olegh123

>but I find the idea of hiring a dedicated marketing or sales person rather daunting

Sure that makes sense. I think of it in terms of my goals. If possible I set up projects and staff those (rather than ongoing position). Main advantages are 1. clear goal. 2. clear end date. To control the project - create intermediate milestones to your goal.

Finally an analogy - if you're to hire contractors to work on your house (in area outs of your expertise) you'd collect bids for project, structure compensation in way that's tied to performance (no more than half before completion, bonuses). If cabinetmaker bungles some preliminary steps to building your kitchen you have leverage (a long the lines you dont get paid till completion/repair the demage -- whatever case may be). Hope that helps.

There's quite a few people on quora - try asking there.

no. Huge red flag.

As much time as is necessary for "Website Building".

If you bring in your Quality (or "testing") people after the inception - you put them in a position of disadvantage (always catching up, and always behind) for the rest of the project; and if you do not empower them sufficiently you are just paying lip service to quality and crossing a line of the list -- and are very likely to endup like this project did.