Del.icio.us is exactly the kind I referred to when I said "web-based to-do lists". Those are companies that discovered a market need for something technically trivial and filled the niche. While this does sound attractive and "let's all get rich this way!", the reality is that the percentage of businesses that had been started this way is very very very small, while number of people who is trying is very very very big and growing because of the media coverage.
Media plays a big role here, as always, because it loves such incredible success stories. Publishing an article about boring and typical long way up isn't going to help selling your magazine. When I look at small-to-medium sized companies I personally know someone working for, I do not see a single "del.icio.us" - they all took lots of work to get going: coding hours, equipment, office space, etc.
One of the reasons young founders succed more often that has not been talked about, is that fact that they DO NOT HAVE full time jobs, mortgages, wives and kids with high medical bills and "family time" they need. Young guys have more time and since time == money, they kind of already have "funding" when they're starting.
Therefore I do not see an answer to the dilemma the author is talking about. If your job pays $7K/month (after taxes) plus about a thousand more in benefits, and your startup needs 12 man-months to develop a prototype, plus 3-6 months of fundraising after that, you're essentially looking at the need to find $110-130K somewhere just to let yourself work full time on your idea. If you have that kind of savings - great. If not, quitting your job won't help since you'll starve to death. Short and simple, not even enough for a good blog post.
so, you're saying that a "real small-to-medium sized" company cannot begin to be built while working a day job? get a beta out and see if it picks up steam?
the author faced that dilemma and gave us his take, and you gave us yours. why all the 'this is childish' hate? :)
Hate? Wooo, that's a strong word :) I appreciated author's post, if anything, I was pissed by Matt's suppressing comments, especially since he's not too shy giving advice himself, which I also find useful on a regular basis.
