[danielstudds]

I'm 9 months in to my startup (consultancy/product combo for enterprise), probably 2 weeks from having the first signed deal. I quit my day job June 2012. Then I wasted 6 months spinning my wheels.

What got me back on track? patio11 (http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/) and Amy Hoy (http://unicornfree.com/). The way they think about these things is a much better match for how I think about the world than say Eric Ries (that said, great book, and anyone involved in building a gragh db has my whole-hearted admiration.)

Key things for me are:

-holy shit, you can charge $x0,000/week (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4805091)? What am I doing wrong? What can I do to charge that much? No seriously, what can I do to charge that much? Thinking about that pretty solid for about a month changed the way I view things (both consultancy and product).

- if you're doing it right, you're customers will tell you "shut up and take my money" (http://unicornfree.com/2012/shut-up-and-take-my-money-or-how...). I started off with an idea and was looking for a customer. That wasn't fun. Starting with a customer and solving their problems is much nicer.

Also: I'm reliably told that you don't need to quit your day job if your smart about it. That said, doing this full time is pretty sweet.