How could I forget. Setting up serve space and a database takes time and money too. And then there is setting up a credit card account so people can pay more easily on your site if you are taking money. Then there's the setting up of the business account at the bank and waiting for eons to get a Federal Tax ID number. I switched over my previous FTID
to my new site from my old site because my old site never launched (thank God) but banks do drag their feet in opening up a business credit card account which is needed to set up a merchant account with Amazon Simple Pay since I won't be allowing PayPal since eBay owns them and I'm competing with eBay. The biggest drawback of a startup is the lack of sleep but the biggest benefit is no commute time so you save a fortune in not driving much.
So it's a lot more then merely writing code. You need shelter (a place to live) and money for food and rent and utilites and gasoline for the car. Then unexpected bills like speeding tickets, car registration, smog check, and car insurance it all adds up fast and at a frightening pace.
So I don't go insane I visit one of my brothers who's studying for his PhD in CS at UC Santa Cruz and I've promised him a job when he graduates. He thinks in C and Lisp and can write bug free code. He's not human. So I spend money keeping him well fed. So sacrifices need to be made.
And if your site grows you're going to need more
servers and more databases and they run on electricity not oxygen and that costs money.
I would think it would be educational and a good thing for all universities to house startups on campus to study them and learn from them but I agree with PG that it's the founders, dedication, determination and not stubbornness.
There is a lot of uncertainty too. I just visualize the site working and it keeps me going. I watch videos of soldiers in Iraq fighting on YouTube and then I don't mind so much writing code. At least nobody is shooting at me when I'm writing code. And it's good to take breaks and relax sometimes because you need to unplug from the matrix so that
you have a life outside of your code.
