Indeed, there were weeks early on where I would work upwards of 20 hours building the product (though it was launched and signing up customers after the first o

Indeed, there were weeks early on where I would work upwards of 20 hours building the product (though it was launched and signing up customers after the first of those weeks.) The important thing is that it never consumed all my time or focus. It wasn't my main revenue stream during the early years, and didn't hit the six figure, quit the day job level until maybe year five or six. As to ladders, I spend most of my time here and on my blog [1] explaining in detail how to climb it, and encouraging people to do so. Sadly, few choose to. The VC route has a much better PR team, selling the benefits of rockets over ladders. [1] http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/ http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/