I applaud their goals but I think they fundamentally went about it the wrong way. They adopted the VC model - hire up, start down the runway, and hope to hit ta

I applaud their goals but I think they fundamentally went about it the wrong way. They adopted the VC model - hire up, start down the runway, and hope to hit takeoff before the money runs out. Not having actual VCs doesn't change the process, just the budgets and timelines. Something like this is a "mission", not a venture. If you care first about the mission, then make business/technology/lifestyle choices that support the mission: * Don't quit your day job. Work after hours on the mission. * Use inexpensive technologies that you can afford to pay out of pocket for. * Have a viable plan for revenue so that incremental users are at minimum cost-neutral. Don't get into the position where a clock is ticking down on you. As long as the product is running, the mission continues. Is this a good way to build a business? Almost certainly not. But the goal here isn't to find a mission so we can build a business, it's find a business so we can achieve this mission. Pivoting to some other mission is a failure. (As someone with a "side-mission", I've been thinking a lot about this subject)