Anecdotally, so, not my own start-ups but friends that have tried to start out, if they kept it simple (consultancy, contract work) they were mostly successful,

Anecdotally, so, not my own start-ups but friends that have tried to start out, if they kept it simple (consultancy, contract work) they were mostly successful, if they went for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow they mostly failed. Well hopefully that holds true for me, I was planning on taking the simple route. The simple route seems to be a little more sustainable: if you can find customers to do consultancy or contract work for, perhaps those can be your initial customers for your start-up.