Five minutes after winning the presidential election of 1904, Teddy Roosevelt vowed not to seek re-election in 1908. Six minutes after, he regretted what he had just said. He tried to return in 1912, but failed and regretted his hasty decision the rest of his life.

Why do I mention this? Because whenever I feel like I'm in a difficult situation (not all that much different from yours), I promise myself not to pull a Teddy Roosevelt and do something hasty that I'll regret forever. Neither should you.

FWIW, time is not slipping away. In spite of what you may think here at hn, 30 is not old.

My suggestion: keep your job and stay on your path to a green card, but find a way to do it and your startup at the same time. You have to get creative. Put in a few hours on your startup before work, not after. Get rid of you TV set. Block out huge blocks of time on weekends. Use your PTO for your startup. Work from home a few days a week and squeeze in extra startup work with the time/energy you save. You get the idea.

You're already creative enough to build a startup. Now use that creativity to free up more time and energy to work on it. Forget about the competition and time slipping away; just do the best you can. And don't pull a Teddy Roosevelt.

I see from prbuckley's profile that this is probably related to the DODOcase, a fashion accessory for tech folks which has six week delivery time. Ahh, pieces are falling into place: 700 orders shipped out of a few thousand, some customers complained (love that tech induced ADHD), Google froze the money.

While it isn't immediately helpful to you, a little bit of craftiness here will kill two birds with one stone. First, don't let orders queue. Customers, particularly ADHD tech types, are very sensitive to shipping delays. Instead, if you don't have the inventory and you're at your (low) maximum queue size, turn off orders on the website.

The key, though, is how you do that. I'd highlight the scarcity/exclusivity angle and play it to the hilt. Come on, you're selling I-can't-believe-its-not-moleskin handmade in San Fransisco straight to Mac owners. This is a luxury status item. Tell folks that if they didn't buy in time, they're simply not worthy of your magical goodness. Then three weeks later, you produce some more, and open orders again. You will be stampeded, and have to close again within a day. Folks who didn't hear about it in time, well, not everybody can be cool enough to own this. (Every time you open up orders, expect a burst of Twitter/links/etc, as folks try to get in and then lament that they missed it again or primp to their friends that their faith has been rewarded.)

(I'd suggest making the batches distinguishable in some way -- any way, heck, you could just say "Our artists whispered the words 'Made in the second batch' over these" and that would have the desired effect on your target customer. Also, charge more.)

When people say "X is a gift, you were lucky to be born with it", they're probably trying to give themselves an excuse to not put in the effort needed to get good at that thing.

Make this a PR issue for Google. It is the most effective way to get effective, timely customer support from them.

A blog post with judicious images of their boilerplate emails, incredulity about how they seem to repeat the same thing over and over, a timeline, a punchy title (I kind of like "Grand Theft Google" but you could dial down the tabloidism several notches and still be effective), and seeding with a tech audience will work pretty well.

And at the same time, for many people it's an insidious way to reduce other people's accomplishments so that they don't feel inferior in comparison.

I love Google as much as the next guy, but how could a legitimate business that handles money not have a phone number to call to speak to a human to resolve this? It's absolutely ridiculous that they can threaten your livelihood and not have a human to talk to.

As bad as Paypal is, at least they offer live phone support. With the products I sell, Google Checkout and Paypal aren't options, so even with all the red tape you must go through to get a merchants account, I'd still rather do that than use Google Checkout/Paypal.

Man, when people are comparing your customer service unfavorably to PayPal, you're really in trouble.

You are dead on. This is really hurting my business cash flow. I am shipping product that I am not getting compensated for. Google is making me the monkey in the middle.

This has happened before, will happen again, and will keep happening until we stop treating Google like their charming eccentricity and market dominance means they can do whatever the heck they want with our businesses.