It really does not matter much if you are doing it part-time or full-time except for the time it takes to get the first release out. I have been working on http://www.onista.com for almost a year now and I am doing it mostly in evenings and weekends. Bear in mind that I have one and half year old kid who takes lot of time away from me (Off course I enjoy it a lot). Recently two more friends joined me and we are pretty confident on launching in November.

Based on my experience I can say that, persistence is what matters. If you work full-time and are not persistent or loose focus then you are not going anywhere. If you work part-time and are persistent and focussed then you will win. May be it will take more time than usual but you will get there with better results.

So I would say, yes go ahead and work part-time on your idea, but be very persistent to spend whatever extra time you find on the idea. It would be good idea to find group of friends who can work part-time with you. (I did that it does help a lot)

Yeah, that would probably work as long as I don't have tough competition that can work full time. So when I release, I have to release pretty complete and bug free, and it'd help if the product was very hard to reproduce without knowing the internals. I can probably do those, since I currently have a year and a half of comp sci research ahead of me (getting a masters).

Any recommendations on especially pertinent fields? I'm planning to look at SOA type stuff - intelligent agents, evolutionary algorithms, systems architecture, etc. I'd like to throw some Godel in there too, but can't really see the applicability yet.

I'm not sure that the "pertinence" of the field is what's important for a start-up. I'd be more concerned about the need for something (unless that's what you meant by "pertinent".)

If you have to look for something to do or ask for recommendations, you'll probably never have the passion needed to see it through.

OTOH, you probably already have what you need. What really bugs you? And others you know? When's the last time you said, "You know, someone really ought to make <some thing>." THAT'S what you should be pursuing.

A deep solution is better in my situation than scratching some random itch, since anyone can do the latter. So, to rephrase my question more exactly: what are the deep underlying problems of the web that need the type of strong theory I can learn at university?

In answer to your last set of questions, something that really needs to be made is an aggregation service for all the web 2.0 stuff out there. People want an integrated, secure, and trust based work/socializing platform, and my current research interests are geared towards solving this kind of problem. Facebook is trying to do this, but I don't think they have a good mechanism yet for integrating apps.

"Random itches" sometimes grow to be "deep solutions".

Hotmail was started because 2 guys didn't want to leave an email trail on their employers' systems.

Ebay was a hobby to help a guy sell his girlfriends stuff.

OTOH, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were intended to be "deep solutions".

Sounds like you have the passion. No substitute for that.

Can you please explain what you meant by "Get a friend of yours to try it out and then link to it on Digg". I did not follow. Thanks in advance,

It means you should find some friends to become your beta tester then ask him/her to submit some articles about your product (press release/faq/about us/how to get started) to famous social bookmarking site like Digg, Mixx, Reddit.

This will prevent you by what he called "self-promotion". Wouldn't be nice if it is other people who submit you to digg and co's rather than yourself. Isn't?

This is GREAT advice. Thank you so much.

Any idea, who can write a nice press release? My English Writing skills are as good as MC Hammer's money management skills.

We have an in house writer, but just put an ad out on craigslist and you should find someone talented enough to write an engaging press release.

Thanks lot ed. Point very well taken. Same thing happened to me. There was a company called www.riya.com who hyped lot before launch. They were building some image comparison and search technology. I saw there demo on demo.com and signed up for beta. I was following their blog everyday and waiting for release. When release actually happened, the product was POS (Piece of Sh..) I never visited riya.com again ever.

I know riya well (they are in my competitive space) and agree completely. Best of luck and keep us posted on your progress!

I have profile on Facebook.

Actually after initial launch, we are planning to build a Facebook application as well. I expect our Facebook app to be out by end of the year.

Thanks for the info.

We are bootstrapping this startup. Wish I had money to spend on hot items to buy and sell on Onista. It's a great idea though.

Right. Will use that going forward.

Thanks

I am very optimistic man in general.

I know. I wish I knew the secret.

Thanks greendestiny. You have valid point. I picked a date November 1st a target for us to make sure we fix all issues and also communicate to interested folks about upcoming launch. I feel pretty confident that we can achieve November 1st (unless one of my friend convinces me to push two more features that he has been trying to push) because now we have only 139 more bugs to fix.

That sounds fair enough, although I was really trying to say don't pick a launch date now. Finish those 139 bugs and then plan a launch, I don't think it'll hurt to take it a bit slower but I could be wrong. A small number of weeks after you think the site is finished(ish) should be enough to drum up some hype and then launch.