Ask HN: What surprised you / did you learn as you built out your company?

I've struggled to find my voice on the internet as a founder. I don't write much or have a blog, outside the occasional normie tweets. I haven't built in public or promoted my work properly and I'm sure a lot of engineers and fellow founders struggle with this too.

Yesterday however, someone asked me "What surprised you / did you learn as you built out this concept?". For the first time, I felt unlocked! I felt like I can finally speak with authority and share something personal, true and insightful. I hope this prompt does the same for you, go ahead and share your answer below (and then share it on other platforms too!) Here's mine:

"One thing that surprised me while building this open source bounty concept is people considered it taboo to pay for open source contributions, like it ruins the OSS ethos (or its free labor market) and some people fought me.

One thing that I learned is companies loved to hire full-time the contributors they met (15 customers did) and helping these companies hire incredible open source engineers is higher value for everyone involved than simply solving a few issues."