Wow, I'm glad you posted this question -- there's more of us deaf guys here than I'd realized. I am also profoundly deaf, as a result of bacterial meningitis s

Wow, I'm glad you posted this question -- there's more of us deaf guys here than I'd realized. I am also profoundly deaf, as a result of bacterial meningitis shortly before my fifth birthday. That said, I have less of an entrepreneurial bent than you do, in that I work in a consulting/professional services role for a small company rather than starting my own. I'd like to start my own someday but I have some of the same concerns that you do, and I'm not sure how to address them either. :) Groups are very difficult for me. This is partly because they tend to break down into a bunch of conversations that are really hard for me to follow, so I tend to be afraid to jump in and really say anything since I worry it will be off-topic -- so I generally don't speak much in groups unless someone asks me a specific question. Doesn't help that I tend to be really introverted in general, too. As far as phones go, when I interviewed with my current company they were cool about doing the initial "phone" screen via IM, so that hasn't been a problem. We use IM heavily for internal communications anyway so it's not a big deal for me, and most of our external clients use it as well. We've used Campfire in the past in lieu of teleconferences, or at worst my project manager/account exec will be on the conference and relay any critical information I need to be aware of. Anyway, if any of the deaf folks here would like someone to shoot the breeze with or whatever, feel free to drop me a line (email's in my profile, please mention HN in the subject line) -- I'd like to have more people in my circle of acquaintances who are in a similar situation as me and understand some of the unique issues (like teleconferences) that we have to deal with.