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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you explain why you think six months is good? Is the goal to get investors within that six months? Or revenue?
The goal is to get something that's going to extend that six months, whether it is convincing investors to contribute to your venture or convincing customers to give you a dollar. Ideally you can do both, but if you can't do either with the full force of your time then something is off and you should shift your efforts. I think six months is good because it is enough time to figure out if something isn't going to wor…
Btw, that was personal runway - i.e. didn't get paid for that period. Rather than raising 12-months of getting paid.
Although if I were giving advice to someone else doing a startup where it's difficult to get immediate traction (e.g. hard tech, enterprise SaaS, hardware, etc.), I'd remind them of the Jason Lemkin rule that it typically takes 24 months to get anywhere[1].
[1]: https://www.saastr.com/if-youre-going-to-do-a-saas-start-up-...
Market validation in 1 month, very strong traction with no marketing. Spent 6 months trying to find investors.
Started borrowing lots of money to keep it afloat. It had good revenue but not a profit (e-commerce profit margins were around 6%). Couldn't get investors despite two accelerators, so we sold off the company after 14 months. But we made a good profit even after paying off debts.
Second time: years(?)
Ended up trying to do too many features. Still "wasn't ready for launch" 9 months in, ended up building features with no market validation. I ended up quitting the company because no progress was being made.
First and second startups were essentially the same, except the second one had a much bigger team, more ambitious.
I'd say keep your runway as short as possible and try to launch something by 3 months.
i am proud of it, but i don't think it is startup, maybe just a side project.