I own a business that markets great people into interesting roles. I've run public, private and NFP businesses in tech, healthcare, and finance. Been a founder, Director and coach. Work with students, Boards, CEO's and management teams. I think outside the box on careers, governance, strategy, leadership and motivation. Joined Clarity years ago and got too busy. Back now. How can I help?
greatqualitycheap.com has a certain ring to it!
We have over 50,000 mostly business followers on Twitter. If you want to broadcast out a message or a survey let me know.
Find a way to pay for it. Giving up equity is an option of last resort and should only be reserved for very rare people and circumstances. When your business becomes valuable you will be very happy that you're not sharing it with your first web designer.
Simple answer but don't ignore posting a profile on LinkedIn. We do all of our recruiting for clients there and it's where we find all of our own talent. Your experience is valuable. Use strong keywords throughout. You never know what companies are looking for.
Obviously in a new market, you need to be ready when you get your first order. So supply is critical. However too many companies shy away from demand building because it's not what they know how to do. They're not marketers and selling scares them. So they gravitate to what they know - the product - which leads them naturally towards the supply side. That's a waste of time when there is no market.
In his book 'The Lean Start-up', Eric Reis talks about the concept of 'minimum viable product'. Launching with the minimum viable product, can be a good way to test the market for a product without investing lots of money. However - to your point - you need to be careful, especially in a service business. Even your basic offering still can't turn off customers. My suggestion is you find other ways to figure out if there's market for your service. For lots less than $100,000 you could even engage someone to do the market research for you.