you may want to read 'founders at work' by jessica livingston (of yc fame). it's interviews regarding the rise of many successful web services (yahoo, hot or no

you may want to read 'founders at work' by jessica livingston (of yc fame). it's interviews regarding the rise of many successful web services (yahoo, hot or not, hotmail, etc). a lot of those companies started as hobbies or side projects, and one day the site crashed and the founder realized he needed a whole lot more servers to keep up with the growth.