Syscoin and Gulden had similar starts. Both founders weren't rich but the syscoin team took on a lot of financial risks themselves which Gulden always used a premine, development reward to negate most financial risk. Syscoin did add a once a month reward for development at a much smaller scale but this allowed the syscoin team to continue full time on the coin.
What both teams have risked is time into both projects. Rijk with all the development he has done while working is mind blowing, if I have advise for Rijk is that he must not burnout and I hope he also gets to a situation where he can be permanently on Gulden.