A huge lesson that I have learned doing indie game development is that if you cannot pay a person to do some work chances are they will not do it.  They can be the perfect talent for the job and be able to do it no problem, but if it is voluntary they probably won’t do it for you.

Nope, not even giving them a place in the future of your dream will make them do it for you.  See most people are only driven by what they have now or what they can get now.  So your dream means nothing to them personally until it can pay them.  They are not bad people or anything, they are just motivated by their lives and their dreams.  This makes it hard to rely on others while trying to start something new.  You can throw tasks around as if people are getting paid but the truth is you will probably have to do them yourself. 

I have a new rule in my life.  If I am not paying for it and it is important I must be able to do it on my own.  This does not stop me from handing tasks over, but I am my own safety net.  For sure if it is important and there is a date attached to the task, just do it yourself.  Don’t waste the time handing that task off to another person who has no skin in the game.

I know some of you are thinking, man this guy sounds like he has some bad experiences here.  The response to that is, yes I do have experience here.  I do not believe they are good or bad ones, but I have been in the places where I put things in the capable hands of another, or two, and they simply do nothing, or something terrible, for your vision or dream.  Take it from somebody who’s been there, until money is involved make sure you can do it yourself and assume you will be doing it all.

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