If financial outcomes are your biggest dilemma, you gave yourself the answer. Let me tell you from someone who's in the twilight between "I should go back to a

If financial outcomes are your biggest dilemma, you gave yourself the answer. Let me tell you from someone who's in the twilight between "I should go back to a job" and "I can see how this project is going to increase my lifetime earnings compared to a conservative job": It's not cool. I was in a lesser earnings situation than you, still 3-4X what I make now building a venture. It's a mental marathon and you need to operate and execute despite that. If money is your single biggest motivator/ driver (nothing wrong with that, it's preeeetty high up for me), the ride will be quite rough I think. Thinking you or I will be the exception to this rule is rather delusional. The best thing I would suggest is to try and leverage your skillset by getting into a team early when others already have de-risked the idea a bit. Requires quite good networking, though, of course.