Get things done. More building, less talking: A rule of thumb for raising money.

Sorry about the denial letter. Bummer.

But I don't really understand the rest of your post. And I don't know how to comment on it without sounding ugly. Care to expound?

I have been approached, numerous times, by friends, acquaintances, and random folks on the Internet who think that their napkin is just a bit of free engineering away from being Google.

I will not comment on the contents of your napkin. However, with regards to "'free' tech talent": I've been programming for twenty years, got into a good school and graduated with an engineering degree, got into the workforce and realized I knew nothing, fumbled forward for a few years increasing nothing to a little more than nothing, then founded my own business and worked hard for three years to get to a sliver more than a little more than nothing.

When you have done the work necessary to know a sliver more than a little more than nothing, you will have all the "free" tech talent you need. And you will know exactly how much "free" costs.

My suggestion would be to join a local college games club. There is tremendous overlap between techies and people who play non-mainstream games (e.g. Rail Baron, Dominion, RPGs, San Juan, Fluxx, etc). Playing card / board games with people for a few months, means you will:

a) have a lot of fun

b) make new friends

c) have a chance to get feedback on your idea

d) discover who the talented CS / designer / whatever people are, and get a pretty good picture of what they are like. If you're looking to take someone on as a technical co-founder (which I presume, from your mention of 'free tech talent') you'd better know in advance if you can stand to be around them.

General games club meetings are fun and will provide you with contacts and information on those contacts. If you want an in-depth picture of someone, get into a role-playing game with them. To use D&D references: do they play the cleric and heal the party, or the assassin and backstab their teammates? Do they hog the snacks? Can they listen to other players' suggestions politely and implement them if they are better than their own ideas? Do they participate in the group when it isn't their turn to speak, or do they have their laptop open in order to play WoW && IM && check email?

There may or may not be "right" answers to any of the above questions, but they will give you a lot of information to make a decision on.

You will also find that college games clubs consist of more alumni than current students. This is a great way to network to experienced people (techies among them). As an example, at the Columbia games club, we have someone who currently works at Google. I met my co-founder at CUGC.