My inconsequential guess is that he only not launched it yet because (i) he thinks the technology he uses matters more than the product and (ii) he is building

My inconsequential guess is that he only not launched it yet because (i) he thinks the technology he uses matters more than the product and (ii) he is building features that should not be included in the first version. I was able to launch my side-project (the for-profit bootstrapping biz type), a web app, in 7 months even being a junior frontend developer. I chose the tech with the sole criteria of how easy it would be for me to build it (I went with Ember, that I use on my day-job, and Rails). And the whole time I was constantly thinking hard about a feature and then realizing "I don't need that for now...". I then would write the feature idea in a card on my backlog (a Github's project board) and move on to the next important feature. What I guess is making so hard for him is not the diligence, commitment or motivation, but the product decisions he has to make (and I speculate he is making the wrong ones).