StartupHoodlum

I no longer eat for pleasure.  Since becoming an entrepreneur, my eating habits could more precisely be called “scavenging.”  If there is free food within about a 12 mile radius from the current location I am sitting in, I will most likely grab my laptop and go there.  (By the way, has anybody created an iPhone app that will tell me where the closest free food is– I’ll buy it).

That’s not exactly true (although if an event or party does have free food, I might be slightly more likely to attend).   A bigger element to me as an entrepreneur is the lack of efficiency in cooking.  The whole process– buying food, preparing it, cooking it, and eating it– it takes time.

There are three critical elements for a good meal for entrepreneurs.

1) Fast

2) Cheap

3) Healthy

The first is obvious.  The scarcest resource for an entrepreneur is time.  Unless it’s a dinner to get to know some interesting people, get feedback on your idea, or talk to customers, eating (as in, the process of preparing, cooking etc) is simply not a good use of one’s time.  There are a thousand things more helpful to the startup.  If your team is spending 5 hours a day eating and your competitor spends 30 min, you will be killed.

Food also should be cheap.  I rarely pay more than $10 for a meal if I go out and $5 if I stay in.  It adds up fast, especially if you add a glass of wine here and there or are treating others to a meal or two.

The last could be the most important and the one that is easiest to ignore as an entrepreneur.  When you are working up to twenty hours a day (and potentially at extremely odd hours), it can be tough to eat healthy and regularly… especially if you are trying to eat fast and cheap.  It is extremely important to stay physically and mentally (they are tightly intertwined) healthy as an entrepreneur.  Keith Rabois (@rabois) has mentioned to me a couple of times the importance of being fit as an entrepreneur and the fact that the mind is sharper when one does exercise.

I think eating well is an extension of that and simply keeps the entrepreneur in top shape for everything else:  at a startup, there are enough things to worry about to not have to add health issues on top of it.  Further, you gotta be on top of your game and staying healthy keeps you there.

So what do we eat?  A couple of things…

Chipotle (great value– cost is $6.66 for a steak burrito bowl which is close to 1,000 calories) which can be quite healthy if you don’t go all out with toppings.

Subway ($5 for a Footlong Sub)- healthy and great value

At home, we have a rice cooker which is extremely fast and make either rice and beans or rice and tuna, always with fruit juice on the side.

Any other ideas on good food choices for entrepreneurs?