I'd like to raise VC to grow it. But the last time I did that, it swallowed a year and brought down a 25-man company. I tried hiring a developer but didn't have the cashflow to cover the time recruiting, finding offices and managing. I've tried raising cash from friends / family / clients. That might happen yet, but it's an incredibly slow and time-consuming process.
Can HN help suggest the best route forward?
The last seven years is sunk cost and the only effect it can have on the future of the company besides providing a knowledge base is psychological drag. And bringing in a partner with large equity is exactly what taking VC is anyway..except that VC will make decisions based upon distribution of risk while a 5050 partner will have a similar concentration of risk to yours.
Overcoming the sunk cost mindset is tough. Just giving someone half a company you spent seven years building sounds crazy. But the seven years you spent getting to this point are irrelevant to VC decision-making. All that matters is going forward. Any different orientation on your part creates an impedence of expectations.
Good luck.
Edit: just looked at your blog - my system mails checks and takes just a little of that back every month :-)
The immediate problem is not lack of money but lack of staff. Taking VC means turning up the heat on the lack of staff problem, and more money does not identify the right technical candidate, and in my mind at least, you really need a technical candidate who is partner grade and partner committed. Someone without the commitment can leave behind perfectly good code in an environment where those who remain were not close enough to its creation to quickly make sound modifications...imagining what a person without technical chops can leave behind in the code base is left as an exercise for the reader.
[Glad you enjoyed the blog.]
To suggest a way, share more details about your product / company. Looks like an B2B focused product. - What is it? - Howz the current distribution - Who are these customers (I mean type) - Why has it took 7 years to get 20 customers? Is your product is very heavy to even evaluate? - Why do you need money and where will you put that (hiring, product development, marketing, distribution, etc)
You need to get more customers (and not just from referral, though that's great), and you need more buzz. When you get stronger demand, the capital supply will more easily rise up to greet it.
Edit: You might want to take a look at http://www.cofounderslab.com
Given that elsewhere you say your customers are huge companies, I would suggest increasing your prices by one or two orders of magnitude - hard to be more specific without knowing details - and seeing where that puts you.
If the latter and you are confident in quickly adding revenue why not offer some equity/percentage of profit in lieu of salary? If the product is interesting you should be able to find someone willing to take on the risk.
The whoishiring thread would be a decent place to start.
I can't help you other than that but I will say that you should consider remote workers if it's feasible.
