My Minnesota: He quit the start-up grind – for 4 hours

You always hear about the people who come up with a great idea for the Internet — you know, a smartphone app that vibrates nonstop when your milk expires, or a website that lets you track how much you spend on expensive coffee, then deletes itself automatically so you don't feel so bad. Sell it to Yahoo, make a million: That's the way you do it.

Meet Lucas Rayala, 35, who made some waves a few months ago when he took a look at his popular, innovative, groundbreaking project and said: Hmm. This, or life? This, or happiness?

He wrote a piece for the popular tech site TechCrunch about yanking the plug on his start-up, and became something of a legend: the guy who walked away. But where to?

We caught up with him on an afternoon after he'd had a meeting about the Next Thing.

With guys like Lucas, there's always a next thing.

How did that start-up flameout happen?

"It was called Altsie, a way for small business to quickly set up a live theater experience. I was working with a variety of indie filmmakers and distribution companies — they fed me films, and I set up the ticketing online so people could show up at a bar or restaurant and watch the movie. A date night! A meal and a film. I blew all cylinders to keep it running; I was looking for investments, working my job full time."

"I was sitting on the couch at 1 a.m., trying to come to a decision. As cool as the idea was, I love my wife a lot and didn't want to put her through another year of this. It was heart-wrenching to end it but a huge relief. Doing a start-up," he adds, "you learn a ton of things about yourself. Things you thought you were good at, but maybe you're not."

The clichéd version of the story has the entrepreneur disappearing for a year to regroup in a small Mexican seaside village, sifting through the event for Life Lessons. But:

"After Altsie, I took three, maybe four hours off." He has a new project now. Is it a social media photo app that lets you share pictures of cupcakes? No. Will it change the world? He laughs.

"Sure. It's called Hipshout. It's a digital flier you can hand out and pass around."

Any more details and others might steal it, so you'll have to wait.

"I have a hundred ideas," he grins. "Ideas are a dime a dozen."