1. It is just me - is that a red flag? You are not big enough to drive enough revenue to grow yet. A company takes a lot of work besides a few good ideas, and

1. It is just me - is that a red flag? You are not big enough to drive enough revenue to grow yet. A company takes a lot of work besides a few good ideas, and most people just can’t afford to risk sweat equity. Asking software/engineering people to work for “free”/”shares of nothing” sours most conversations pretty quickly. People with skills usually get scammed once or twice before they learn this lesson. 2. How do I set appropriate milestones for me to reach? You are currently in the independent-contractor or owner-operator class. If you plan to self bootstrap, than don’t enter into a public market without a war chest over $500k. You will need to hit hard and fast in a very lucrative/narrow niche, then bail-out of the sector before an army of losers show up to compete. A small team of 5 can do a lot, but focus on hard small problems if you want to survive. Recall people don’t make money writing software, but rather reselling the same product/services many times over. 3. I'm in a small town in PNW. No, your product in hand at a trade-show is all that matters, and a small office for meetings is like $600/month. Again, think about disposable-products and services as you can’t protect anything yet. Strategic truth means not volunteering information that can harm your position. The only difference between a bum in a cheap suit and a CEO is money. 4. What are some ways to do marketing? Trade-shows and related events where in-person meetings are more probable, and listen to what customers are shopping for at first. Each event is usually worth about 5 months of online marketing in terms of sales leads. 5. I've been inspired by the Startup School videos. Most startup rants are BS stories of winning a lottery… No one relevant shows up to an event with 450 competitors and talks about what they are planning. YMMV, =)