If you have any projects you've done or an online code-repository, you should link it. Also, search for the who's hiring thread for June, which has a robust list.
If you are just burning time, head over to pier 38 (SF) and talk to the several startups that operate from there. I would also venture to say there are a bunch of startups working out of the 500 startups space at any given time.
I really don't know where to start, so I'll jump right in. In reading your post, I think you've hit the nail on the head; you're not happy. My advice is to find a professional that can safely help you pursue happiness. Just out of curiosity and a potential starting point, when was the last time you were happy? Also, boarding school sounds like a significant and possibly traumatic incident in your life (did you have mixed feelings about going to boarding school?). I'll also throw out there that your sexual fantasies, so long as they don't hurt another person and you have a willing participant aren't bad...after all, to each their own. Remember, sex should be gratifying. If you feel nothing or worse when you are done, or shortly thereafter, and are escalating the behaviors to "feel something", you should probably stop the acts and tell a professional.
With regard to your situation as a founder of a startup with employees and investors, if you can't do the job or fear you can fly off the handle at any time, you need to be an adult and do the right thing (which could be at a great personal cost). That could mean selling your piece, bringing in someone else, going on leave, whatever. But, you have taken several steps to reach out on your own behalf and you should at least make the same attempts to safeguard the money / livelihood of those who have helped you get where you are today. That doesn't mean you have to tell them what's going on, but you still have to take action.
My advice to you is figure out what makes you happy. It's way harder than it sounds, so start small. Do you have a hobby that brings you joy? Something from your childhood you haven't done in a long time, but made you happy back then? Have you ever tried helping a complete stranger? Start doing 1 thing a day until you find something that makes you feel better and run with that (make sure whatever you try is positive).
I hope we see a post from you in the future that tells us how much better you are doing. And remember, just because you've spent your whole life trying to get to where you are, if it doesn't make you happy --you're better off making a change.
It's not right, but it happens all the time. IMHO, if you can get past the rage, sell him the bank of hours. If he really wants to talk with you that badly, ask for an agreement with a piece of the action (thought I doubt he'll sign it).
Listen, ideas truly are a dime a dozen. Implementation is hard. Facebook, myspace, friendster...all the same idea. If this guy can do it, good for him.
Take the money and run. If you can't do that, bring the same idea to a competitor and see if they bite and will make you a deal.
It's great that you got a first pitch out of the way. Congratz to that!
First off, startups outside SV/SF get funded...don't get it twisted. But, boo-who'ing over the fact that you can't get face-to-face with someone connected isn't going to get you anywhere. So, you are doing it wrong. There may not be lots of events in your city, so go to them. Period. If you can't find a way to make it happen, you probably don't have what it takes anyway. When you get there, network the hell out of them. Pitch people on the spot (don't suck!) and have a working product demo with you.
Secondly, when an investor asks for a business plan, they probably aren't from the SF school of investment thought. And while you retort mentioning things you could do to show traction should have been more relevant to him than they were, you really shouldn't have been pitching without traction. It sounds like your project is consumer facing, users get some value, but don't pay (ie maybe geo/social/photo/blah blah). If that's the case, your product should have a small, but growing, core group of fanatic users, before smart money will pay you the time of day. Once you have that, go to angellist.
It doesn't matter where in the world you live...if you have a good product in a good market and traction, you'll get meetings (though it's still a numbers game).
Listen, it's supposed to be hard-otherwise, everyone would do it.
Practically speaking, the market sets the rate. How desirable you are compared to other deals, determines your valuation above that rate.
Let's say your company has typical proof-of-concept traction. Depending on the specific space that could be 10-50k uniques per month.
For example, 500 startups typically makes a 50k investment at a $1 million dollar valuation for companies they incubate. Syndicated angel / early stage vc rounds are usually (lately) in the $3-5 million post range. However, this is more a function of the amount raised and the % each investor needs to make their investment model work.
I've also noticed that revenue for most early-stage companies looking to raise funds, when revenue does exist, is usually a milestone (proves the business model). A company that has yet to scratch the surface in their market, which is most early-stage, doesn't get their valuations off multiples. A company w/ rev of 5k per month that gets a $3 mil pre-money "technically" has a 50x valuation (annualized) or let's say 25x with some decent growth projections. But, the revenue doesn't lead the pricing, it's a just truism via basic financial formula.
I'm sure there is something to be said about startups moving to where the most money is or correlation between the risk profile of a successful entrepreneur and moving to be where the action is. However, there is probably also a higher correlation between successful young startups that get covered by tech blog and the fact that tech blog reporters are mostly based out of the valley.
That being said, when they get more successful, startups usually go for an SV office for engineers. But that's something different.
In my experience, it all starts with pitching your idea. If you can succinctly capture someone's interest, they'll have questions and start hypothesizing about the possibilities (nuances that are interesting to them). Once this happens and you engage the conversation (not shoot down their ideas with things like...we've thought about it and this is why we won't do it) for a little while, you will usually hear, "What can I do to help?"
It's at that point you want to appropriately engage the person, keeping action items limited to short conversations, introductions and the like. Remember, advisor aren't there to build your business.
In my personal experience, if you approach someone and tell them about what you are doing, you'll be able to gauge their interest level. If they are interested, it all starts from there.
The other comments are pretty much right on. Between the brainpower, google, tenacity it takes to be an early employee of a startup and everyones' personal networks, IT is going to be handled internally.
I'm sure during a big expansion stage, IT gets provisioned funds.
It's natural to think that a bunch of tech types look for the most scalable ways to do anything. However, recruiting top talent doesn't easily scale ...that's why it's such a coveted skill to have.
However, i'm sure the name-dropping power of that email is enough to recruit a lot of people. However, top talent never has a lack of opportunities or interesting projects to work on. What they really should have led with, since they were going for a fishing with grenades strategy is, startup currently valued at X willing to pay 150k+ Y % equity approach.
It seems like Dropbox has just crossed the chasm and they are building for the masses. This is a natural stage in the life cycle of any successful company. Unfortunately, that means they are going to upset some portion of its hardcore, early-adopting users.
Outsourcing development isn't always a bad experience. However, it requires an experienced project manager / system architect leading the outsourced development.
From what I heard and personally experienced, it all goes wrong when someone who has an idea, explains it in plain english to their outsourced dev point of contact. The vision is 90% clear and the devs don't know your business as well as you do and they start building. As developers charged with finishing a job within a deadline, they find it more expedient to make seemingly innocuous decisions while coding (as opposed to stopping mid-stream to email you and burn a whole rest of the working day until they get your answer tomorrow). A series of small decisions compound, along with the major decisions they do come to you about, but you lack the technical expertise to make (so you default to their knowledge) and BOOM!.
The advice on learning to code is the best...but clearly you don't think it's worthwhile or can be circumvented. If you are going to "get funded", which sounds like your goal, learning to code (just enough to hack something out) will go a long way in both recruiting others to join you and convincing investors you'll do what it takes.
In terms of getting ready for angel money, you have to get something out there and get people using it. I strongly encourage you to come up with an app that does one thing well and delivers value...see my post at http://www.startupsanddowns.blogspot.com
Having too grand of a vision upfront is overwhelming to build, shows a lack of focus and more stuff doesn't make your product better. Think how simple twitter is and what their MVP probably looked like.
Asking for a mentor won't attract the right people either. As a matter of fact, asking for investment is a sure fire sign investors look for...to know when to pass. Investors invest, people that know their ass from their elbow in your field advise. Once you start showing your product and explaining your vision for the next steps...preferably with some user data, investors will ask if you are looking to raise money (if they are interested) and potential mentors will ask what they can do to help you out. It's really that easy...I'll use this paragraph as the thesis for my next blog post.
For early adopters, it's all about product endorsements. As someone who isn't from Silicon Valley, but reads all the major tech news sources and thought leader blogs, I set out on a mission to meet as many thought leaders as possible....Long story short, one tweet from a single thought leader converted to 500+ clickthrus to my site at product launch. Another product got 90 signed up alpha users from a single tweet. People who follow tech thought leaders are voraciously looking to find the next best thing in their space.
It's not easy, but once you establish those relationships, they continually pay dividends, if you don't abuse them.
After working on startup projects for a while, I decided to take a shot at blogging about my experience. Let me know what you think. If you find my first article useful, I'll keep on posting.
I got really tired of hearing my friend spout off his NFL analysis. He would constantly say things like, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about." Since I am not that big into football, I told him to stop yelling at the TV and if you thought you knew better, get your analysis out there. That's when he launched the aforementioned blog.
If any of you are fanatics, please take a look at the blog and leave comments. Also, let me know what you think of his analysis.
While anything is possible, I find that most situations are best approached by maximizing for the desired outcome. As such, take the following for what it's work and good luck to you:
YC has a clear and openly stated bias for founding teams of 2<=X<=4 entrepreneurs.
Traction trumps MVP any day of the week. If people are already using your MVP, stress that. Traction is a commonly used de-selector.
The investor preference in SV is such that (it's likely) one of the first things required for a seed round will be some sort of DE or DE & CA incorporation. Since YC companies get funding, it's likely they'll require you to do the same. This is probably an area that if you choose not to give on where the company is incorporated, you'll turn off a lot of investors from SV. If it's a deal breaker for you, seek Canadian investment.
If you are just burning time, head over to pier 38 (SF) and talk to the several startups that operate from there. I would also venture to say there are a bunch of startups working out of the 500 startups space at any given time.