I don't see how most of your post has anything to do with what this post is about.
This post is not about a "pithy homily". It's not intended to "inspire" anybody with platitudes. This is about understanding the underlying reality of what makes people care enough about your "experiment" to pay you money for it.
I was under the impression that people here were starting startups in the hope they they may one day become successful businesses. To make that transition all the questions above need to be answered. I thought that might be relevant to some people as being able to answer all those questions is something lots of startups, Y-related or not, have trouble answering.
> The point of a scrappy startup tends to be that of
> experimentation, not a sophistacated execution of a great idea.
Well, that may be the point of your startup, but this post was for people who want their startups to be about good enough execution of an idea that paying customers think is great.
That translates into financial transaction which translates into a functional business.
Experimentation should be the points of students still in school, major corporations with money to support it, and people who are tinkering while having another source of income. If you quit all that and "dropped out" of the system to start a business, well, the only point is to figure out how to start making money. Especially over the next 4-5 years.
To the extent the tinkering strays away from that and becomes absorbed in itself for its own ends, you'll wind up with an interesting experiment, not a startup that becomes a business.
That's not me "attacking" the delicate egos of any programmers, that's cold, hard economic reality. Whine if you wish but people still won't hand over their increasingly scarce money to you as long as you pout instead of figuring out how to answer all the above questions.