[upgradeind]

Eh I look at it like this: if a sales person is confident in their abilities in social marketing/online ads, it would be a great deal for them because they're getting in to it late in the game after everything else, including the board is designed on in stock. They don't have to worry about it being vaporware, etc.

[ScottWhigham]

Wait - that's not a "salesperson" in the traditional sense, is it? A traditional salesperson calls on clients, closes deals, and gets paid a commission for each sale. A "sales team" is a team of such salespeople. A salesperson couldn't care less about a lot of things you listed ("... staying on top of the blogs/social networks"). A salesperson cares about finding qualified leads, calling those leads, following up with those leads, and closing deals (and ideally for 1000+ units at a time in your case).

An "affiliate marketer" posts ads and gets paid a commission per action (account created, sale). The affiliate marketers want to create a buzz and get people talking about a product. Affiliate marketers though are thinking "One sale at a time" rather than "1000 units per sale". I think you could easily find affiliate marketers - that's never, ever going to be difficult as long as you are willing to pay a significant enough percentage (30%-50% will attract the better ones).

I'd just advise caution here and perhaps a little more study. You wouldn't be the first guy who some affiliate marketer "tricked" into signing an exclusive contract only to then learn that the affiliate marketer couldn't/wouldn't really sell your product...

[upgradeind]

yeah, affiliate marketing is generally more trouble than it's worth for a business my size, at least for the moment. I've just heard too many horror stories.

I guess what I ultimately want is a "salesman-ish" cofounder to do help with the business side and marketing, while I crank out what my customers want.