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Comment by pclark | Hacker News Reader

"We’ve got the technical skill, the domain knowledge, and the grit to work nights and weekends while holding down day jobs."

You're not working on this full time? Or is this me reading it wrong?

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Yep, nights and weekends, not full time. It worked for Obsidian Portal, and it's working so far for DoLeaf.

I know the conventional wisdom is "Quit Now!", but I like to eat.

were you seed funded with that startup?

I ask because I can't imagine applying for seed funding without being 173% committed -- eg, I have to make this work because I like to eat.

I think the idea is that if TechStars accepts you, then you quit your day jobs and jump in full-time. That is part of the opportunity they are providing.

No funding on either project. We fully expected to work full time on DoLeaf if we got accepted to TechStars. We know how it works.

of course. I wasn't being a dick, sorry -- I was just curious. I think these funds really value if the founders have already made the jump and are powering along 24/7 before seed funding.

Looking forward to your next post. You can totally jump down my throat when I write a post if we don't get into YC tomorrow ;)

Please do write a post. I want more info out there about the "real" state of startups. There's too much get-rich-quick crap that distorts the reality (especially about iPhone apps).

The truth is that it's a long hard slog to any sort of success.

We also applied to YC, so we expect to get rejected tomorrow as well ;)

Don't we hear back today? Says April 6th here: http://ycombinator.com/s2009.html

We only hear back if we get invited to the interviews. My finger is hovering over the "buy tickets" button on Expedia. ;)

tell me about it. Talk about pay thru the nose from the UK.

Return flights London to SF were about £340 last time I checked a few days ago, but they involved some fairly horrible connections making the whole flight ~17h.

Hopefully I _do_ have to go through that torture! :)

PS: It's a really great idea.

> I know the conventional wisdom is "Quit Now!", but I like to eat.

I assume then that Obsidian Portal hasn't provided enough income to sustain yourselves?

That is correct. Still, it's profitable and runs pretty much on its own. Our free -> premium conversion is pretty good and keeps going up. We've hit the bullseye as far as feature set for our target market. We just need to advertise better and get more signups. I guess that's true of most startups, though.

I see. Thanks for the info. It sounds like you've got a great thing going there. Why not direct more energy towards growing it?

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