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Agreed. $5k to hack on a personal project for 2 months isn't really a ton of risk. Especially because OP didn't really put any huge requirements on this. It doesn't have to be a gigantic project (well, ideally at least, I'm not sure what he'll end up picking). I'd love to see the whole process documented though.

Agreed. Life is full of risk vs returns decisions.

Employment - Low Risk, Low Returns

Startup - High Risk, High Returns

I love how this preposition is somewhere in the middle.

You still have to do all the work to build the MVP.

And you get paid to do it = labor, not risk.

I have made and launched dozens of sites. The only ones I was paid to build belonged entirely to someone else. The ones I made for me .... I could barely afford hosting at some stages in my life.