1) Registered the domain in Aug 2008 to do market research and to decide whether I wanted to go ahead with it. That was followed by minor prototyping and learning about the industry. Started working on it full-time a year ago.

2) Never applied. I'm not in the USA anyway.

3) Nope. One of my first customers did want to invest, but I didn't need it.

4) http://www.simplepay.co.za (Online payroll software. Not really applicable if you're not South African. For now...)