> Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans, but both wildly out of place given the nature of the problem we were solving. A tange

> Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans, but both wildly out of place given the nature of the problem we were solving. A tangent: This is something that scares me about many Bay area startups. What do software developers really care about home maintenance? This is a serious question. Some startups you can tell the founders are in love with the idea. The founders ARE the idea, and they're devoted to it. They believe it entirely independent of making money. Home care seems like a nuisance and a real world problem. But why devote your life to it? Again, this is a serious question, not a stab at Homejoy. It doesn't seem like a problem that anyone could seriously put their life's work into. It's not like you're a home repair person crafting the finest cabinets you can for clients. From an outsider's perspective, this seems like the founders could only superficially be in it for the money. For the > majestic startupville spell , but not for for the true, deep love of the idea. I've seen the Stanford engineer dropout start the clothing company. The bored engineer spin up yet another time tracking app that they don't use themselves. The car-less developer vagrant try to "disrupt" auto sales. I've been there before, brainstorming "startup" ideas. I'm glad none of them panned out, because I can't imagine being attached to any of them. Fringe ideas to make money and solve problems I didn't have. I don't know what makes a company successful, but to me a red flag is a mismatch of founder lifestyle and true, obvious investment in the idea. Can a successful startup be founded by someone who's only in it for the money? Probably, and many Bay area startups are probably in that category. The money's here, after all. Is it an unattainable ideal that the founders of a company truly believe in the product, entirely independent of financial success? Does that correlate with company success? I'd like to think so, even if just a fantasy. As an outsider, Homejoy doesn't appear to fall into that category, because I have a hard time believing two software engineers cared about the idea at their core, outside the obvious desire for something you build to succeed.