Also if you’re not marketing side, be careful about knowing how a person will deliver. Loads of people are 'social experts' and very few are good. It’s an uncanny knack the people that can connect with community.
Anecdotally, I think you have good potential product. But I can’t see this nailing it. Some comments;
Design: Clean it up. Less is more. E.g. The skill search on the front-page is way below a standard screen fold. You need to simplify the info and get people doing the search immediately. I like that you don’t force the login immediately.
No search matches: This is not handled particularly well. In the early days you'll get mostly non matches so you need to nail this process. I’d suggest dropping most of the explanation and have a simplified "No current Matches but were new and growing. Enter your email or phone and we'll drop you a note as soon as someone does. We promise not to use your email for any other purpose." type think. Then have the email entry right there and nothing else. Once you grab that you can ask for more info you need the fast lock in, no more than 4 fields. And make sure the language sells the benefit someone will get in contact and the enjoyment. Also I hope your storing all the search and destination info for rejections as a marketer can use these for targeting who they bring in.
Ratings: I'd consider changing the ratings. Let people rate themselves but make that it. Then let people give meetups a single 5 star rating and a commentary. It seem weird to me to rate people on each and every skill. Kind of creepy... I suspect may people won’t like that. And a single rating is simpler and comment will cover anyone that is clearly better/worse about how they rank themselves.
Its late where I am… good night...good luck.
#SMChat is a Twitter hashtag based discussion where you'd be able to see a lot of us for example.
LinkedIn also has a bunch of networking groups too.
I'm from Australia, so SEEK.com.au exists as our primary job search site and allows people to not set salaries etc, but you may go through a lot of applications once you explain it is equity only.
In my experience being approached by people such as yourself, you'd probably need to find a freelancer who is willing to do it part time as for most of us equity only doesn't pay the bills :)
Good luck finding someone, and good luck with your project!