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Swizec
But ... it's just _fun_. Who cares about the rewards, I want _fun_ and I want it NOW.

A steady job just can't give you that. And to top it all off, it can't give you the possibility of a big reward either. lose-lose

edit: that is to say, a big reward that somebody gives you, isn't a reward at all, you're supposed to go get it yourself

StavrosK
Exactly. To draw from my experiences, working on historious is so amazingly fun that I can't wait to finish whatever else I'm doing to work on it.

It's not work, it's a hobby that (sometimes) pays. It's exactly the same as playing WoW, only more socially acceptable.

johnarleyburns
Yeah but when your startup isn't covering the bills and you're already eating and living cheap - what do you do?
StavrosK
If you think there's room for improvement, get consulting gigs. Otherwise, found a new startup.
Swizec
The most important job of your startup is to MAKE MONEY.

So when there isn't money in the bank you go out and you MAKE SOME DAMN MONEY.

If all else fails get an out-of-focus purely-for-money project. There's usually a lot of those lying about if you're willing to work on them.

full disclosure: my startup has yet to pay bills, but we have a knack for getting government grants

alex1
If money is your sole motivator, I don't think you'll get very far, at least in the startup world.

You should do what you love. Make peoples' lives easier. Financial gain is just a by-product.

Go out and change the world, with a passion to change the world (rather than financial gain), and the rewards (whatever they may be, money or otherwise) will come.

Swizec
Yes, obviously. But a startup that can't pay the bills for itself and the people who work there will die even quicker.
aneth
No, it's __FUN__.
darinpantley
At the end of the day, a "true entrepreneur" is someone who builds a business.
aneth
Did I miss how Python fits in here? Seems to be a rather large cognitive gap between the premise and the supporting argument.

The commentary about the "true entrepreneur" has some interesting insights, although it seems a bit religious. We are all organic variable individuals, not Platonic types.

flipp
Python was there for linkbait purposes and because it represents working on what you want to work on with what you want to work with.
johnarleyburns
It wasn't there for linkbait purposes, it was there because the startup my friend was considering which initiated this post is crazy about python, another startup in progress is all python-based, and python is always coming up in the discussion. If I wanted to linkbait I would have used a more popular language like Java.