Hi HN,<p>My co-founder and I have been working on a startup since the last 12-13 months or so.<p>It's a social media that caters to a niche and we think it will work.<p>We've built the MVP, and we have a certain amount of signups with minimal marketing costs. We think there is a market fit here.<p>To scale up, we've been thinking of starting to approach funds for a seed round.<p>At the same time, we're thinking of the future -- if/when we get funding, we will have to quit our jobs.<p>We're 24 right now.<p>We were discussing all of the possible outcomes that might occur. A couple of scenarios:<p>Scenario 1: Our product really flies to millions as we are expecting it to, and we make a decent amount of money through Series B, Series C rounds etc.<p>Scenario 2: Our product shows decent promise during seed stages etc, we raise money through two rounds but then the startup dies for some reason.<p>----<p>For the second scenario, we'll be 28.<p>We will probably have made no savings through the four years, and will be behind our peers in terms of professional growth and monetary savings.<p>28 also happens to be the age when most people get married. It seems like not a great idea to not have a good financial cushion at this age.<p>--<p>Both of us are decently smart I think, and if things end with scenario 2, it simply won't be great. We'll be so behind people our age in terms of money saved etc.<p>This post does focus on the monetary aspect of the process, even though building something of your own will be super fun. How would you approach this predicament?