I started my first company in my early 30's. Here is what worked for me. 1. Found a business partner who bought into my vision for the company. 2. We BOTH sol

I started my first company in my early 30's. Here is what worked for me. 1. Found a business partner who bought into my vision for the company. 2. We BOTH sold our houses to get equity out for the business and also so we were not stuck with a large mortgage. We then rented less expensive homes. 3. Business partner stayed working at his job and he split his income between our families 50/50. We considered our value equal, so I worked the startup full-time and he worked his job full time. His income was not enough to cover all of our living expenses, but it certainly extended our runway. 4. We met every Saturday for about 4 hours to work together. 5. This lasted for 3 years until we finally make the company profitable. 6. Business partner then left his job and joined company full time. FWIW, I always tried to start something on the side but never had enough time to fully bring it fruition. When you go "all-in" like we did, you have a lot more pressure to make it work (which is good). Most of my side projects were always kind of "half-alive".