But, this begs the question: expanding the platform, paying down technical debt, adding some adult supervision (heh) are all very valuable for the medium-to-long term, but can't this be achieved by using contractors alone? BTW, I ask this from the perspective of a full-time software engineer and part-time entrepreneur.
We always want to keep the team size small and effective, but we'll soon face a development bottleneck unless we start bringing great talent on board. Contractors may work for part of this, but it's definitely good to have a whole cohesive team that's invested in the company. Thanks for the advice!