Ask HN: How much savings did you have when you started?

This way you can dedicate the 18k to marketing once the product is completed. Contrary to the dream stories of everything going just right, not many products go grass roots or viral or whatever we are calling it these days. Many of them require good old fashion marketing to get the word out.

18k still does not give you a whole lot of runway especially if you have rent, electricity, food and the other life necessities. Postpone spending cash as long as possible and when you do make sure that that cash is going into something that will convert back into revenue.

If you don't understand marketing, start learning about it now. Buy some books read some blogs of industry leaders. You will have to become an effective marketer if you want your product to succeed. Contrary to popular belief even some great products don't sell themselves and require good marketing.

To get a baseline of what you need, calculate your living expensed plus do the worst-case calculations for a year.

Expect that your currently fully-working laptop and mobile phone are both going to break and you have to buy new ones. (sudden hw costs can be easily a couple of grands). Ditto for cars etc.

If you have a spouse, don't expect that working from home for a year is such a great idea, thus plan some money for renting a space.

If you've got eighteen grand, well, you are going to have to start making money quick. Living around here is pretty expensive. Be prepared to get a contract gig, because for most product businesses, ramping up as fast as you will have to ramp up with that runway will be quite difficult.

Not for San Francisco.