I am also a NY state company -- you have to be careful about W-2 employees versus 1099. I would suggest what others have -- You should hire this guy as a 1099 and make him responsible, otherwise NYS can ding you for SUI, Disability and more -- including international taxes. I would also suggest if you don't have a payroll service or someone who is an expert in payroll then you should use the 1099 path

There is no valuation until you sell something. An idea or a company is only worth what its sales are. Once you have your initials sales, sales strategy and forecasting length (ie 9 months from first customer lead to close) then you have a formula for valuation. Valuation for start-ups is generally 3.5 x last years sales model should be the growth factor. When you are looking for investors, you will want to have atleast 9-18 months of SALES, not just pipeline and they will be looking at 5x revenue for a 3-5 year payback.

If you want to syndicate your own content, then implementing DISQUS is the easiest. It applies a social login to your comments, but then it also pulls int he content into their distribution network as well. The real key to any good syndication is the SEO of the site AND the articles. You also have to make sure that it is real SEO tagging and not just metakeyword cramming into header codes -- that will actually hurt your site feed with Google and Yahoo. A great place to start is PressFeed -- they have some good information and a nominal service to start rss syndication

I have been developing software for over 20 years (large scale enterprise security software) -- there is absolutely no way I would ever license software to a Chinese based company -- EVER. The Chinese government does not enforce US based copyright or intellectual property laws. I have seen time and time again companies take deals like what is above and then get royally screwed out of royalties and revenues. Once they build the app -- they own the app -- especially if they are publishing it. Additionally -- there are several US based corporations and the federal government that will no longer utilize software or applications that have been developed or published from certain countries because of security issues -- the Ukraine, China and African nations are among them. These are some things you need to keep in mind when looking at the licensing model. You would be better off finding a US based company interested in the same opportunity that you can have a partnership alliance with and retain your rights and revenue share.

The quick answer is WORK BACKWARDS! So you want $200K, break that into 2 large contracts (worth $x) and several small contracts. Now what do you have to do to win the large contract -- how many phone calls/customer meetings will it take -- who should you target. Small contracts -- are you getting those thru inbound leads from social media -- do you need to run advertising to get leads? Promotions? How many leads convert to customers. You are definitely on the right track with a monetary end goal -- the next step will be to break that down to a split of your product offerings and from the product offers the effort to acquire the customers. I once helped a sales manager figure out that he needed to make 10 cold calls a day, to get three conversations a week, to get 5 customers a month to make $500K in a year. You just need to walk it thru step by step

I personally use Sprout Social and manage 56 different brands from a single interface. It not only allows we do outward posting across all the major platforms with advanced scheduling, I can also get very detailed insights into the engagements of my post and all the essential demographics as to the audience. I really love that part. I am able to really focus my interactions for the different brands based on who is actually interested and create real conversations not just standing on a soapbox and shouting into the void.