That's all good stuff. You might want to find an old copy of "Crossing the Chasm", which is all about the importance of quantified customer successes beyond all else.

Technical people tend to think of a "startup" as a 1-6 person company with people toiling away writing code 22 hours per day in an apartment. Management / executive types tend to think of a "startup" as a 30-60 person company who now need professional management. Makes sense, because these folks don't add value in the 1-30 person range.

Point is, there's a big difference in the two. Most of the questions you posted apply more to the 30-60 person company. I completely agree that you want to know the rate at which they've been hiring people over the last 6-9 months and how many people they intend to add in the next 6-9 months.