Question
One of my mentors has asked me the question 'is my startup a hobby or a business?' My startup is an Australian-based edutech initiative that is one year old and post-revenue.
To answer this he wants me to choose a metric that encapsulates the reality of the opportunity cost of the time spent on my startup.
The background to this stems from my (paraphrased) statements: there's nothing else I need to be doing, I get as much out of this as I put in, etc.
Questions:
Is my mentor asking the right question?
If yes, what metric?
If no, what alternative do you suggest?
Answer
The fact that you have revenue is a promising start. If you have some recurring revenue, you have a business. If your "renewal" cycle hasn't yet hit, that will be a key inflection point. In the meantime, continue to speak with your customers about the value they are getting from your product / service. That's very cheap and shouldn't incur any steep opportunity costs.