Is success impossible for a part-time startup?
olihb: I work/own(15%) in a small startup in the survey business. It's been about 10 months and the biggest problem is the time between the first meeting with a client and a signed contract(usually more than 6-7 months).Another problem is that the survey business is very trust based. Most people don't have to skill to interpret correctly the raw data and the common statistical and sociological pitfalls, so they must trust our conclusions. Also, no clients want to listen to 1000 recorded calls. So we have to gain our client trust which is sometime difficult when you're a young company.To answer more directly your question, I work maybe 15 hours a week(more when we finish data collection on a project) but only because I've automated about every portion of the business and used a lot of open-source software(like asterisk, jasper, etc.) My partner works a lot more but he's in charge of business development, but he has more shares(49%) and when the contract pipeline will be full, I'm the one that's gonna be busy. But he "gets" to have lunch with clients and play golf...My free time is spent working another project/startup.English second language here, go easy.