The way things are looking right now, I recommend you post for rewards.

I would also recommend to cooperate with a witness, rather than running a witness node, because that is just another can of worms.
But from what I understand, you do not consider this an option, and prefer to work all on your own.

If you want to stay away from chatrooms and meetups that is fine, but it could help with monetization/funding of your projects. Perhaps you need to team up for this too; You could have a far worse product, if you had better marketing/networking, you would make more from it, still.

And lastly: times are tough for steem right now. The price graph looks terrible. When we had funds to distribute, we gave them to all sorts of disloyal golddiggers and now that good projects form, we lack the funds to support those.

Personally, I would recommend you get a different job and to not rely on steem to pay your monthly bills. I wish it was different, but it would seem the most 'grounded' approach to me.

Komm doch mal in den Discord :(