If you are bootstrapped, it is extremely tough especially in the early days to hire good talent in general. Hence the co-founder thing. But even if you are past initial stages but bootstrapped, it is tough to compete with VC money to pay big and attract really good candidates. That is the unfortunate reality.

You could, if you have money for it. Plausible's MRR was $146 at the time.

Yeah, we saw the real start of our growth when we hired a dedicated sales and marketing person. They didn’t take any equity and they weren’t even that expensive (ignoring commission). I’m not sure it would have made sense to bring them on as a co-founder.