It turns out that my problems with the startup had nothing to do with the technology and quite a bit to do with human and business factors. What I learned: 1.

It turns out that my problems with the startup had nothing to do with the technology and quite a bit to do with human and business factors. What I learned: 1. Get a partner you can count on. 2. Don't take side jobs while doing a startup. Eliminate any distractions you can. If you can afford to ditch your day job, all the better. 3. Research and choose your niche carefully. Looking back on my (first) startup attempt, I'm amazed at how much I got done on so little time and sleep. For "extra cash" I took a side project that ended up being a huge drain of my time and energy. The money is nice, but the development on the startup slowed to a crawl. I don't think there's a startup that can handle that kind of neglect. To make matters worse, I ended up having to handle a lot of work because my partner, while showing enthusiasm early on, produced little after we began. I'm not complaining, he and I remain best friends, but I just don't think he knew what he was getting into. :-) If you get a partner, make sure they are as committed as you are. I've heard vesting gives people motivation, or at least a way to drop partners who aren't earning their shares. We chose a niche that had low barriers to entry. The down side of that is there were hundreds of players in the market we were after. If we had more time and resources, we could have given it a better shot, as we did have some success in spite of the competition, but it would have been a hard climb. We had a second phase to grow from our entry, but it turns out that would have been heavily time and money intensive, far too much so for our market. Knowing that up front might have steered our plan to another area. So the startup ended. I'm fine with it, actually, and I'm so glad I gave it a shot. I've learned so much in such a short time and it's helped me on my day job. It will also help me with my next startup. :-)