I hate you for asking me this because it is such an emotional issue for me. I've been asking myself the same question for over a year now. The answer has almost always been savings. I have a wife/house/car/loans and need at least $3000/month. The good thing is that I see the light at the end of the tunnel. July 2009, I thought I'd start in Feb 2010. Feb 2010, I thought I'd start in July 2010. Right now I'm aiming for next month. I know it's a moving target but it is getting really really close. If magic-pixie-unicorn-fairy gave me $6k no-strings-attached, I'd do it today. Otherwise I think by mid-Sep, I'll be in a good position to dive right in. Counting days at this point...

I guess I have a few issues -

1. Immigration - I am an immigrant which makes launching your own company hard. I have a few years before my permanent residency comes through

2. Point #1 can be very demotivating. I have some ideas, and I keep playing with projects [Nothing worth releasing, or even having much potential, mind you] but not knowing if and when I can actually do something about it proves very unsettling, and ambiguous

3. My work permit requires a full-time job. This can be very consuming as many other HN'ers know. Does not help with the motivational aspect of it

Despite all this, I have hopes. HN provides valuable insights, and stories like yours provide encouragement. Perhaps it will remain a dream, for I am already 32 and I don't know where I will be a few years from now.

Here's to hope! :)

[Congrats on your 3rd launch]

I suffer depression. Mostly it's not that bad but it does mean that I never sustain the passion/effort required for a startup (or even modest personal projects).

hmmmm, I think everything else is either fall out from the depression or an excuse to avoid facing fear. Fear of personal failure, fear that I'm not elite, fear that I don't "have what it takes", etc.

I'm also "old", 40yr, and I hate to say it but I feel less energized, less excited about the world than I remember feeling when I was younger. Change the world? Make "it big"/millions? Be famous? Meh, it's time for my nap.

I have my finger in at least three project pies at once, and can't choose which would be right to follow.

Then, school starts in 3 weeks. I have no money, and many expenses. There's so much that I feel I need to learn before I can do anything useful - I've never made anything big from scratch, and am only now reading about good program design. I should 'work on open source' first, or put in appreciable time at a large company first. I should pay off my growing student debt first. It feels like I only become motivated to do real work when I'm about to be pulled away from my computer.

Excuses spring to mind so quickly. I don't think I should be starting a company right now; I think I should finish this last year of school and then work until I pay off my debt while learning practically, then move to a startup hotbed and join a small group, and then I should be involved in starting a company.

Unless, of course, the 'right idea' strikes at the 'right time', and I find myself working with a tireless passion all of a sudden.

For those of you who know me, this is an issue close to my heart. I'll be brief.

By far, the single thing most budding "entrepreneurs" lack is encouragement. It is unfortunately that simple.

Most people will tell you it's networking, or having capital, or a business plan, or even luck. All of those things are Step 2. Step 1 is starting, it is the point most people don't get past.

Novels 3/4 done; "great idea for a movie" that never makes it to script; business idea that never makes it past the cocktail napkin.

And all of that, in my experience, is not fear of failure but fear of the unknown. It is identical to the "cold approach" in dating. You're not afraid she'll mace you, you're afraid she'll ask you to sit with her and then you won't have anything to sustain the conversation.

"Will the world discover I'm a fraud?"

There is so much self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence. There are a myriad of reasons, summarized under the umbrella "we were taught to pursue security, not happiness."

No amount of startup capital can fix this problem. You will make poor decisions, you will stop short, you will be tentative, you will be nervous with the money. The problem is you, not the system.

As time and generations pass, we don't learn to deal with failure, we are taught to avoid failure. Instead of sending the kids outside to play and teaching them how to be safe around sticks/bullies/heights, it's easier to leave them in the playroom.

The solution, therefore, is to fail. A lot. And as fast as possible, as young as possible. If you're <25 go hit on ten women a night, cold, and get shot down. Feel what it's like. It's not _so_ bad, is it? Better than wondering.

Forget about finishing your novel. Put up the first five chapters on a blog. Force yourself to read the comments.

Think you're a filmmaker? Put up ten photos-- still pics-- on Flickr. And invite the hate. See if you really have an eye for this. If you don't, now you are free to try something else.

Etc.

At best, they may love you and there's your encouragement. Or maybe someone sees your work and a collaboration is born.

At worst, they hate you, and you realize you're still ok, you didn't run uptown for heroin.

Either way, the failure will hold your hand and walk you to success.

If by "start" you mean "quit your job and start full-time" then I won't because I have an unemployed spouse and 2 young children (and my current salary doesn't facilitate any savings).

Of course, nothing stops me from working it once the kids go to bed but it's frustrating, tiring and is taking a very very long time... and then lack of motivation and/or distractions are big problem.

I live in a kind of dead area, and haven't met people that I respect enough to want to do something with, who wants to do something, and who feel able to committing to do something.. I also don't care much for doing something completely alone, because I don't feel that I learn nearly as much when I'm solo as when I can have people questioning my work.

I'm working on trying to get a hold of work in the US so that I can start the journey back to permanent residency (moved away and am 'back to square zero,') hopefully that can net me some fun people to work with.. But you know, years off, even if I manage to get a hold of a job. I've had a fair amount of smaller companies who have been interested, but not capable of bringing me over, and my (rather few) attempts at getting into larger companies have been stopped thus far by my lousy résumé writing skills.. Have a couple in the works that I still have hope for, but we'll see.

So now I got that off my chest, congratulations on your launch btw! :)

An immense amount of destractions are stopping me from really breaking down the doors. I've been doing independent game development for the past couple of years, but I haven't really been able to focus as much as I need to despite releasing two products.

I moved out to the bay with $1k just a 1.5yr ago to find a job after college. I thought it was going to be awesome. Found a job at a great company, got to meet some really great people, learned a lot, but come to find out my wife is not coping well with the new location which is really consuming time and energy. I spent the early part of this year trying to figure this puzzle out, but ultimately it is what it is.

So at this moment, I need to break away from the destractions. Moving back home in late December to the midwest where I can live on a fraction of what it costs out here. I'll have a happy wife that will have the ability to buy a house for 80k and will be with her family/friends. I plan to do consulting (which I'm already starting to build relationships for) to earn money to live / bootstrap with, and I'll start working on a business away from the gamedev train.

If building something in the midwest that ultimately brings me back to silicon valley, oo-rah. But, in the end, a location isn't going to define me.

I am waiting because I need a critical mass of content before I start up. I have one digitisation station, but work it myself. I can produce from 4-10 items per hour if I work hard, and estimate I need about 10,000 items done before I launch. There is also the issue of supply. I need items to process, and right now only have about 300. These items cost between $1 and $20 each.

I see how much I have left to do, think about how long it will take, and then start thinking about how to speed up the process... automate it.

I start to think about whether or not I am actually getting what I need so I don't get through 3,000 units and need to change something and have wasted the work. I think about how to scale the system to use multiple workstations, and multiple central servers because I can't store 10,000 units on the one server I have.

I'm working on a shoestring budget, and have creditors calling me every day. I borrowed $40,000 a few years ago hoping that that would help me get going in anticipation of another $100,000 I was going to get, but that fell through and I was able to use less than half of what I borrowed before the rest was needed to save my mother's business.

So, that's what's delay'n me.

I have a hard time thinking about taking the plunge without any marginal success doing things part-time. I pretty much hate my job now, but I need to pay the rent which is kind of expensive since I live alone and the lease doesn’t expire for 7 more months. Right now I'm trying to work on building alternative sources of income that could help sustain me partially when I quit my job. This includes Ad revenues, flipping simple websites, and iPhone apps. Meanwhile I am trying to build on some ideas I have for SAAS businesses. I'm going to pick the best one and implement it quickly and cheaply then see how much traction it gets. If I saw at least some interest from consumers/clients in a product/service that I built part-time I would quit my job pretty quick.

Turns out? Nothing. I halfway participated in a hackathon recently, and since then, I've found myself... motivated.

Usually when the urge strikes, my day job starts taking up too much time, or life happens, or I realize my idea is stupid. This time, however, I'm just going to go for it. I don't care that the product I'm building is in a VERY crowded space. I don't care that there's no 'killer feature' to draw the crowds in. I don't care that it really isn't that marketable. It's a product, and I'm building it -- and while I don't expect it to set the world on fire, I've stutter-started enough times in my life that I feel like just finishing something and releasing it will be a huge step in the right direction, so that's what I'm doing.

You won't read about this product on TechCrunch, and you won't see it lauded as the next great thing, but you will be able to register for it and use it, and ideally, within a month and a half to two months. And you can bad-mouth it all you like, I'll have done... something.

I actually did start and was able to quit my job about a month ago.. and a week later I was in a drowning accident and ended up in the hospital with heat stroke, dehydration and acute kidney failure.

Now I'm in limbo trying to recover as quickly as possible. I still have lower back pain near my kidneys which makes it hard to sit in a chair.

It's not that bad actually, I'm just finding it really hard to get the motivation to work consistently.

I am starting today. Last 4 months creating, manipulating, and validating an idea until we get enough people to say they would buy it. Another month getting partnerships we need with other companies. The last two weeks up until 2am every morning putting together an MVP for beta users.

And the first user with a problem 3 hours ago.

I have to graduate college--I've committed myself fully to school. In the meantime, I try to learn as much as I can from personal projects, internships and interactions with those in the startup community.

I'll feel ready to do something big (and have enough knowledge to possibly succeed) in a couple of years.

I've been coding this one project since 2006, on and off that is. Since then, I've switched jobs 3 times and finally landed with a company that's stable and the hours are great. My only excuse now? I need motivation. As someone mentioned earlier, my product competes with a handful of other much larger and popular sites. You know what though? I can't let that stop me. If I can make my version better, then who's to say I can't grab some of their market share?

Bottom line, my motivation right now is I have to do something, NOW. I'm 30 and I would like to start a family soon, going to get marry next year. I don't want to be in a position where I kick myself in the butt 5 yrs from now - "Why didn't I do this 5 yrs ago when I had time?" Even if I were to fail, at least I can say "I tried."

TODAY I'm meeting a friend I haven't seen for a quite a while at the pub after work, and it would rude to cancel on such short notice. After that I probably should be getting to bed since I have to work tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVHjDA-Nhk#t=4m15

Good energy, but you'll want to work on control, mister.

Simple. Not come up with the right idea yet. Whenever I do come up with something, I either find that someone has done something too similar, or I talk myself out of it.

Every time I've entertained the idea of joining a startup, it's always an "all we need is a developer" situation, or its cousin, the "we had a great developer (who invariably stunk) who'll get you up to speed."

So it seems I'd have to go it alone, and my ideas are too big for my time. If I had some simpler ideas I'd definitely see if they held water, however. I definitely have the application, server, and DB skills to make it happen.

I did a startup in my 20's that was an intense experience. Now I have a sweet job at an amazingly run video game company where I don't care about making payroll, hitting sales goals, the joy of having employees, managing cash flow and inventory.

I have a few hobbies that might turn into something someday, but I think I need a bit more recovery time, and I think I'd rather share the hobbies with the world than sell them.

Dependants and student debt.

My biggest excuse right now is a well paying contract that sucks away my energy. Every day I struggle with staying on the project or just leaving and doing my own things.

I've been working on a small iphone app side project. If it gets a little traction in the app store I will feel much better about doing my own stuff!

Nothing is stopping me. Just working on it every minute in my spare time while still working full time.

Well since I'm the only person( so I'm doing all the coding myself). I'm learning Objective-C, going trough tutorials etc. Not really an excuse, I think I have passed the excuse stage in my startup life.

So basically, I'm one step away from building the app.

I don't know enough. In particular, I don't know where to start, even for a simple project. A lot of what Paul Halmos called pencil sharpening.

I'd love to see an hours-long screencast of how you guys kick off a project.

Technical issues. I've been struggling with OpenSSL problems for weeks, but I haven't been working on it very much. I've finally decided to buckle down and use Python instead of Ruby due to its better OpenSSL libraries.

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Just need a good corporation and domain name. Been spinning my wheels for weeks on this.

Salford in Greater Manchester (UK) is the antithesis of startup hub :(

Just haven't found that killer idea yet.

I'm doing it. I wrote an ultra rough spec one month ago, tried selling before building, found that only 1 person out of 20 or so that I thought it would be relevant was interested, am refining again. It's been about a month, we should launch in a week or so. This probably won't be a huge company, just looking to make around $75/active hour for 20 hours per week for the next year or so whilst longer range projects grow slowly.

Nothing.

I'm in the middle of an examination period. I do have a product that still needs a few weeks of work until it's launchable but the project is on hold atm.

Nationality, lack of respectable degree, being from one-parent family, a lot of stupid mistakes in the past, age. ^_^