I tried the freelancer route a couple months back and it failed miserably. I think maybe I just made the wrong hire, but I spent about $10k and ended up ending

I tried the freelancer route a couple months back and it failed miserably. I think maybe I just made the wrong hire, but I spent about $10k and ended up ending the contract early because the freelancer had nothing to show after 2 months besides a todo app (not kidding). Endless excuses and empty promises; communication was terrible. I then went and hired a well-known dev shop for a different project, and 2 weeks in, the project is almost finished. I'll likely hire them for the failed project as well. Suffice it to say, I vote having a dev shop build it for $50k. But I guess you also want a co-founder, so there's that too. Nothing worse than bad co-founder fit, though; it'll rip your company to shreds -- trust me. Be very picky, and make sure you're 100% sure before you give anybody co-founder status.