Ask HN: Advice with launching a multi-year "Lone Wolf" project?

[throwawayAskHN]

I've been working full-time on a rather large Java project for several years.

I have no experience working at startups or real-world knowledge of putting together an office and hiring people, so I don't have a good idea of how to get from guy-in-a-room to office-full-of-people, which is going to have to happen.

I'm not very good at networking, I'm more of a head-down sort of guy and have too many responsibilities just handling the work itself. I'm also pushing myself extremely hard, isolated, and overstressed, and I'm not an easy person to deal with socially. This is a reality that I can't easily change as long as I've got my nose to the grindstone.

I have very little funds other than what I need to pay living expenses for myself, which was originally personal savings, and now loans from friends and family.

I don't believe I can/should get investment capital given my lack of leadership and business experience. The limited experiences I've had with investors has not gone well, I believe in myself and my product 100% but I'm not socially aggressive or good at pitching, and I am easily frustrated by their standard political procedures.

I'd like some realistic advice on how to take off with this. My current plan is to launch it myself and grow organically, but that isn't a solution in itself, it will just give me a little more cash in my bank account and I'm in the same situation.

I need a building with desks and equipment. I need HR. I need Legal. I need DevOps. I don't know what else I need, because I've never worked at a startup.

How does a guy with a product in my situation realistically go about getting this stuff done?

[nimstr]

You've been working on this project for several years; is there a monetization system in place yet? If not, your first step should be to build one. I've found that when you can build something that generates a cash flow, it becomes a lot easier to do all those other important things. Like 10x easier.

Investors are probably going to shy away from something that's been around for several years with no money.

[throwawayAskHN]

Yes there is, it hasn't launched yet so I have no cash flow.

It's a big cloud project and just getting it launched and running is going to take at the very least some DevOps people.

It doesn't initially make sense to me that investors would shy away from something with so much existing value. "I've done the heavy lifting, and that's a bad thing?" But I think you're right, I can see how fast-paced technology investors would be more interested in snapping up a large stake of a project with a greedy, determined leader.

I need more of a bank-loan sort of investment, which unfortunately I can't get because I trashed my credit.

[kylelibra]

Hire someone as a generalist who you trust to just get stuff done. If they are smart, they can figure stuff out or find someone who knows.

[throwawayAskHN]

This sounds like a good first step, thank you for the reply.

Here are the issues from my standpoint:

Even if I could afford it, I don't know how to hire someone or how to tell them what I need done (or especially actually motivate them or enforce that they'll do it).

I also don't know anybody like this personally, and it's going to be hard to trust random people from the internet.

[ibudiallo]

I think it is time you launch your project. You are finding all kind of excuses before the product is even out. Launch it, have people here at HN help you beta test it. Show it in relevant forums. You either fail or you succeed.