Here’s my original post on Reddit that spawned what I wrote here.

I’m a 40 something guy who has been doing “try before you buy” software for more than 10 years. I have several products, but one has been my bread and butter for several years. I’ve also got a SAAS product in the same field. Now, my “business” is essentially me, my better half helps me out with bits and pieces but, essentially it’s me doing everything. Development, support, marketing, SEO, website maintenance, blogging, planning. My products do ok, with many thousands of sales and 200 or so new customers each month and monthly sales still good (low $xx,xxx each month) but not what they could have been if I’d kept up my growth curve. Recurring income is not what it should be because when I got started recurring income wasn’t the done thing in online software sales.

I’ve been trying to remove myself from certain aspects of the business and “out-source” work. Namely, blogging, social media, and some SEO. I’ve been trying for 2 years and have burned $30,000 on either free lancers or businesses who have either completely failed to deliver, required so much direction that I may as well have done the work myself, or delivered work of such poor quality that it was valueless.. My most recent experience is with a large company whose principal is well known in web marketing circles. I spent $6,000 in three months for NOTHING despite there being a well defined plan of action in place. Honestly, I have no idea how businesses can behave so poorly. It’s very demoralizing.

Anyway, I work long hours at tech support and product development and it continually eats away at me at the work that isn’t being done. The things that need doing every week, blogging for my users, doing keyword research for new articles, posting to FB and LinkedIn and Google+. Plus I am overloaded with ideas for new tools and link bait for my sites, nothing that requires much expertise but work that takes time. I know the type of person I need, and I only need them for a day a week. But I am out of places to look and perhaps I don’t know the right questions to ask to find the person. I’ve tried various online forums, freelancer sites, and local VA’s. The people I’ve found have been poor at best and require so much management that it’s not worth the money.

I am sick of wasting time on this, and wasting money and watching my online ventures fade away because there’s only one of me. Help. What do I do NEXT!!!!