falicon

Justin Jackson just released a book around this very topic "Marketing for Developers" -> http://justinjackson.ca/marketingfordevelopers/

It's full of great advice...but I think one of the key take aways is to "find a market" before you really "have an idea"...and he walks you through some really good ways to do that (using real world case studies of people that are doing it)

"Collect 500 emails and then email them about your startup"...that's specifically why I ended up building https://conversationlist.com (it helps you skip the step of collect 500 emails and just jump right to the email everyone you have a pre-existing relationship with step).

Amazing how well that old-school growth hack still works...

I've played with it and hacked together a very generic app just to see how it was...so I can say that I think it has much potential and an exciting future...but...

1. Amazon is still pushing out it's own ideas and features for it...they haven't fully released it to the wild west of developers (many have learned to wait until the dust settles before wasting time/energy on potential features that will be blocked or taken over by the powers-that-be).

2. The speaker bit is cool, but really it's just Siri in a speaker instead of a phone (very cool but not a "wow" out of the box)...it's the next gen. that I think everyone is really excited about and waiting for (when the SDK, and api access, is baked into more than just one stand alone speaker - that is, if/when it becomes the voice interaction for the internet of things; that becomes super exciting and interesting)

3. Not an adoption limitation, but I can say that having worked with the v1 of the tools for building on this stuff...it's still pretty clunky and painful. I think they (AWS) are adopting and upgrading that quickly...but there are some hurdles there as well before "anyone can build a voice powered/interactive thing" can become a reality (and that's the HUGE sensation IMHO)...

Agree 100%

Jerry always writes long, but solid, stuff...worth following on twitter too if your so inclined -> http://twitter.com/ganeumann

He's the most hacker-like angel investor I follow/read (and no he has never backed any of my projects...yet) ;-)

It's very rare that "going back" ever turns out well or as people hope (there are a few exceptions).

Keep in mind that you left for a reason...and the only thing you can really change is you...have you changed so much that you are missing it? That you can't move on without it?

My advice, as long as you have other reasonable options, take one of those paths instead...

I think the trick isn't so much in the down time (or the length of it)...it's in what you do with any free time.

Burnout is generally a result of getting stuck doing lots of stuff you don't want to the majority of your time...and generally very little of what you do want to be doing...

So in my experience you only get over burnout by focusing and rediscovering what you were truly passionate about in the first place (or at the very least what you are insanely passionate about now).

Then, once you can figure out what excites you, start getting small wins in that direction however you can...and before you know it, you'll be full of energy and near impossible to stop again.