In summary: you need partners. Good ones. I failed to find any, and, like your first attempt, my startup burned out. Working by yourself is just dangerous -

In summary: you need partners. Good ones. I failed to find any, and, like your first attempt, my startup burned out. Working by yourself is just dangerous - even if you're entirely self-motivated (I'm not), you can only have so much perspective. Ever spent days trying to get some small thing to work because nobody was there to tell you it didn't matter? This goes much more if your project isn't a full time job - you need someone there to help you stay motivated. Heck, see paul Graham's #1 startup mistake:http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html On the other hand bad partners are even worse than nothing. Partnerships can go wrong in all kinds of ways - in my case I had someone who was big on talk but light on delivery. Doing the work I thought he was going to do took too much time, and my project was stillborn. Cool looking, somewhat functional, but with too many big issues to be usable. It needed another 6 months of polishing, and I didn't have 6 months of money left. Never mind if your relationship should become actively hostile - nothing will kill things like a good round of lawsuits to waste your time and money. Of course, most startups never make enough money for that to be an issue. Also, having someone professional do your employment contracts (as I did) can help you avoid IP ambiguity. It's hard to tell who will be a good partner and who won't, too. I'm still looking for someone to carry my project on with, since I do have all the IP. If anybody has figured it out, let me know. I thought about freelancers, too. But I think for a startup you need someone genuinely invested. Someone who cares about the project - not just "give me my $X/hr., and I'm out the door". A startup requires more than that. A startup requires passion and commitment, something freelancers aren't exactly known for. That's what was missing in my project. Somebody - else - who really was committed to making the project succeed. Somebody who'd sink huge amounts of their own money and/or time to get it off the ground. Good luck - if somebody has a better idea for finding partners, I'm all ears.