Whiten,

You can definitely do it. My story might help encourage you a bit.

Being a bit older when you start your business can work to your advantage. The reason? You've probably had time to work in another field and see real-world needs in some particular niche. These would be unmet needs that recent graduates might not be able to see. The younger guys do amazing things that blow my mind, but there are tons of opportunities that are overlooked because they are smaller (but still HIGHLY profitable) demographics that don't entice those who want to "change the world."

(I started writing this and then notice that nostrademons made virtually the same point, so I just want to "second" what nostrademons said.)

In my particular case, I worked at an art gallery and over the course of a decade learned the art business inside and out. I now have connections throughout the art industry. About seven years ago, I got the idea to build a little web application helps painters build websites and market their artwork online.

(BTW - I have been astounded at the similarities I, as an aspiring hacker, have with my painter customers, and just within the past few months I've learned of PG's book "Hackers and Painters.")

At first, I only had 5-6 hours ONE DAY A WEEK to devote to developing the application. I had to learn everything. I hadn't programmed seriously in over a decade, so progress was very slow at first. Still, within two months I had my first customer.

I continued to build the application following my one-day-a-week schedule for years. I wasn't willing to give up my job income, so I just kept my little web application going on the side and spent roughly 5 hours a week improving it on my days off.

At the end of year one I had 30 customers. At the end of year 2 I had 60. Year 3? 120 customers (see a pattern?). At the end of year 4 I had 240 customers and finally had the courage to go full-time.

That was three years ago and today I have 2,000 customers - enough to provide a good income for me and my employees . . . and still growing. And I finally get do do what all hackers want to do...code! I now code at least five hours a day (although when my wife is out of town, that number balloons to 36 hour marathons, BTW - thank God you have a wife.....it forces you to have a life too).

I highly respect the 37 Signals crew and I agree with them: Don't focus on building a STARTUP, focus on building a BUSINESS.

If there is a niche or industry that you have deep knowledge of....that will help you as nostrademons said above. You will have knowledge and hopefully, connections. It generally puts you in a situation where you have much less competition. And even the competition you do have isn't likely to be as knowledgeable about your customers' needs as you are. In my situation, I generally know how artists need to market their artwork better than they do (and providing that help to them is part of our service).

Is this route slower? Yes. Is it safer? Of course. But, it my case, I couldn't afford to simply quit my job, so it was the only route possible.

When I started I wasn't really even planning on it to become a full time venture, so chances are, you could start on the side and get profitable in a fraction of the time it took me. I knew nothing about building an online company. The fact that you are following and posting on "Hacker News" shows that you light-years ahead of where I was when I started out.