Hey, I’m Ken. I’m working on Budgetpath, a SaaS app to help families stop arguing about money. I’m located in Northwest Indiana, I’ve got five kids, four of which are under 10, and a 2.5-4 hr commute to the day job (an hour, fifteen each way with no traffic, which never happens) in Chicago each each day.
My biggest hurdle, as one may imagine, is time management.
Hey Ken
I feel your pain. I have four kids under 12 and run my own web development company , there’s never enough time. Thankfully I don’t have a commute. It took me about 3 years to take my first SAAS pageproofer.com from idea to launch. The single biggest hurdle was finding time, and when there was time being uber efficient with it. I think the best way is to set aside x per week even if it’s not a lot but having that block where you can say I’m only working on my project gives you a framework to work within. It may take you longer than you want but atleast there is always some incremental progress happening.
Good luck.
Welcome! I have 4 kids under 12 too (12, 10, 9 and 5 months)… We sat the older three down in our office over Christmas and whiteboarded our budget! We started with “Dad’s salary” and then went all the way from taxes to school books and everything in between. Needless to say they now have more context to the “no” answer to all the “can I have…” questions!
Though after an hour we had to let them go play to cheer them up… they were already scarred from our crappy parenting so I don’t think they’ll be any worse off from the experience… 
Look forward to seeing a reveal of your product soon.
[quote=“Ken, post:1, topic:1025, full:true”]
Hey, I’m Ken Wallace. I’m working on Budgetpath, a SaaS app to help families stop arguing about money.[/quote]Welcome Ken, and congratulations for choosing a product without tons of competition. “Find a problem not experienced by mid 20s single men in urban centers & your competition drops by ~2 orders of magnitude.” (@hackernews)
[quote]I’m located in Northwest Indiana, I’ve got FIVE kids, four of which are under 10[/quote]I have no kids, so I’m an expert on raising them. 
Perhaps you can get them to do enough of the household chores to free up some time.
[quote]a 2.5-4 hr commute to the day job (an hour, fifteen each way with no traffic, which never happens) in Chicago each each day[/quote]I think you should stop working on your product and solve this issue first. Can you get into or start a car/vanpool? Can you move? Is there a public transit option for much of the commute? Can you work from home some number of days per week? Find a different job? Right now it seems all you can do safely on your commute is listen to podcasts or use a voice recorder to talk out ideas for your product, neither of which is the most efficient use of your time. Even being able to sit on a cramped bus with paper and pencil would help you make progress. I had a 1-hour commute each way by bus for 4 years, and it could be very productive, even those times I didn’t have room for a laptop.
Thanks for the reply, Steve! Nice to meet you.
a 2.5-4 hr commute to the day job (an hour, fifteen each way with no traffic, which never happens) in Chicago each each day
I think you should stop working on your product and solve this issue first. Can you get into or start a car/vanpool? Can you move? Is there a public transit option for much of the commute? Can you work from home some number of days per week? Find a different job? Right now it seems all you can do safely on your commute is listen to podcasts or use a voice recorder to talk out ideas for your product, neither of which is the most efficient use of your time. Even being able to sit on a cramped bus with paper and pencil would help you make progress. I had a 1-hour commute each way by bus for 4 years, and it could be very productive, even those times I didn’t have room for a laptop.
I’ve been lucky; just as I was in negotiations with my employer to allow me to work from home more often, Jason Freid and DHH released their book Remote. I bought two copies, one for me and one for the boss.
Luckily, a combination of my heartfelt, candid discussions with my boss, and the compelling support from the contents of the book, I’ve been given permission to (A) work from home two to three days per week (as weather and project timetables dictate), and (B) I got to write our company’s remote work policy.
I’m second in command in this 20-person web dev consultancy, VP Business Solutions, so him allowing me to work from home was huge. It basically means he now has a senior manager who he physically only sees two to three days per week. It was a huge shift in my boss’ mental paradigm on the matter, so for that I’m thankful.
We use Hipchat to mimic the old watercool chats, a brand new RingCentral phone system that seamlessly routes calls from clients no matter where I am, Google Hangouts for facetime and staff meetings, and GoToMeeting for screen sharing.
So far, this arrangement has yielded many extra hours of freedom per week that I’ve been able to throw at my business.
Great Ken, glad you’ve got that sorted.
Hey Ken,
i might help with the time management issue (at least while you’re working). We develop time tracking software and i firmly belive that the first step into succesfull time management is to know on what you currently spend your time and go from there. (relying on your mind might be tricky). Check out our software at http://www.paymo.biz and also look at PaymoPlus, it’s a desktop app that tracks what you do on your computer automatically and at the end of the day you can sort your time and associate it with your tasks.