One of the things that keeps me away from doing stuff like this is that I _hate_ every part that isn't the engineering part, and the engineering part is a minority share of what it takes to run a business.
This is why startup people straight out of school are often unencumbered with ideas that impact their mission. If you go into a large organization, you are exposed to a reality that can distort your perspective. It's a myth that people can't move between large and small organizations, but the differentiator is their awareness of and desire to embrace the current circumstances. Many end up preferring the luxury and ease of large organizations and fail because they don't make the switch. Many startup people don't make the move in the other direction (even if they are exceedingly successful and it might be practical move.)
Similarly, a desire to only focus on engineering is something you feel will inhibit your ability to run a business. Over time you might be able to discover ways to reduce your hate for the other work. People here love to prescribe advice for situations like this, but it's really hard to give good advice without knowing a lot more about you.
It’s a bonus that those 40 hours don’t feel like work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptah
I imagine that the creative class was revered and feared. Potters had very low status making a commodity product that everyone needed. Hard to say what was going on.
But if you kill the culture before the IPO, then you have nothing and nothing.
It's a necessary part, but without marketing/sales/support/etc, very few projects work as a business.