I think that's really insightful. But I wonder how well it balances with us HN hordes trying to find the SaaS that will escape us from a grind. The low-hanging fruit is long gone, and not everything that starts fun stays fun. What I was trying to get at is there is no guaranteed (literal) pay off for even a good idea/strategy.

Take something like Basecamp as an example. I came up as a web developer at the same time as those guys. Could've built something like that, but didn't do it then and certainly not with the same conviction. If I had, and had early adoption, I would've stuck at it and carried through - the fun aspect wouldn't have been an issue if there was early success.