[JoeEntrepreneur]

It really does not matter much if you are doing it part-time or full-time except for the time it takes to get the first release out. I have been working on http://www.onista.com for almost a year now and I am doing it mostly in evenings and weekends. Bear in mind that I have one and half year old kid who takes lot of time away from me (Off course I enjoy it a lot). Recently two more friends joined me and we are pretty confident on launching in November.

Based on my experience I can say that, persistence is what matters. If you work full-time and are not persistent or loose focus then you are not going anywhere. If you work part-time and are persistent and focussed then you will win. May be it will take more time than usual but you will get there with better results.

So I would say, yes go ahead and work part-time on your idea, but be very persistent to spend whatever extra time you find on the idea. It would be good idea to find group of friends who can work part-time with you. (I did that it does help a lot)

[yters]

Yeah, that would probably work as long as I don't have tough competition that can work full time. So when I release, I have to release pretty complete and bug free, and it'd help if the product was very hard to reproduce without knowing the internals. I can probably do those, since I currently have a year and a half of comp sci research ahead of me (getting a masters).

Any recommendations on especially pertinent fields? I'm planning to look at SOA type stuff - intelligent agents, evolutionary algorithms, systems architecture, etc. I'd like to throw some Godel in there too, but can't really see the applicability yet.

[edw519]

I'm not sure that the "pertinence" of the field is what's important for a start-up. I'd be more concerned about the need for something (unless that's what you meant by "pertinent".)

If you have to look for something to do or ask for recommendations, you'll probably never have the passion needed to see it through.

OTOH, you probably already have what you need. What really bugs you? And others you know? When's the last time you said, "You know, someone really ought to make <some thing>." THAT'S what you should be pursuing.

[yters]

A deep solution is better in my situation than scratching some random itch, since anyone can do the latter. So, to rephrase my question more exactly: what are the deep underlying problems of the web that need the type of strong theory I can learn at university?

In answer to your last set of questions, something that really needs to be made is an aggregation service for all the web 2.0 stuff out there. People want an integrated, secure, and trust based work/socializing platform, and my current research interests are geared towards solving this kind of problem. Facebook is trying to do this, but I don't think they have a good mechanism yet for integrating apps.

[edw519]

"Random itches" sometimes grow to be "deep solutions".

Hotmail was started because 2 guys didn't want to leave an email trail on their employers' systems.

Ebay was a hobby to help a guy sell his girlfriends stuff.

OTOH, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were intended to be "deep solutions".

Sounds like you have the passion. No substitute for that.