What differentiates weekend projects from real startups is the seriousness of the founders. If the founders have very little at stake, then failure of the proje

What differentiates weekend projects from real startups is the seriousness of the founders. If the founders have very little at stake, then failure of the project will not affect them much. As the founders increase their stake (mental involvement, hardwork, investment of time, money) in their project, they start getting more serious and the "weekend project" starts morphing into a startup.