Sorry, didn&#x27;t want to come off too harsh. I&#x27;ve gone down the bootstrapping route before and it&#x27;s very, very hit and miss. Actually mostly miss.<p>The skills required to build a product or service people will pay you a livable wage for are not the same as those needed to write an open-source library. I&#x27;ve seen people with terrible coding skills make successful products with a &quot;Rails for Dummies&quot; book on their lap as they go (they hired pros later to clean up the mess), and I&#x27;ve seen excellent coders flounder with terrible ideas and business execution.<p>Personally I&#x27;d love to jump off the hiring hamster wheel, but realistically - outside of consulting (which has its own share of nightmares) - I don&#x27;t see that happening even if I do come up with the perfect idea in the shower tomorrow.