I would focus on building custom audiences natively on social media based on those 25 states, age, and either pages they follow or interests and behaviors with a simple and compelling call to action (email for more info, call, etc...)

I get calls from business owners just like you all the time. The best answer I can give you is this: Find someone who understands the online world and can help guide you through the entire process from: validating your business online, planning, strategy, execution. DO NOT try to learn everything yourself. Continue building your off-line business and after understanding if there's a way to make it work online, find a person to help you do that or you'll end up diluting your time and efforts, which may affect your existing business.

I think you are asking the wrong question. The focus should not really be in the best channel. It should be: Who is my ideal customer? What is the best way to present my product to them and where is the best place to reach them?

if you understand your messaging well and what is unique value proposition, you can experiment and test different channels.

There are some angel investors that may invest in your business, depending on how much traction you have but most investors want to see a proof of concept and some traction. The best advice I can give you is try to get the app done and continue to have conversations with investors outside of your family and friends. All you need is to find someone who believes in your vision. Even if you don't find an investor who is willing to take the risk, the worst case scenario us you build some good relationships that can be leverage later and you will get some valuable feedback on your product.

Good luck.

Focus on validating your idea and finding partners that will provide you with good feedback and case studies. That will be more valuable when going to market.

Being an entrepreneur requires a lot of different personality traits. You mentioned having lots of ideas and being creative, which is what most people associate with being an entrepreneur. What I've found is that being creative and having great ideas may be well suited if you want to be an inventor but is not necessarily the best trait for an entrepreneur as you clearly are aware from your post.

In my opinion, you need to develop thick skin to bounce back from failure and be incredibly resilient to keep pushing through when things do not go well, and trust me this happens in every business or venture. Having that type of never give up attitude combined with being able to sell yourself, your idea and your product is more important than having great ideas. Plenty of people have amazing ideas but never do anything with them or they start but give up quickly when things don't go their way.

I hope this helps.

I doubt you need a developer or a designer. I think you need someone who can help you review your current strategy and put an efficient sales/marketing plan in place in order to acquire users and monetize them effectively.

There are several things you can do:

1- Get a job to cover your expenses until you figure out your long term plan

2- Look for a startup in a similar vertical/category and offer your services. Failure is a great teacher and if you can help another startup avoid the same mistakes you make that can translate into a great service.

3- Do some consulting for other companies. Find companies that need your specific level of expertise and go out there and pitch your services on a consulting basis.

Good luck

There are different ways that you can make a profit from a Facebook group. The key is to understand your audience and know what type of services/products they would be interested in.

You can charge businesses or companies that are looking to target that specific audience a flat fee and post their products/services on their behalf.

You can add affiliate links for products or services that are relevant to your audience and earn commissions on the sales/leads generated from those links.

You can sell advertising on a CPC basis.

Etc...