We didn't need VC or anything like that to get started, so our expenses were very low. It also did (and does) generate quite a bit of revenue, so I'd say it's definitely outside the 'lifestyle business' category.

In the end we had all partners (3 of us), and a full time employee -- so it was fairly big I'd say (all with profitability, etc. from day one).

Along the way we could have definitely hired more engineers and grown the team, but we decided to treat it as a passive business after we got some big successes and didn't think hiring / etc. would be necessary (at least for a while).

If I could go back in time and re-do that, I think the company would be much larger now (and more successful) had we scaled our engineering team early on with the money we got, and tried to shoot for quicker growth.