I have the resources to simply hire a bunch of people to do stuff, but it turns out the best people aren't going to drop on a dime and build your product for you before you have validation, knowledge, a story, and cogent plan.

We are 5 months old (though I was working on this solo for more than a year before that), and in that time I've built the team that will build this product.

> I don't think that is a given - crowd funding can raise significant sums these days

Crowd funding is great as a sales vehicle (i.e. the people that invest in you will buy your product in the end). I don't remember a successful example where the crowd was purely there to invest.