Hiring and equity are 2 different things. You should treat equity as gold and only dilute your stake for very good reasons. And hiring your first employee is no

Hiring and equity are 2 different things. You should treat equity as gold and only dilute your stake for very good reasons. And hiring your first employee is not one of them unless the person is an absolute star. And don't be too hasty to hire. The old saying "if you have enough employees, then you have too many" is very true. Being solo for the first while means that you have to work smart. For example, in my latest venture, I am using PayPal for billing, so I don't have any billing issues to bog me down; otherwise I would probably have to hire someone. I understand the PlentyOfFish dating service guy did all the work himself for years.