1. Time became my most valuable asset. Everything was filtered through the lens of "does this save me time?" and so I optimized everything: The gym (worked out at home), shopping (got delivered), dating (used fleshl...joking! :).
In the words of Joel Spolsky, "Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day".
2. I worked harder than ever before. My job was tough but output ebbed and flowed with meetings, management, plus the usual office time wasters. The startup workday is more straightforward: wake up, coffee, write code, listen to users, coffee, learn how to add value to the market, coffee.
3. Every two months or so I look back and shake my head at how lame the product was, how little I knew, and how inefficient my workflow was. Which is to say, I continue to learn at an incredible clip yet realize I still don't know a thing. I expect this trend to continue - if it doesn't, I'm not growing.
So, yeah, overall it's been An Incredible Journey™. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner.
It's actually a gift how easy it is to go from idea to product to business. To paraphrase Murakami, 'If you're young and talented (or can code), it's like you have wings'.
We're living in the best of times.