Conceded, but will YC fund a team that plans on being a side project? Didn't think so.

Of course not -- because YC is built around the idea of companies raising VC and reaching liquidity so that the YC principals can exit in a cash position. As soon as you take outside investment, "ramen profitable" isn't good enough even if you're happy living on ramen -- because even if you are, your investors aren't.

But not everybody fits into that model. I think most bootstrappers would love to build a company which provides them with a passive revenue stream.

Ok, Colin, this is an article about whether the YC model is feasible given the collapse of the Web 2.0 VC model. =)

There's also the question of your confidence in your relationship with potential investors. Even a company that achieves "Ramen Profitability" is probably going to need expansion capital at some point, but if their "runway" is infinite because they know they can at least get by with their revenue stream, it puts them in a much better postition to find the right type of investment on the right type of terms.

My point is that the "infinite ramen profitibility runway" is a fallacy, since no competent developer has an infinite tolerance for living on ramen.

Sure, but if you have housing covered, work from a shared space like we're talking about, $3,000 a month aint a bad living for just food and bills...

More importantly though, you're right - its about extra space and better control not infinite space.

So this works until you're about 27.

I'm just saying: the existence of shared hacker spaces doesn't make YC more viable if VC collapses, and you have to account for the fact that many people (most people?) will pay attention to money when it's a 3x-5x difference.

It's also not that easy to get to the point where a business is making you 40-50k/yr, even though that number sounds low.

Just because you are in your mid-30s and have a family doesn't mean you can't be thrifty. That's a lifestyle choice. Nobody has forced anyone to buy a $750,000 house in the valley and drive 3 SUVs.

If your family understood your dreams and was willing to support your ambitions and was ultimately willing to eat Ramen, anyone could make use of this model.

I guarantee you that being in your mid-30s with a family precludes you from living in a "Hacker Hotel" on $3000 a month. Way to exclude the middle.

amen. kids are expensive, especially without that fat health insurance package from a real job.

i don't assume we shouldn't exclude the middle, except that's where a wealth of experience and wisdom comes from.

there isn't anything magical about the Ramen profitability point... However - you;'ve been gorwing revenue/profits up until that point - customers wont magically stop appearing as you hit it - so you're likely to go past just living on ramen.

I think you're both right - this is a big if. The other thing that's important is that this is dependent on being a company that sells a service - rather than something that's looking to build a big community before it monetizes. That's another big if.