There's a lot of truth to the notion of 'building things with friends' is what fuels a lot of developers. I am the same way. I think the same thing can be said for building a startup. It just has a completely different feel and excitement when it's something mutually taken on with a friend.
Also major props to Bootstrap for everything they have done for the web.
I recently read through a cliche list of attributes of successful people, one of them was 'don't have a backup plan'. I think while this is cliche, it is also true in a lot of ways. To me this sounds like your backup plan became having an awesome story to share, and your persistence transitioned from trying to obtain zap.com to trying to amplify the entertainment value of the story.
Also major props to Bootstrap for everything they have done for the web.