When does the daytime job retire

There's good arguments to be made on both sides of this question, but in my experience your company will never really get going until you're in it full-time.

There's an old joke: How much time do startups take? All of it.

TODAY was my business partner's last day at the company where we both have our day jobs. We are also in the "one foot in each boat" situation, and decided that one of us (him) simply needed to jump in and the other (me) agrees to take no cash from the business (or pitch in more cash when needed) until his needs are met.

I'll keep you posted, but I'm confident that this was the right thing for our business. Having 1 person f/t creates us a lot more billable hours, which in theory means I get to quit even sooner! ;-)

I agree with Jason: Half-time attempts are unlikely to be successful because there's simply too much to do.

Every startup will take time to get ramped up to a profitable state. Take the plunge when you have enough personal savings to work on the startup for a while without worrying about paying your basic living expenses. Otherwise you risk having to quit your business when you haven't given it enough time to get going or to find out if it can be successful.

Plan ahead so you can reach a point when: A) The new venture shows promise/will your full-time efforts pay off? B) You've saved/borrowed enough money until the new venture can support you (In the context of a limited budget).

Sounds like you've got A covered.

Gather some cash for the start and, if you feel confident that there's a potential your sales will allow you to make a good living out of your start-up, then jump. :-) There's no reason to look back, nor to continue to waste your life having two jobs, one that most probably you love more than the other. It's risky indeed but it's totally worth as a life experience.

And I believe that every employer should appreciate a person that started a business and had sales. You can always fall back to a full time job.