Key Questions
- Who should I hire to my initial team?
- What roles are most important in the early team?
- How do I find them?
- What should I look for?
- How can I tell if a candidate will work well with the team and culture?
- How should I evaluate candidates?
- How can I convince top candidates to join?
- How should I think about and negotiate compensation?
- When should I hire executives?
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Ben Silbermann, Patrick & John Collison: The Founders of Stripe and Pinterest on What Should You Look for in the First 10 Hires of a Company
(8 min video.) In this video the panel consisting of Ben Silbermann and John and Patrick Collison discuss the crucial task of hiring the first 10 employees in a startup. They emphasize the importance of finding people they want to work with and who have talent, integrity, creativity, and low ego. They highlight the misconception that culture is like architecture when it’s more like gardening, needing constant nurturing and adjustments. The panel also stresses the value of quirky and curious individuals who are excellent in one area and collaborative. They advise looking for undervalued talent, such as early career individuals, and being genuine, caring, and committed to completing tasks. The panel underscores the need to seek out good people actively, as they are often already engaged elsewhere.
Alex Paley: 7 Early-Stage Recruiting Mistakes I’ll Never Make Again
(6 min read.) Paley shares valuable lessons on early-stage recruiting from his experiences at Dairy Free Games. He emphasizes the importance of founders being deeply involved in hiring, maintaining enthusiasm post-recruitment, and continuing the recruitment process even after positions are filled. Paley highlights mistakes such as rushing hiring decisions, overvaluing team input, and the need to standardize recruitment processes. He reflects on a specific incident where a seemingly perfect candidate failed to perform, underscoring the risk of expediting vetting processes. His insights stress the balance between quick decision-making and thoughtful, strategic hiring to avoid common pitfalls.
Dalton Caldwell: How Do You Convince Someone to Join Your Startup?
(5 min video.) Caldwell emphasizes the importance of self-conviction in the success of a startup. To attract co-founders, employees, and even early customers, you must be thoroughly convinced of your idea’s merit. This conviction becomes apparent to others and helps instill confidence in your vision. Caldwell highlights that genuine passion for your project is crucial, as it not only drives you but also helps you persevere through inevitable challenges. He suggests that working on a project you are obsessed with, even if it appears less commercially viable, often yields better results. Teams deeply committed to their cause are more likely to overcome setbacks and continue their ventures, compared to those who aren’t fully invested.
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Lenny Rachitsky: Hiring Your Early Team
(10 min read.) In this article, Lenny focuses on the critical phase of hiring the early team. Lenny collaborates with successful startup founders to extract insights into the timing and strategy behind assembling the initial workforce. Key points include the necessity of hiring subject-matter experts, recruiters, and customer support personnel alongside engineers, with sales roles becoming more prominent in later hires. Effective recruitment channels such as cold outreach through platforms like LinkedIn and GitHub are highlighted. Moreover, the text underscores the importance of a compelling vision, a robust early team, time commitment, networking, and personalized engagement in the hiring process.
Patrick Bet-David: Hiring Your First Employee as an Entrepreneur
(6 min video.) In this video Patrick provides guidance for entrepreneurs facing the pivotal decision of hiring their first employee, particularly in the absence of immediate funding. He underscores the significance of recognizing one’s strengths and recruiting individuals with complementary strengths. Using the analogy of assembling a sports team, Patrick suggests hiring someone with skills opposite to the entrepreneur’s own strengths. Emphasis is placed on prioritizing sales-related roles to drive revenue generation. Furthermore, the importance of establishing a business philosophy and system is highlighted, with the initial hire reflecting the entrepreneur’s values and priorities.
Elad Gil: Hire a Gap Filler
(3 min read.) Gil explores the concept of a “gap filler” role in early-stage startups where the luxury of specialized roles like CFOs or full-time marketers isn’t feasible. He suggests that startups hire individuals who can manage a variety of crucial, non-existential tasks—from setting up payroll to handling basic marketing and business development efforts. The ideal gap filler would possess traits such as detail orientation, strong follow-through, and the ability to switch contexts quickly. Over time, this role could evolve into a more specialized position as the company grows, potentially transitioning into an executive role managing multiple functions. Gil cites the example of Salar Kamanger at Google, who started in a versatile role and eventually led YouTube, illustrating the potential career trajectory for effective gap fillers.
Elad Gil: Hiring the First 5 Engineers: What Sort of People Do You Want on Your Team?
(2 min read.) Gil emphasizes the unique traits needed in the first engineers at a startup beyond just being “smart” or “rockstars.” These individuals should possess a do-anything attitude, be persistent, adaptable to uncertainty, and have a generalist approach to technical problems. They shouldn’t be overly dogmatic about technology choices, focusing instead on productive, pragmatic development. The ability to integrate well with the team and maintain low personal financial demands are also crucial for early-stage startup success. Gil suggests thorough reference checks, informal social interactions, and practical tests to ensure candidates align with these traits.
Elad Gil: Hiring Techniques for Early Stage Startups: How to Get Your First 3 Employees
(4 min read.) Here, Gil provides practical steps for early-stage startups to hire their first 3-5 engineers after raising seed funding. He advises leveraging personal networks, especially those of engineering peers, for quality referrals. Gil warns against relying on investor networks for initial hires as they often recommend seasoned professionals who may not suit hands-on roles in a startup. Instead, investors should be engaged to help close candidates by endorsing the startup’s potential. Utilizing LinkedIn effectively, not taking initial rejections as final, continuously seeking referrals even from senior professionals, and treating hiring as a persistent, numbers-driven effort are key strategies. Gil emphasizes the importance of persistence in securing the very first employee and suggests targeting professionals from struggling startups or larger companies who have demonstrated a willingness to take risks.
Elad Gil: Hiring Executives & Bad Advice
(9 min read.) Gil emphasizes the importance of hiring key executives early during a startup’s growth phase post-product-market fit (PMF). He describes this growth as a “More More Moment” where everything in the company starts to accelerate—demand, complexity, and organizational layers. Gil warns that waiting to hire executives until the company feels ‘big enough’ often leads to organizational meltdowns. He advises that executives are essential not just for managing current scales but for planning and executing future growth. They bring valuable skills in recruiting, strategic planning, and managing multiple functions, which are crucial for navigating rapid expansion and avoiding the pitfalls that many first-time founders face. Gil critiques common poor advice given post-PMF, such as delaying executive hiring or understaffing leadership roles, which can jeopardize a company’s ability to scale effectively and maintain control over its expanding operations.
Keith Rabois: Top Lessons in Building Great Teams
(26 min video.) In this video, Rabois discusses the critical role of team building in startups. He emphasizes the necessity of having a founder deeply involved in the hiring process to align new hires with the company’s vision and culture. Rabois reflects on lessons learned at PayPal, highlighting the substantial impact a highly talented team can have on a company’s success, suggesting that a startup’s potential to succeed can significantly increase by meticulously choosing team members who not only share the company’s vision but are also flexible and driven. He advocates for maintaining engagement and enthusiasm with new hires beyond the recruitment process to aid retention and promote company growth.
Sara Blakely: MasterClass Live with Sara Blakely
(25 min video.) In this video, Blakely discusses the strategic choices vital for scaling businesses. She emphasizes hiring individuals who complement one’s weaknesses, focusing on pivotal roles initially to build a solid foundation. Blakely shares her personal approach to entrepreneurship, advocating for hiring passionate individuals over solely seeking top talent early on. Reflecting on her journey, she advises entrepreneurs to leverage grassroots marketing and direct engagement with customers, crucial in the early stages when funds for traditional advertising might be scarce. Her insights underline the importance of adaptability, direct customer interaction, and the strategic hiring of personnel aligned with business needs.
Tim Brady: How Much Equity Should I Give My First Employees?
(4 min video.) Brady talks about how there are two main rules of thumb when considering equity for early employees: early employees should receive more equity than later ones due to higher risks and more demanding workloads; and startups generally reserve 10-20% of equity for employee incentives. Brady says, the first employee often receives between 1-2% of equity, which can vary based on factors like cash availability and the employee’s valuation of equity over salary. Founders must strategically plan equity distribution, considering potential roles and compensations for future hires. According to Brady, effective equity distribution is crucial, not just for fairness, but for fostering a strong sense of company ownership and commitment among early team members.
Mark Zuckerberg: Hiring the Right People
(2 min video.) Zuckerberg emphasizes two crucial traits when hiring: raw intelligence and alignment with the company’s mission. He argues that while experience is valuable, the ability to quickly learn and adapt is more critical. Someone with exceptional intelligence but less experience can often surpass a seasoned professional in terms of innovation and problem-solving. Additionally, alignment with the company’s goals is essential. A candidate who is not only smart but also deeply believes in the company’s mission will be more motivated and likely to succeed. This approach has led him to hire talented individuals who, despite lacking extensive engineering experience, have significantly contributed to the company due to their intelligence and commitment.