[patio11]

Quote: We were selling 'cool' and riding on hope; never really figured out how we will make money out of it.

Oof!

Can't run a start-up part time: have to give it everything you've got.

I think this is largely a result of, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, a Silicon Valley cultural pathology that says that you're not really working unless you're working until 4 AM in the morning.

I have never had an interpreter throw an InsufficientlyDedicatedToTheProjectException. You are probably not in a business which has radical changes on a week to week basis. Why assume that pace is normative?

[varun]

I think you are right to some extent, but its fairly regular that when you are excited about something you are doing - time, sleep, etc take a backseat. You'll spend all your time thinking about it / building it. That is why it is important to be clear in your head - what do you love - the product or the business.

We loved the product we were building, so that kept us going. For geeks/hackers, the primary motivation is to build something they like, instead of $$. The money is incidental and its easy to get carried away with the 'product'. Some of us ended up working 7 days a week, 15 hrs a day on it. 4am everyday (and partly because some team members were in India). I think the frenetic pace, esp. is startups is natural and a good thing, but the key is to work smart - not just hard.

The experience has made me ask to myself almost every time I see a cool web app - 'ok, but how will it make money ?', and if it can't, then it would not be more than a short-lived dream for its founders and backers.