Ask HN: Great idea but true passion lies elsewhere. What should I do?

[massiveflake]

Hello all

I've been a web developer for many years now but my main passion lies elsewhere (totally unrelated field), though I really enjoy my work and I'd like to think I'm pretty good it.

The thing is, I have an idea for a web app (yeah I know - bear with me!) and I think it could gain some serious traction if done properly. I have some pre-alpha stuff cobbled together and it's going well. Pretty soon I hope to bring someone else in and make a proper go of it.

But here's the thing - at some undefined future point I want out. In a full-time sense at least. As much as I enjoy this stuff, my other passion will require the majority of my time and given it's a huge money sink, I'm hoping this new hare-brained scheme will partly pay for it.

There's a lot said on here about having total ultra-focused passion to your project and how you'll fail to get anywhere/attract interest/attract co-founders with anything less. Is this generally true? I realise there are always exceptions but if it's true in general then it obviously makes things much more difficult. To be clear, I have every reason to want this to succeed and I'm willing to put the work in - it's just not something I want to be doing in 5 years time.

What would you say is my best way forward - keep quiet and see how things go and (hopefully) cash out in the future, or be totally upfront about my intentions at the risk of sounding somehwat flaky or uncommitted?

[wirebane]

Nothing wrong with you, I work with software dev but my passion is about games, sometime ago e had a great software idea and I'm working in it. For me its a win-win situation because I want to succeed to invest in my passion, that is games.

[anujkk]

Here are some options :

1. Work on your idea fulltime to make it successful and then sell the web app. Invest the money into your real passion.

2. Do it as a part time project i.e. on weekends and an hour or two here and there. Once it becomes stable product sell it.

[kunley]

I think there's nothing wrong with doing your project with as much passion as you can, then sell it and totally switch to that other passion. You should just be clear about it from start when speaking with potential cofounders.