> To build the platform, I got a friend of mine, Mubashar Iqbal, who builds tons of things. He's a technical guy and a prolific maker.
> Actually, I didn't pay Mubashar as he is my friend. He did all for free and he always does project stuff with people. I was very lucky that was the case. Otherwise, all of that money would have gone to a developer to build it.
> But I didn't lose anything because it was literally just me sitting there creating.
I think the reason why some reacted to this negatively, is that many of us would identify with the developer, and perhaps even been in situations where we invested effort into projects that didn't work out.
It also reminds me of similar situations in other fields, like the music business, or design, where the "maker" agrees to work for free in hopes of future payoffs.
In defense of the founder, what's missing from the interview is that they were friends, and the developer didn't want anything in return - he was doing it for fun. If the project had been successful, I'm sure they would have arranged fair compensation for his work.