Ask HN: I died 2 times, coma, learned how to walk again, code, now I need advice

Everything that has happened to you, it's very sad. IT money is waiting from you is the same as that of other entrepreneurs - blasting projects that will benefit. Three years ago, immediately after the launch of my first startup in one month I had a 30-years crisis, then the divorce and then subsequent major depression. As a result, I went through 7 coma and tons of tranquilizators. But human body is amazing - three years of rehabilitation, and, behold, I am alive, all in the past and I am doing a new startup.

YC is about get a rapid introduction to the network, which is what he needs. Also, demo-day could net $1m+ based on previous years.

Let me start by asking $15k/month in revenue or profit? Do you have capacity to hire?

Courting investors is a full time job, but so is hiring if done right. You probably can't do both with just two of you. If the goal of raising money is to hire more people, and you've already got enough cash to hire even one, do that first.

Just make sure you hire into a position you believe can increase your profit. Spend time thinking about it.

Companies your size grind to a halt while raising capital and it can take months. Once you've expanded a little, multitasking becomes easier. If you're lucky (and this is what you're trying for), you may find that your new hire increases your profit enough while you were looking for investors that you can afford to hire again.

If the new hire doesn't increase profit, you can still take investment (especially if you've been doing the leg work after maxing out your headcount), but you're going to have to figure out how to hire effectively eventually, you'll just have more money in the bank.

You need to be out there networking! Being in Palo Alto gives you access to a lot of tech people and events, so theres no excuse. The people you meet will end up future employees, VCs, angels or people that can make introductions. You should being following investors on twitter and reading their blogs. Watch for events they speak at or attend. Go to those events and try and meet them.

It's possible that he just has that founder mentality that he doesn't want the secret sauce to be out so early and wants to remain stealth. Perhaps misguided, but truth be told, a lot of folks start out with that mentality.

Dude, if that's the case, there are a number of reasons why that doesn't make sense. There are probably hundreds of other people working on the exact same thing as you around the world. Secrecy will not help you compete with those people. What you need is exposure, not secrecy, to really get moving in most cases. Only in very rare cases do you want to keep secrecy. Based on statistics alone, you probably want exposure, not secrecy.