You also wrote: “This post only reinforces what was already in the back of my mind for a while: The least hard way to earn money and be happy at the same time is to start an own business.” I would caution you from my experience: I didn’t start my business until after I had a customer with a check waiting for a TIN. On top of that, having a business in functional/logic programming very, very rarely attracts interested customers. So one must, at times, resort to helping them over and above what they request. For example, I had to manage the entire life-cycle of a project from requirements to maintenance, including invoicing and payments, in order to write a system that they needed in my LoCh (Language of Choice). And as you note, having published works and testimonials opens pathways from interested customers to you, as it has for me.

On the other hand, I have been to the PADL/POPL/FLoC symposia, and there is quite an interest in academe in your part of the world in functional and logic programming. Enough interest to send large contingents of presenters and participants to another continent. “Interest” does not automate the business process, not at all, but where there is interest, it may be a bit easier to put forward the right business case if you listening to the right decision maker with the kind of problems you like to solve.