Saturday is rarely a day of rest for Matthew Coffey, CEO of SQUID. The line between work and friendship gets blurred very quickly when you are building something, and he finds that blending the two is natural rather than a burden.
At 10 a.m. Coffey admits he does not have a standard schedule. Life at this stage involves frequent weekend travel for weddings, taking him to parts of Ireland or abroad he might otherwise never visit. He genuinely enjoys the unpredictability of these trips, finding character in the quirks and routines of new locations.
His mornings usually start with catching up on sleep. No alarm or agenda exists. Once awake, he heads to a local coffee shop for a pastry. It has become a ritual, a small consistency in an otherwise shifting schedule.
By 11 a.m., he is out the door for a walk or run. He listens to podcasts on deliberately non-work topics. His history shows a mix of subjects: AI, wildlife, philosophy, sport, politics, filmmaking, and random topics he discovered that morning. He prefers learning a little about many things over becoming an expert in one.
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At 12:30 p.m., he returns to catch up on work. Startup life bleeds into the weekend, but he does not mind. The people he spends time with on Saturdays are often people he met through work. The boundaries between professional colleagues and friends are not rigid in the startup environment.
He spends his afternoons in physical activities. He blunders through three different forms of non-contact rugby each week, admitting he is not especially good at any one of them. He has played for Ireland in the past but still feels slightly behind the curve in these variations.
He has also started spending more time in the gym. He does not love every minute of it, but he appreciates the discipline and the feeling of progression. The physical exertion usually leaves him feeling better afterwards.
Three-thirty in the afternoon is often dedicated to watching a friend play rugby. It serves as an excuse to leave the house and support someone. It frequently turns into a large social gathering and a late night out.
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By 5 p.m., he heads down to Schull in West Cork. He spent a lot of time there growing up, and it remains the place where he finds it easiest to switch off. While he still loves swimming and being on boats, he now appreciates the walks, hills, and setting just as much.
The weather in West Cork is notoriously unpredictable. When a good day arrives, he does not overthink it. He gets out on the water, heads to an island, goes for a swim, or throws a barbecue together with friends. Because the weather is never guaranteed, he tends to remember the good days vividly.
Getting into the cold Atlantic water clears his head almost immediately. The older he gets, the more he notices how relaxed he feels afterwards.
By 6:30 p.m., Coffey has developed a fascination with dry stone walling. Watching people in Schull turn a pile of loose rocks into a wall made him realize the incredible skill involved. He tried building a stone bench himself. It is recognizable as a bench, which is likely the fairest review. While building it, he entered a state of flow, completely focused on lifting, positioning, and balancing the stones. He enjoyed it enough that he is now trying to make a few other small things.
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