A Guide to Making Your First Start-Up Hires

& why they are so critical...

So you’ve started your company, you have the idea, initial funding and a prototype to take to market. The only issue? You have run out of capacity to do it on your own anymore.. you need help.

Early hires in startup are critical to the trajectory of the company moving forwards. They affect the ability to bring the product to market, develop it, build a strong customer base and build trust with your audience.

Team issues contribute to 23% of all startup failures in tech… making the initial hiring decisions crucial.

You simply cannot rush these early hires, the first ten people will each represent 10% of the entire company.

Your culture isn’t formed later on down the line, it starts developing the second you pull the trigger on initial hires. These are the people that will (hopefully) become your future leaders and hiring managers and steer the company in the right direction.

What are the common mistakes?

Hiring for skills over mindset

Yes, there may be some skills that your team need to have to hit the ground running, although working at a startup involves much more than that. You need to hire people that can adapt easily to change, learn new skills quickly and take ownership of multiple different projects. Candidates can have all the skills and experience in the world, but if they don’t have those attributes, they will 100% struggle down the line when things get tough.

Hiring friends or family without due diligence

This is very common, as it’s easy to pull the trigger hiring someone you know and trust. It’s very easy to overlook red flags on their CV/fit for the company as you are familiar with them. Remember every one of your 10 initial hires will make up 10% of your entire workforce, There should be no weak links (even if they are your brother in law!)

Rushing to hire, and not waiting for the right fit

If you rush your initial hires due to investor pressure/need to get to market, you will regret it. The right candidate is out there, don’t hire the first person you see to put out little fires. Sooner or later cracks in the team will start to show, and it will cost your company a lot of money to fix them.

Not setting expectations with the hires

The most important part of hiring founding staff, is making sure they know exactly where the company is at. If you are going to need them to speak with investors, work on different jobs and departments, multitask and work long hours… you need to tell them straight away before they sign on the dotted line. This will cause issues down the line if they don’t know what they signed up for.

What should you be looking for?

Generalists with good knowledge in one area (T Shaped)

For me, this is the most important characteristic you need. It’s absolutely essential for startup hires to be able to adapt to change. It’s common at startups for new products and features to go from concept to design to deployment in a matter of weeks. It’s very important that your team can cope with changes in direction, think on their feet and have a wide set of skills that cover most bases needed.

Creativity

This is another key trait you need them to have. It’s less important for huge corporations that have their systems and infrastructure set in stone, but in a startup you need people comfortable thinking, creating and building things from scratch. Otherwise how else can you realise the vision?

Autonomy

At this early stage of the company, it’s more than likely that there will not be rigid processes and structure in place. This hire will need to be able to take the projects by the reins, work without real instruction and get the job done. They can build out the guidelines themselves as they go, but they mustn’t need to be micromanaged to get results.

Resilience

The reality is, working in a startup can be incredibly rewarding but also super challenging. The highs can be great but the lows can be crushing. You need an initial team around you that can take this in their stride and deal with the emotion that may surface. If they can’t it can lead to quick emotional burnout, anger and churn in the team. This is catastrophic for company culture and your startups reputation.

What can be red flags?

Candidates that need clear structure, KPI’s and Career projections from the get go.

If your staff are in need of constant reassurance, structure and a clear path to where they want to get, this is a huge problem as a founder. With your company at an early stage you will more likely not be able to provide this and it’s going to cause friction down the line.

Big Company Expectations

Working in a team of 300 engineers at IBM, is going to be worlds apart from your <10 employees wide startup. The culture, deadlines and processes are going to be completely different. Be vary cautious when hiring people from these environments as it’s common for hires to struggle with the adjustment in pace.

Ego

Confidence is key when working at a startup, but you need people that are going to leave the ego at the door and be a real team player. The best startups are the ones that the teams have a fantastic working relationship and gel together to get the work done properly. Introducing someone with a selfish and egotistical attitude will harm your chances of that happening.

The hires you make at this point will not only influence the hires after them, they set the entire company culture into motion.

They will define team structure, performance standards and be the difference between a successful product launch and your company ceasing to get off the ground.