Not really. If you're not accounting for your own time, then almost any startup can be 'profitable.'
This post was a real eye-opener for me, having considered my last business 'profitable' over the course of two years, I realize that it was only just barely so, and only for the last 3-6 months.
Where this will really sink in is when you have your first equity liquidity event, and you're bouncing off the walls, and then your pesky brain does the math on how much money you made annualized relative to what you would have made as an FTE at a BigCo.
Not that I think you should work for BigCos, but, the realization will let some of the air out of the balloon.
The reason we closed up shop is because, with a 50:50 split in ownership, my partner was making more money than he could at a BigCo but I wasn't. I didn't have the heart to tell him that (or ask for a different equity distribution) so I just went and got myself a salary.
This post was a real eye-opener for me, having considered my last business 'profitable' over the course of two years, I realize that it was only just barely so, and only for the last 3-6 months.