You are a hero employer.

He is not an employer at all. Either a single startup, or not an entrepreneur at all, but a private customer. He once needed something to go somewhere, and he is looking for someone to do it. At the same time, he has no money, so he cannot go to a normal company. And even to experienced individuals with a worked base he can not turn, because they know the price. Looking for the same startups, naive and hungry. To pay them a penny or, ideally, not pay at all.
In fact, he is an ordinary customer, an employer, if you want to. And he has a client position – I pay money, love me. Only the money is not enough, so they don’t want to love him even as a customer. Nowadays, the customer is not always right, but only when he pays well.
To associate this circumstance with his own misery is prevented by pride, so who is to blame him? Okay the workers. With an enormous proportion of probability, the employer will never become, but simply shed the starting capital, and, as you have rightly stated, will return to the ranks of hired workers. However, if he is lucky to take off, then in a few years he will realize the deterioration of his current position.
The dog laughs, the caravan is coming.