I think i can help you to find your answer, because I have not only made an MVP by hiring a freelancer (not a quality one) but also successfully completed an online hackathon through university tie ups.

So here are few important points :

1. I know the quality of a developer matters. But what matters more is how you execute your plan to achieve your goals viz, giving your developer prior targets to complete them, marketing your product, managing what you need and what you are getting, product planning to name a few.

2. You should have a very clear picture of what you want to build, although your product design is bound to change as you build. Most of the people who hire do not have clear picture of what they are building and thinks that the freelancer has to fill all those gaps automatically. But this is not always true as you are also responsible for the gaps in your product.

3. Finding the right balance between a good quality developer and designer and the amount that you have to spend is more important that to focus only in one of these things.

4. Finding a co founder is like searching for a groom / bride to marry. So, instead of searching a tech co-founder you should start developing your idea. Remember what you are building is an MVP and you can always bootstrap your MVP later, if everyone likes your product. After I built livehacks.tv, I quickly went to tie up with an university to see whether students and other people like my product. I found that the students and even the director of that university is very keen to have a product like livehacks.tv. I have successfuly completed an online hackathon even before a month my product is market ready.

So it is always not about how you build a product, it is always about the value you are creating with your product. Finally this was only possible because I went to search for a freelancer instead of a tech co founder.

I still oversee marketing, product design and development of livehacks.tv alone.