[giffc]

The money side depends on how much equity you want to share. I think it is worth bringing someone on board very early. You don't want to go from a cold, standing start at PM fit. You don't want a big company, big budget marketer but what Sean Ellis calls a "growth hacker" who can get creative, and experiment with many different user acquisition approaches. Ideally this is someone who can wear a lot of hats, is very product oriented and can help with customer development, and contribute a lot to the venture pre-PM fit, whether it be UX, working on bizdev relationships (these take time), a blog/PR strategy, and other avenues of attack. The more they can do with the least amount of money, the better. Someone who cares a lot about analytics and finds startup metrics for pirates the coolest thing ever. Someone who obsesses about messaging. Someone who has been at the super early stage before. Good luck!

[jblochjohnson]

I think we really have two options: find someone like this, or have one of our team become that person. This sounds like a good starting recipe if one of us wants to become that person themselves – Sean Ellis seems pretty awesome!

[giffc]

I meant to actually put exactly that in my note - there is no reason why if one of you is particularly interested in and seems adept at the business side of things that you cannot cover it yourself. Just think through how it will change your dev velocity, and make sure the person enjoys the role, because you always do a better job when you are having fun :)

[vlaskovits]

I think Giff nailed it in his comment to you.

You might want to frame your thoughts around where you think you are in terms of Product/Market Fit -- that is, do you think you are pre- or post-?