You are right on. 3 months for me to go from no ObjC experience to app store, another 5 months to get to 50K users, still no revenue, still no "seed" round. You need to be in it because it's what you really want to do.
Your own desire (financial or otherwise) is absolutely key. It's an extremely competitive landscape, but the barrier to entry is low compared to other industries. You can do quite a lot on your own with an investment of mostly time and energy.