Where to find early hires before being funded? [I will not promote]

tl;dr Title I am looking for a person with very specific skillset. Posting an ad on linkedin or somewhere else seems like waste of time in current job martket. I assume I will get 1000 responses where majority will be either from india or will not even fulfill minimal requirements. cold approaching people on linkedin also seems like bad idea. and lots of people dont even have "open for work" badge even if they would join is there good place where to look? can not afford paying headhunters at this moment.. thanks