Totally get the strategy, though I was writing PHP apps 10 years ago... I would be hard pressed to go back, especially after having touched YII last year. PHP is legacy today, right or wrong.

My point is twofold: First, it's very important to nail a trending language and framework. Right now that is a short list of Go, pure-JavaScript (firebase + angular), node, and maybe django. You are going after mindshare of hackers. You have to pick the trendy environments. The whole reason people left PHP to rails was the YouTube video where the guy typed "rails server" and magically stuff just worked. You need to do the same for the short list above.

Second, you have to show the benefit of your product. Seeing is believing. Nothing else will substitute.

While this is the anonymous Internet and you know nothing about me, at least do some gut checks with the current uni kids. Best of luck!