Release but spend your money only on a < $100 per month VPS and skip the adwords. The initial launch is just about evaluating your idea. If you post on HN and

Release but spend your money only on a < $100 per month VPS and skip the adwords. The initial launch is just about evaluating your idea. If you post on HN and a few other locations where there are a lot of developers, hopefully you can get a few takers. Then once you have money coming in and your idea is validated, you can take the plunge and invest in a dedicated server and spend some money on adwords. A VPS may not support very many customers, but you can always migrate once you have a few and some money to help offset the cost. As for Adwords, that's a whole different can of worms. I've heard stories of people throwing thousands of dollars down the drain, either because their idea wasn't validated or because they their site wasn't optimized for conversions or they didn't know how to select the right keywords, etc. There are lots of ways to do free advertising and let you hone your product and marketing message BEFORE you spend a time on paid traffic. I recommend listening to the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast (all of the episodes).