Are the references to contracts in the article "contract work" i.e contract employee work for someone else in order to help subsidize your startup? If so that's

Are the references to contracts in the article "contract work" i.e contract employee work for someone else in order to help subsidize your startup? If so that's an interesting approach to getting your startup of the ground and maintaining some income. Have people had success with this? I have found lining up contract work to be almost as time consuming as doing a regular FT job. Or am I reading these references wrong and it's your startup doing various short term and tangentially related contracts?