Is success impossible for a part-time startup?
neilk: 1) "...no implementors" Just FYI, I had such an idea that I thought was far too weird for anyone else to even consider let alone implement. But someone eventually did it, while I dithered.2,3,4) "exercise ... rest ... shorter work weeks"Okay, let's start with the facts: if you believe the people who have made studies of intellectual work, nobody has ever achieved sustained productivity greater than seven hours a day. To meet a deadline, you can sprint for a few weeks at a time and achieve greater productivity. But that time has to be recovered later.Startup people (and certain corporations, like Google) like to claim that they are working insane hours. But I suspect if you did a proper study, they would actually be spending more time than they think in non-work activities, or be working ineffectively.By the way, this doesn't mean that startups aren't way more productive than established players. I've been there and achieving 1-2 hours per day of sustained effort can be a challenge.In the case of YC startups, possibly the very young can achieve greater productivity than oldsters, although this must come at some cost since they have less experience. Or, it's possible that they were ridiculously efficient performers to begin with, so even at reduced capacity they're doing okay.However, for startups, it might be necessary for them to work in a suboptimal and overworked manner, since a startup goes down so many blind alleys and has to meet so many arbitrary deadlines due to customers, investors, certain conventions and trade shows, etc.5) "20% time" Don't base any decision on what Google says they do. It's all lies, or deliberate omission to make you assume the wrong thing. Most 20% time is spent working on tools for one's existing project, or in mini-sabbaticals with other teams. Furthermore it's usually taken in blocks, not as one day a week (although that does occur).6) Even overworked startups fail -- so what? That is no indication that part time startups succeed.I do know of a case where a startup did "succeed" (was acquired for a relatively small sum) and the founders had never even quit their day jobs. However this was in the middle of the big Web 2.0 acquisition frenzy and the founders had phenomenal contacts in the industry. You cannot rely on this.In conclusion it sounds to me like you want freedom more than insane riches. So you should aim for some consulting niche or niche market, where the returns are too small to justify a full-blown startup investment, but there is plenty of revenue for an indvidual.