Hmmm. I may be wrong but it seems like you could be oversimplifying things quite a bit. Unless you're absolutely loaded, an internet startup can be quite expensive... unless you're just interested in selling your ideas to the big dogs (not such a bad thing really).
Also, and I appologize for coming off as a jerk, finding good programmers isn't really that hard. What's hard is convincing the good programmers to leave their $50 - $100,000 jobs to come and work on your idea
I've seen several new companies with pretty good ideas but a horribly underqualified staff....basically these high-school programmers who think they know their shit.
Anyway, what exactly is your idea? Or if you don't want to tell, is it more internet related or recording related?
I'd say that you'd have a hard time getting into the multitracking market. There are a lot of good ones out there already who have been in the game for quite some time. Plus you have n-Track filling up the low-cost end of the market.
I can't see that it'd be overwhelmingly difficult to write one though, given plenty of resources. In fact much of the work is already done for you. Playback and recording should be available via windows media objects. And the algorithms for some of the nastier audio-processing stuff you might want to do should be common and easy to find on the net thanks to the geek and univeristy sectors.
In my opinion you'd need the following people (at a minimum):
1) A recording professional. You'll really need the advice and knowledge of someone who knows what they're doing in this area. If you can find one who can program then yeehaw!
2) A GUI guru. Someone who really knows how to develope an intuitive interface. Preferably someone with a graphics art background.
3) A minimum of two developers to write the guts of the application. If you're doing something with the internet then add two more.
4) An experienced lead programmer/manager. Someone who knows how to delegate tasks and tie everything together down at the code level. This is not as easy as it sounds and shouldn't be taken lightly.
5) A couple (perhaps part-time) testers. These can be pretty cheap high-school type programmers.
6) A business guy. You maybe?
7) A marketing guy.
Now, that's only if you're really going to start a company. If you're going to risking your finances on an idea you'd better do it right...and you're going to have to pay good salaries to get good people.
If, however, you're looking to do something more along the lines of an internet collaboration, then you might just find a few programmers who would work for free if it was fun enough. Of course if you ever decided to sell the product you'd have to pay em off. I might even be interested in something like that.
Slackmaster 2000
