For all Paul’s success as a media brand and a mobilizer of the conservative grassroots, the Kentucky senator has done relatively little since 2010 to assemble a political machine around his own personality. For now, the Rand Paul project is a high-wire act that works largely without a net.

Paul’s political action committee, RAND PAC, has only just now hired a spokesman, sources said: former Michele Bachmann aide Sergio Gor. While Paul has reached out to key figures in the GOP donor community, much of his fundraising still happens over the Internet – though he’ll court Silicon Valley moguls at multiple meet-and-greet events later this month in California, according to a top aide.

Advisers acknowledge that Paul’s political orbit remains remarkably small for a politician so visible, and so apparently eager to take his act to the next level. As he works the early stages of the 2016 pre-primary circuit, the senator continues to rely on a small band of aides, most of whom have been with him since his days as an underdog Senate candidate. The Paul crew is politically nimble, but also fairly green in national politics– even proudly amateurish…

More than half a dozen operatives in and around Paul’s inner circle said that a key priority for Paul in the year ahead will be building out his campaign apparatus. Should he decide to run for president, Paul will need more than a band of true believers who can amp up a message: he’ll need lawyers and regional political directors and state-specific spokespeople. He’ll need to recruit national-level campaign veterans who are convinced that this Paul can actually land in the White House.