With that said, here are my thoughts.

First of all, you're lucky if you enjoy your job and work with friends. I would strongly suggest that you see if you can work part-time while you "do your own thing", with a possibility of coming back full-time, should you ever "come to your senses".

With no plan, no idea, no help and no anything, I don't see how you can support yourself past "several months at least". One remedy is to find a fledgling startup to join. It's risky without knowing the other founders well, but it could be good experience.

My #1 recommendation for you is to read the following links:

http://www.slideshare.net/venturehacks/customer-development-...

http://steveblank.com/2009/08/27/the-leading-cause-of-startu...

http://steveblank.com/2009/08/31/the-customer-development-ma...

Basically, the idea is to verify that your idea can actually make money before you write one line of code. Since you're probably heavy on tech and light on customer development, use this time to learn and experiment. I'm not telling you this as a know-it-all, I'm telling you this as someone who wishes they would have done it years ago.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

EDIT: spelling

An SMS-based/ mobile app that will help me and my family encourage each other to work out.

For example, when I come back for a run, I would text in "just ran 5 miles" and my parents and sister would get the text /email/ twitter update and perhaps be encouraged to exercise as well!

Some other functionality could be showing me trends of my workouts (think Nike+ on iPhones) vis a vis my other family members, or SMS updates ("your son said you should go for a run!").

The problem is that people in this country are getting fatter every day, and could use motivation to work out. Support and ecouragement from family and friends might be the most effective source of motivation.

Thoughts?

More compelling, to me, is a site that scrapes your Twitterfeed for "<action verb: ran/biked/swam> <#> <miles/km>"-type posts, and tracks the data automatically through a website.

You could increase your conversion rate through a bunch of neat hacks: 1. Using a script to scrape tweets like this and DM them once you have X datapoints charted, inviting them over 2. Allowing people to view their history without registering, just by going to http://<website>/<username>; -- you could spider their tweet history on the fly

http://www.food.gov.uk/healthiereating/advertisingtochildren...

Probably best to target the merely overweight than the hopelessly obese. In which case Russia (or perhaps more urgently my native England) actually looks like a fair bet!

It was just blogged about at Atomic Object http://spin.atomicobject.com/2009/09/01/chart-your-life-with...

Edit: fix links. Arrgh!

In which case, skipping step 1 doesn't seem too harmful to the process.

You're in for a big surprise if you think you're going to get more freedom while running your own business.

A key part of running your own business is being able to accept feedback. Notice that instead of giving you an idea most people are telling you that you might be making a mistake.

Reconsider this decision. By all means start your own business but come up with an idea and develop it a little before you quit your job.

Being at home doing nothing is fun, but realize that you'll be at home working your ass off. If it was the "doing nothing" part that was most interesting to you then a startup may not be as much fun as you're currently anticipating.

Also, I don't know what your financial situation is, but "several months" of savings doesn't sound like a whole lot if you're just starting from scratch now. It could likely take longer than that to get ramen profitable.

Just some background, I was in a somewhat similar situation last year. The new startup/project I quit my job for was something that I had been working on part-time for 3 years before that. Even with that head start, my initial revenue was only about 10% of what I had projected/hoped for. It's still steadily growing and could be ramen profitable in the next year or two, but I just wanted to share my experience to let you know that financially it could be harder and longer than you think. It was for me.

What are you crazy?!?

I've had many jobs and I've liked few of them. If you have a job you love working for a schoolmate, why would you want to leave? You don't even have any plans. I'd understand this a little better if you had a project you're dying to work on full time, but that's not the case.

Why don't you just keep your job and find a side project. If that side project gets big, go part time. If it gets so big, you're burning to work on it full-time, then quit, but not before.

Good jobs are hard to come by and jobs you love are almost impossible to come by. Also, don't discount all the data you get from your job to feed your startup plans. Lots of people would love to do a startup, but don't know what to work on. People with jobs don't have that problem as much. The job can be the source of lots of great ideas for things people actually need right now.

I'm the last person to discourage anyone from doing their thing, but job vs. startup is not a binary decision. You can do both, at least for a while.

Keep that all-time favorite job for now. You can always leave later once something else has wings.

But, it's not my company; and what I can and can't do could change instantly if the guy at the top of the org chart decides on a whim that things are going to be done differently. While I don't think it's likely to happen, it's still a possibility; and you have a lot less of that when it's you at top of the chart.

[Edit: I just want to preempt some other angles if I can; I know that things get muddy when you deal with investors and and boards of directors, and when you deal with partners and staff and all of those things. There's a bit of nuance here that I'm somehow not conveying. I guess at this point you either get what I'm saying or you don't.]

That hunger can easily become real, not virtual, if you're not careful :-)

Things take longer than they seem. Money lasts shorter than you plan.

Like I said before, I'm not one to discourage, but OP doesn't even have a "hair on fire" idea yet. I'd think twice before I left a job I loved.

(Also, I totally agree with you about having an idea to work on before quitting.)

I've loved all my jobs.

Also, don't discount all the data you get from your job to feed your startup plans.

I wouldn't dream of starting a competitor to the project we built together.

How about this:

Find some idea, get your friend on board as an investor / advisor ? You guys seem to get along well and have each others interests at heart otherwise you wouldn't say you loved the job that much.

Three birds with one stone, angel investor / mentor / continued professional relationship, only this time you are in charge.

1.Quit job

2.Ask HN

3. ???

4.Profit!

Love it :)

You did a really good job on it. Maybe you can create a business around it?

I'm sure people would be willing to pay to be able to host a viewer on their own site. For example, companies may put a 3d scene of their office on their jobs listing page. Or restaurants, museums, universities, and so forth would do well to have one on their site.

Just start building something simple and your mind will begin moving.

I've done the same thing you have with my life, congrats on taking the leap :) You might find it worth your while to pick up a weekend part time job too so you can have some fun money (having fun is necessary when you are cooped up all by yourself working in an intellectual space).

GL!

. Finds coupons

. Integrates with bar code scanner to inventory all items

. Integrates with weight scales to measure consumption to predict future usage.

. Integrates with grocery stores and online vendors for call ahead packaging and delivery.

I could go on and on on this one. If someone get funding for something like this let me know, I would be in.

I'd also be happy to discuss any ideas you might have. :)

>You are leaving a job you like, with no idea of what to do next.

>You are leaving a job you like, inspired by vacation.

Thats you being lazy.