No, it's not doable with donations. I mean, there might be a couple people who do that? I don't know of any. (And it's been tried.) In general, companies don'

No, it's not doable with donations. I mean, there might be a couple people who do that? I don't know of any. (And it's been tried.) In general, companies don't donate - they need a concrete benefit they can show to the tax agency. Eg, they will pay to contract you to add features. So you're left with individual contributions, who have less money than companies. And the overhead of dealing with payments. Daniel Stenberg, of curl fame, confirms that it's hard to make money off of donations, starting at https://youtu.be/jVT37EmND8I?t=1688 https://youtu.be/jVT37EmND8I?t=1688 . We can look to curl as an example. https://opencollective.com/curl#category-BUDGET https://opencollective.com/curl#category-BUDGET say they've had $200K in contributions, which after fees is $178,598.94 raised. Over a period of 3 or so years. After decades of development, and as one of the most widely distributed software packages in existence. Find a customer willing to pay you to work on it. Figure out the market size, and what they are willing to pay. Figure out at what point you're willing to give up dream, in case your plan (and pivot(s)) don't work out. But do not, not, NOT, depend on donations to meet your financial goals.