Which level of DoS protection is best to start off with for a startup building a social network from the ground up?

Having worked a consultant with global consulting firms and served over fifty of the Fortune 500 companies, I have been a consultant for over 15 years. Although the type of work will vary, consultants need to know why they are being hired. What does your client expect from you? If consultants are armed with that knowledge, they can best apply their skills. I have seen many consultants who jump right into the problem without understanding the context of why they were hired and what success will look like from the client's perspective. A very specific visual that I use is to imagine what the bullet point on my resume needs to look like after I am done. What am I going to do for the client that they can measure and be happy with that I can put down as an example my advice had on the organization. Once I have that in mind, I make sure the client wants that too and the rest is just doing my job. Another thing that consultants may need to know is the type of company culture. If the organization has a lot of certain types of folks, like passive decision makers, the approach to take will accommodate this. The culture of an organization can shed a lot of light on what a consultant can realistically accomplish, especially as the consultant's approach and personality will have an effect on how successful they can be in that organization. I have worked with some organizations where I was not a good fit, while others made working together easy. Being aware of the culture can help the consultant modify their approach accordingly and even know when they may not be the best fit. It is a mature sign for a consultant to read the problem well enough to know that they are not the best person for the job.

The reality is "reputable" growth hackers - aren't sitting around on freelance sites waiting for you to hire them. If they are good, they are either (very) gainfully employed at a reputable company making very good salaries or more likely using our super powers to create multimillion dollar companies. So the bad news is there is no platform where you can hire reputable growth hackers BUT here is what you can do: You can borrow some of their time on here for just a few dollars a minute and learn what you need to learn to do it yourself (or at least get started) or find courses to learn "growth hacking" yourself. Get the tips, learn the techniques, tons of free resources and sites too. Unfortunately there are no silver bullets and very seldom magic hires that will suddenly get you growth. It's a painful, iterative long process. And the term growth hacker is very broad. Some of us can help you with SEO/SEM, email list building, partnerships and PR (I'm heavily specialized in PR). TL:DR Talk to specialized growth hackers, learn, and apply the techniques yourself.

In a word: Forensics. Computer forensics is the art of examining a system and determining what happened upon it previously. The examination of file and memory artifacts, especially file timelines, can paint a very clear picture of what the attacker did, when they did it, and what they took. Just as an example - given a memory dump of a Windows system, it is possible to extract not only the command lines typed by an attacker, but also the output that they saw as a result of running those commands. Pretty useful in determining impact, eh? Depending on the freshness of the compromise, it's possible to tell quite a lot about what happened.

If you feel that Clarity isn’t secure enough for your needs, you’re welcome to use another platform. Also, if you have something that’s extremely private, your welcome to use another platform. Clarity is a great platform with great customer support. I’ve needed them numerous times and they’ve always been super responsive and helpful. I only wish they promoted the platform even more. Good luck

If you're using source control, it's easy to track source and control access — or revoke access — if someone leaves the company. Also, your developers should have signed a contract about the project itself that clearly places the source code under your/the client's/the company's control, and if/when they leave, they release all rights to code created under that contract. You can never be 100% sure, but these small steps will at least ensure a legal high ground should anyone steal code. Good luck!