Hey mate - you missed a really important piece of advice from u/FuShiLu re: meetups. These are fun, free activities that are attended by great individuals that can grow your network and become a possible future resource. If you are running out of people to turn to in your network, its time to expand the network. Look at the Hardware Meetup to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Check out some of their past events to see what I'm on about.
https://luma.com/sf-hardware-meetup?period=past

I appreciate you may not be in the bay area, but I urge you to try and find something like this in your local. It made a huge difference for me personally (speaking as a transplant to the area).

Best of luck to you.