1) your space is "boring" and a start-up is high risk; you will naturally have to evaluate a larger number of applicants before finding the right one. From my experience when I worked in banking (USA, c2005) we had a hard time finding devs; in adult-content (c2009) applicants were plentiful; now I'm back in regulatory compliance and devs are "hard" to find; my associates in the-next-hot-lo-mo-so app have more candidates
2) You may be able to find one good dev-hire as a core builder; and continue to run with consultants going forward. Many times I've been able to engage a dev-consultant part-time and continue to increase the engagement - transitioning into full-time (or close to it).
Don't mean to derail the thread, but how come applicants for adult-content were plentiful? I would expect most people to try to avoid that area, if only for the reputation "costs"?
Towards whom? Handling HA in porn websites, especially in the top-20, is quite a challenge IMHO and any mid-to-senior DevOps/sysadmin position in such a company would carry some weight to a resume.
2) You may be able to find one good dev-hire as a core builder; and continue to run with consultants going forward. Many times I've been able to engage a dev-consultant part-time and continue to increase the engagement - transitioning into full-time (or close to it).