[throwawayAskHN]

This is a great suggestion. I don't have the extra funds to hire anybody, but if I manage to launch this on my own it's likely I will.

What I meant by "enforcement" is my understanding that leadership/management has a lot to do with things like firmness in language and body language cues, etc. to maintain a power hierarchy. Most of the people I know who are able to assume a leadership role are exactly the kind of person I'm afraid to trust to get on board since I can't defend against them taking control of the project.

[argonaut]

Huh? Of course you can defend against them taking control. If they're an employee, you fire them. Here's how to do it: "You're fired."

Sorry, that was a bit over the top, but you see what I mean? I sense a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in what you're saying. If you believe you can't do it, then you can't do it. Leadership and control has nothing to do with firmness of language and body language. Leadership and control has everything to do with clear communication, not necessarily aggressive communication. Aggressive communication makes people leave. Leadership is communicating your vision and finding agreement, and only overruling them if you've discussed the issue at hand but can't find agreement.

You might consider looking for a technical co-founder. Someone you'll give something like 30% equity to, but no salary.

On to another issue:

You need to launch. Think about how this sounds from an investor's point of view: "I've worked on this project for several years alone. I think there are customers for it, but I've never launched it so I don't know if there are actually any customers for it. I'm running out of money..." I would not invest. You will have a lot of trouble finding investment. And if you do find investment, it will probably be on extremely unfavorable terms (giving up control, usually), because the investor will know/sense that you are desperate for the money (in order to have leverage in a negotiation, you have to be in a situation where the other party wants the deal equally or more than you want the deal). The attitude of "I've done the heavy lifting, and that's a bad thing?" is the wrong attitude, because heavy lifting is useless if it doesn't accomplish anything: as far as the investor knows, all the heavy lifting is useless and won't ever generate money.

There are two reasons an investor will invest: 1) They believe in YOU, or 2) They believe in the product. You can fulfill criteria #1 by having social proof that demonstrates your brilliance (i.e. Harvard PhD, famous researcher), having a strong team with you of experienced programmers, or having experience starting profitable companies. Criteria #2 is NOT solved by having a great idea; it is only solved by having growth (users or revenue, doesn't matter as long as there is tangible growth).

[gee_totes]

Are you worried that you don't possess the ability to give off the body language of leadership and that eventually there will be a scramble to be the "alpha figure" and have control of the startup?

In terms of the "alpha figure", it's generally not good to have someone that thinks they can have control of the project on the team. Teams should be about having complete and total trust in the other members of the team, and the feeling of "where all in this together" is what pushes the team to succeed.

If you're worried about your ability to show leadership body language, you could start by making a conscious effort to make eye contact with you talk to for the duration of the conversation. This will be uncomfortable, but will force you to push your bounds of how you act and give you confidence to make other changes.

After that, watch Deep Space Nine and mimic everything Sisko does :)