[mahmud]

When I find someone with both that much domain knowledge, and broad peripheral expertise, it will most likely cost me north of $200/hr, leaving me nothing. Not only that, but the hiring and looking is some extra chore I can do without. In the time it takes me to follow up with applicants, I would have gone through 15% of the project.

Somethings are best done by yourself.

And yes, Paul was right; I barely have any mind for our startup anymore. I live and dream the consulting gig; it monopolizes my imagination, and all I can do after a grueling 12 hour day of work is watch Family Guy and drink beer in bed like a bum.

[tptacek]

You're billing $200/hr and you can't hire a developer for your personal project or attract a partner who can share the burden on the consulting side?

Paul was "right" because he thinks about consulting like you do: as a day job without benefits. The difference between a day job and a consultancy is that your day job gets pretty upset when you hire someone to do your grunt work.

You seem dead set on scaling the wall when there's a perfectly good ladder hanging right off it. Stop killing yourself on a contract so you can earn the right to kill yourself on a startup project that will very likely fail (they all do). Engineer a solution to your current problem ("people will pay my company $8000/week to do something and I am currently the only person in my company"). That has to be easier than trying to figure out how get "liftoff" with a "1 year runway". Sheesh.