important for Startups?

Quick Development: To develop and launch their products and services in the market before it moves out-of-trend and make them hit before competitors can, startup falls under the urgency to dedicate time and effort.

Inadequate Resources: In the initial stages, usually startups have limited human as well as financial resources. Through spending more hours with team members can pay off for the inadequate resources and tap the goals more quickly and effectively.

Setting a Strong Foundation Stone: For any pursuit of dreams, laying a solid foundation is essential. The right extra hours spent rightly on product and process is paramount to understand and analyze the perfect user-base to result productive and fruitful and empower the organization for longer run.

Flexibility: Unlike well-established firms, startups need to be extremely responsive and adaptive to market trends and customer feedbacks. For this, working for extra hours permits them to penetrate and pilot rapidly on new data and information accordingly.

Founding Captivating Culture: To create a good corporate culture for any startup company, the initial phase is vital. If the lead of the team shines with hard work and dedication, it can inspire a solid commitment and work ethic among team members.

Networking & Collaboration: For building partnerships, attracting investors, and gaining market exposure, it’s essential to work intensively. It also includes appearing in events and attending meeting head.

But still! It’s important to know the potential downsides!

Destructive Atmosphere: If working long hours become the custom more than a wish, there are possibilities to create a toxic work culture where the teams behind the firm feel over-pressured, burnout, and fatigue to over-work.

Weakened Productivity: Long working hours doesn’t always result in higher turnover rates and productivity. Due to the brainstorming tasks and deadlines, the quality of work and efficiency can be majorly affected.

Tangled Decision-making: Work exhaustion can harm the quality of right judgment and decision-making which leads to take poor decisions, make unexpected mistakes, and disturb the startup’s overall progress.

Diminished Breaks: Absence of needed breaks for rest and relaxation can highly decrease the problem solving skills and creativity, which plays vital role in an early-stage startup atmosphere.

Health Concerns: Working for long hours can also result in a severe health issues such as burnouts, stress, sleep deprivation, and other related problems that tends to make the body not supportable to work efficiently.

Negligence to Personal Life: Investing excessive time on work with less me-time can lead the brain to neglect personal relationships, habits, hobbies, causing severe strain in scheduled work life.

Buzzes from Industry Titans of India that captured Headlines recently

#Narayana Murthy, Co-Founder of Infosys recommended ‘70-hour workweek idea’ and justified it by saying Indians have a lot to do to make the nation number one. This statement of Murthy created a huge controversy across the country.


Reactions:

Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO, Ola Cabs: “Our Grandparents generation fought for independence. Our Parents generation fought for roti kapda makaan. Like it or not, our generation is destined to build India to the largest economy. It will take every effort. No better satisfaction than to contribute in this journey!”

Ayushmaan Kapoor, Founder, Xeno: “India is truly trying to compete with the U.S. and China. If we want to achieve greatness, then yes, those are the number of hours and the kind of sacrifices we must make”.

Radhika Gupta, CEO, Edelweiss Mutual Fund: “Between offices and homes, many Indian women have been working many more than seventy-hour weeks to build India (through our work) and the next generation of Indians (our children)”.

#After Narayana Murthy, SN Subrahmanyan, Chairman, L&T advocated for ‘90 hour workweek’ by saying “If you have got to be on top of the world, you have to work 90 hours a week”, which sparked a fresh debate.

Reactions:

Sabarinath Warrier, Co-Founder, Healspan: While I firmly believe in hard work, I don’t think 90-hour workweeks are realistic. As a founder, I value accountability over merely logging hours at a desk. Throwing out such exaggerated figures trivializes genuine effort and hard work, turning a serious conversation into a social media spectacle. Blanket statements like these overlook critical nuances—humans simply cannot maintain productivity for such long stretches. In many professions, working such excessive hours could lead to catastrophic consequences. For instance, I’d never board a flight knowing the pilots have been working 90 hours a week.

Sushanto Mitra, Founder & CEO, Lead Angels Fund, “At Lead Angels, we follow a hybrid 5-day workweek, emphasizing balance and efficiency. However, our dedication extends beyond the confines of schedules—we remain committed to addressing client and portfolio needs, even during holidays and vacations. For us, success isn’t about the number of hours worked but about consistently delivering value through focus, agility, and trust. By blending smart work with steadfast commitment, we ensure the success of our clients while safeguarding the well-being of our team”.

Above all, remember balance is the key to unlock everything, while hard work and dedication are vital to cultivate consistency within. Whereas investing your energy in extra hours might sound impressive and necessary at times, it’s essential to hit a balance and choose yourself when it’s time to recharge. In the end, the goal should be to optimize the work smarter and harder, not just overextend. Share your thoughts on this!!!!