>It was not impossible OP was going to launch to 4000 customers.
Having a publisher helps a lot. But 4000 copies for many indies would be a rousing success (albeit, not a financial success). It is simply that competitive.
>I could also see a wife being upset her previously highly paid husband is working on a video game, and presumably a low salary from a publisher (if any).
Very true for 99.99% of indie devs. But I figure that OP's savings and RSU's (almost a deacade's worth) would easily put them in a situation everyone else can only dream of.
>When I was working on my previous startup...
I know startups are risky, but I really don't get this attitude. It might just be lack of knowledge, but once you can get a startup off its feet, the VC money from seeds easily makes up for that downtime. And unless you're the founder or are a near-founder being paid with future equity, startups can still pay very respectably. It's the time committment that you need to worry about.
> once you can get a startup off its feet, the VC money from seeds easily makes up for that downtime
The depends a lot on the startup. Many startups don't take VC money.
Of those that do, in my experience as first non-founder employee, the founders were paid very little compared with employees, on the hope of future success with their equity instead, even after the startup got decent pre-seed and seed investment. Both rounds of investment were enough to pay some key employees well, but not to pay everyone well for long enough. So the founders felt they has to continue with low pay for themselves.
Not only is VC funding very competitive, but it takes an enormous amount of time to raise. My first startup we spent months and months doing nothing but fundraising.
Recently, I didn't want to bother with that and just went straight to building product. In this case, I built product, got a couple customers, and saw zero growth. From there, no VC would touch us, because we had no growth, and in some cases they just made fun of us.
Like myself, OP was the founder/cofounder, and it's not uncommon for family to be very unsupportive of risky career moves. Unsuccessful startups lead to divorce all the time, it's very sad and a part of startups nobody talks about
Having a publisher helps a lot. But 4000 copies for many indies would be a rousing success (albeit, not a financial success). It is simply that competitive.
>I could also see a wife being upset her previously highly paid husband is working on a video game, and presumably a low salary from a publisher (if any).
Very true for 99.99% of indie devs. But I figure that OP's savings and RSU's (almost a deacade's worth) would easily put them in a situation everyone else can only dream of.
>When I was working on my previous startup...
I know startups are risky, but I really don't get this attitude. It might just be lack of knowledge, but once you can get a startup off its feet, the VC money from seeds easily makes up for that downtime. And unless you're the founder or are a near-founder being paid with future equity, startups can still pay very respectably. It's the time committment that you need to worry about.