Good post Joel ;-) I'm generally in agreement with working in "waves" (it's an approach I've used for past 10 years)

A couple of other thoughts that might be worth considering: 1. Once you decide that the "start-up career" is your full-time career path - then you need to start thinking about "serious stuff like pensions and investing". I generally put 50% of the money that I make between "start-up waves" into investments (for me it's properties) that generate cash flow

2. Find a business partner with complimentary skills to you (understand that they can - and probably will change as your business develops)

3. Before your embark on a start-up wave try to make sure that the market is already there (ie spend the evenings and weekends of your "paying job time" doing Customer Development research (you don't need to cut very much code to do this)

;-)