For investors you can use crunchbase and search for those investors that specifically invest in e-commerce. You will probably need to fly to Silicon Valley or NY (or both) to meet them. It’s improtant to target those that invest in e-commerce since tech investors at usually very focused on verticals or knowledge expertise. On strategic partners I would look for companies that are distributors of similar food products but lack the type of products you are offering.

Talk to the community/tribe that needs you to solve that problem. Talk to as many people as possible, listen and build for them.

Small salary (if possible) shows commitment, and then you do 4 yrs vesting schedule where they earn the equity monthly. You can do a big grant of equity after 12 months of work

Match your revenue model to the way it delivers value to your customers. If you are struggling with a SaaS model it might be because you are not providing recurring monthly incremental value that can be justified on a monthly recurring payment. Depends on what value you are giving to your customers and the experience they are having with your product is the best way to think of how to charge for it

Instead of asking random questions and asking you to book a call like everyone else here, my advise is for you to read this https://andrewchen.co/the-next-feature-fallacy-the-fallacy-that-the-next-new-feature-will-suddenly-make-people-use-your-product/ and spend your time (which is money) on improving the onboarding and the first moments of your product usage. You will better know the answer than most experts (talk to your users!)

If I understand correctly I think you are confusing legal structures with the business side. Apart from the equity split, your business model can change 100 times and it won’t affect your legal structure. The legal structure will affect in the easiness of fundraising, or applying for grants but it in the business model or titles themselves. If it will be in the tech industry you should get a C-Corp for future posible fundraising. Apart from that the other questions are not tied to the legal structure. At least from a business perspective.

For plastic cups and other supplies I would go and ask several bubble tea shops where do they get them from. There is no better info than straight from your competition. On the machine, you should probably try to rent first before to see if the business has legs before you commit to invest the money. Just saying so you don’t get your money stuck on an asset you can’t get rid off later

This is a super interesting business, probably listing your properties in Airbnb you can get high quality (high paying) customers. On the raising for the business itself, I would do a mix of a loan + share of benefits. For example you get X on a 5% interest a year, and if the property makes more than 50% profits over ROA then you give a Y%. This way you make it safe for the people that are investing (with a sure return) plus a nice bonus if everything goes well. If things go bad, then you know the max you might pay is X * (1+5%) which you can diversify between several properties. This is just an idea, and a way to get the people that give you the money a good deal. Remember that the important part is that everyone is happy, if not, on a model like yours which is low in capital investment, but high in need for cash flow will have limited growth without future investors.

I have to say that from the hundreds of startups I have work with in one or other way, I have never seen someone "hire" a lead generation solution. Most of the work on the early days is done "manually" or "by hand" and the grow is all worth to mouth (or some inventive growth hacking technique with some network effect). Not sure what you are trying to do, but the number #1 focus of a founder/CEO in the early days is to be the lead generator for his/her business. "Focus on business" = generating the lead and closing the customers.

I believe it's just brand. They built it when chat was super hot (Whatsapp specially was the pioneer to create a huge hype) and now they became a verb. Stay close to your customers/users and listen to how they use you.