[gridspy]

My point is that those founders didn't draw a salary until well after they had a value proposition for investors.

Or to put it another way, Stephen and I have put > $400,000 of hours into Gridspy, but our costs are limited to board prototyping, outsourced layout and web hosting. For most internet startups, costs are perhaps $10,000 per founder for 3 months + hosting (perhaps $100/mo until there is enough traffic to drive ads).

It only gets expensive when you need to bring in contracting help. That is why it pays to be a switched on hacker in this game.

Remember, the giants weren't always giants. As they transitioned to giants, there were doing it with VC money - not founder's cash.

Don't look at the destination and get put off. Take it one step at a time. You can probably get to traction with $10k.

[gridspy]

One further point. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that facebook is burning through $1m per day now.

http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate would seem to agree with me ($200m per year perhaps).