Also, advice on success is very situational. To replicate Arnold Schwarzenegger's success, you would need to go through physical child abuse and develop a deeply rooted negative self image. Somehow he got over it, and channeled those flaws into body building, real estate, and movies. Did he do these things because he felt unworthy and strived to become worthy? Would you want to be tortured and abused during your childhood if you had a greater chance of "success" in adulthood? For other wildly successful people, what demons are they hiding?

Whether you decide to work own your own startup full time, or stay at some job, I'd urge you to increase your chance of future success by working on yourself. Read books, do exercises, see coaches and mental health professionals.

>> If you were slave to your clients (working on your own startup), would those traits magically disappear?

No. But I can pick and choose people to complement my weakness. People who are reliable and are finishers.

This is only a suggestion, but think about optimizing for lifetime happiness instead of focusing most of your energies on the now and the short term. So with respect to these personality flaws, it might also affect other areas of your life. If you spend the necessary effort now, you'll experience the compounded effects of these benefits over a longer time horizon.

This post may seem overly critical. In actuality I'm trying to have a conversation with my earlier self who was about to make similar missteps as you. I sincerely hope you find what you are looking for.

You raise a valid point. But I am hardly ever naive. I live a pretty frugal life and saved up quite a bit of money ($xx,000). I usually hire people from codementor.io/airpair/railshotline (this is free) and pair program. This was the secret to finishing my last two products on time and landing my first paying customer for the last product.

Please don't apologize for stating your opinion. I always seek feedback and I am not easily discouraged.

My advice would be to not (yet) quit your day job until you achieve "ramen profitability" or perhaps a bit more.

My personal advice:

1. Look into various (legal) nootropic medications, and consider seeing a doctor. Some of your issues with attention may be a result of ADHD, sleep disorders, or other things. Relatively side effect-free drugs like modafinil and piracetam are worth trying, and if a doctor does diagnose you with some issue then you could look into more serious prescriptions. You may be surprised how work that was suddenly torturous to do is now neutral, or perhaps even enjoyable, after you make small changes to your health or mind. And be sure you're getting enough sleep.

2. Continue juggling both "jobs". Odds are your side project is not currently at some critical point where not working on it full time means it's doomed to fail. This means there's not a lot of risk from spending 10-30% of your time on the side project while keeping your day job, but there's a whole lot of risk from quitting your day job.

Practically, don't quit until you have the revenue stream and then the decision will be easy. You have one customer, try for two.

There is plenty of time. Avoid the celebritization of entrepreneurship. Focus on getting the next customer.

What's your plan if this doesn't work out? Hate to say it but just wanted you to think about it.

The follow your passion part, is starting to be shown as bad advice.

Refer to "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport.

He turns conventional advice on this topic on its head. Excellent book, in my opinion.

Both quitting your job and engaging in a startup are absurdly risky if you don't have a very cushy safety net.

Steve jobs was a hippie who was fine with living homeless and dumpster diving for food, so there was no downside for him in screwing around with startups. Paul Graham completed his PhD in CS from Harvard, so he had a very solid alumni network he could turn to if he ever found himself unemployed. Bill Gates and Zuck both went to Harvard and had trust funds and/or wealthy parents.

The stories you're often told of successful entrepreneurs usually leave out one important fact: to be successful, you must eliminate downside risk. Once failure costs you nothing, then it's just a matter of how big your upside can be. You want to get into a position where failure is irrelevant. That's the only way you can fail fast, and fail often.

I recommend cutting your costs down to the absolute bare minimum and investing every penny you earn. Try to establish a steady income from consulting and/or investments. Passive income and cost minimization are the keys to freedom and success in the modern economy.

You mentioned that you're worried about dating. That's a whole other can of worms. I would say focus on dating while you're working on the preparation phase (passive income/cost minimization). Once you start engaging in startups, you may not have the time.

Good luck, and remember: only show up to battles that you're likely to win. Stack the odds in your favor. The more you leave to chance, the riskier a venture becomes.

One of my coworker quit to do a startup. Now all he is doing is sitting at home and updating Facebook all the time. That is a position I definitely don't want to be in.