by _448 on 11/9/23, 10:10 AM with 98 comments
Assuming that I don't know anything about or have zero experience in the skill-sets I am hiring for, how does one start? What questions to ask, what to look for and where to look for the talent?
by louison11 on 11/9/23, 2:56 PM
They need to be autonomous, flexible, but above all brilliant at what they do.
If you get "average" employees who just wants to follow the specs and receive their salary, they will most likely cost you more to manage than they will create value.
In early stages, you're probably still trying to answer complex questions - and you need people who have the capacity to think outside the box to do so...
As you grow, you can start tolerating people who "think less" and just do what they're asked. You'll have managers to manage them.
In other words, the type of people you need at this stage are the type who could be almost be startup founders themselves. ;-) My 2 cents.
by repelsteeltje on 11/9/23, 10:24 AM
So for instance try doing marketing yourself for a month. One benefit: you may discover you're good at it and don't need to hire someone, or hire someone freelance or part-time. The more important benefit: when you're interviewing a candidate, you know what you're looking for and can explain what you need from experience.
by iovrthoughtthis on 11/9/23, 1:29 PM
previous places you've worked are great sources, as are alumni networks, friends and family.
failing that, go become a part of a community like a runner club, rock climbing gym, music scene, maker space, game jam. ideally you do these thing because you enjoy the though.
be prepared to pay people. don't hire anyone you're not confident in (if you're not sure on someone because of pay then go out and find the money [yes, i am aware this is v hard])
by irjustin on 11/9/23, 10:57 AM
What stage is your business? Pre-rev, rev, profitable? What business are you in? What part of the world are you located? Are you looking too go remote, hybrid or Co located?
Really you need an advisor if I take these questions at face value.
If you have funds to be able to hire a team (esp cyber security), then you've likely raised money or made money. If you've raised money your investors should be able to deeply help you. If you've made money, I feel like you would know what you need more than anyone here and you should just interview for your biggest problem you can't solve yourself.
by olegp on 11/9/23, 2:24 PM
Finding external recruiters that are able to screen for these skills is another option, but such recruiters are few and far between and their interests may not be aligned with yours.
At Toughbyte we do tech recruitment and have helped early stage startups hire CTOs on a few occasions where I have been the one assessing their tech skills and culture fit, but this isn't something that I have yet figured out how to delegate properly to other team members.
When it comes to assessing tech skills, this blog post I wrote is worth a read: https://www.toughbyte.com/blog/how-to-effectively-assess-cod...
Other posts tagged Hiring may also be of interest.
by onetimeuse92304 on 11/9/23, 11:03 AM
The best thing is to know a lot of people and just happen to know somebody who can help you. The second best is to scour the internet and your network for people who are good at what they are doing. Trying to hire your first person on a job board is probably the worst thing you can do.
Rather than start with a position, start with the person and figure out how they can help you given their skills and personality.
This is not the time to standardise your positions, you have to make best use of the flexibility that startup setting provides and use that flexibility for your advantage.
You will have to give them a lot of freedom anyway.
Don't hire people who can't deal with ambiguity and/or need a good precise description of what they are supposed to do. Most of the work is defining what you are supposed to do so you will be getting very little value out of them if you have to provide all of the direction.
If you are starting with a vision and try to force somebody into that vision then you are already fighting an uphill battle.
by farbklang on 11/9/23, 12:24 PM
What worked for me was starting to give out small tasks via <your favorite freelancer platform>, often giving the same tasks to multiple individuals and then decide with whom I am going to stick.
Has been pretty successful for finding talent, not sure how much my anecdote weighs in though.
Working together with friends is something I probably won't do again, it's just too easy to cross damage professional or personal part of the relationship when there are issues arising.
So if you can afford it and have the time, I would recommend starting on freelancer platforms. It also allows you to make mistakes as these relationships do not require commitment from any side. Down side of course is, that you might lose good talent as they are also not comitted to you.
by ptero on 11/9/23, 10:59 AM
If you really need the second person to do something critical that you cannot do yourself consider a cofounder, not an employee. My 2c.
by 23B1 on 11/9/23, 1:52 PM
What you need is a 'specialized generalist' someone who knows enough to set you up for success, get the first few hires, get your sales engine going, get your ops infra nailed down.... but doesn't necessarily want to slow you down when you need to scale out the functions you mentioned.
This is how I operate basically; I help us get to 1, then I replace myself with four or five specialists that can handle those 'departments' as the company really hits its stride, and move on to the next company usually thanks to a referral from the previous guy. It's fun.
Here's what I'd consider
1. Youngish people (40s) who have done some time as a COO at a growth stage or earlier company,
2. Who've been in that role 2-3 times at various early-stage companies in your domain (SaaS operating models are wildly different than consulting services, for example). Also CFOs with diverse/soft skills are good here too.
3. Experienced folks won't work for free. They know the risks, so expect to pay; slightly under market + equity.
by Eumenes on 11/9/23, 1:16 PM
by saalweachter on 11/9/23, 2:52 PM
Some of the people you hire are going to be bad. Maybe they'll just be generically middling, maybe they'll be outright incompetent, maybe they'll misallocate resources and cost you thousands, maybe they'll outright steal from you. Maybe they'll just turn out to be a bad person.
Even if you don't know how to do sales, what benefit do you expect to gain from hiring someone to do it? How long will you wait to see those benefits? What will you do if those expectations aren't met? If you have to fire someone, under what conditions will you provide what sort of severance?
The most important part of any contract is how to break it.
by el_benhameen on 11/9/23, 3:52 PM
by zackprice on 11/9/23, 3:18 PM
A single bad apple in a new team will drag everyone down, reducing communication, causing silos (as they avoid the bad person) and just generally making work not happen the way it should.
by artur_makly on 11/9/23, 1:40 PM
It's marriage essentially.. so date around!
by pettycashstash2 on 11/9/23, 10:14 AM
by j45 on 11/9/23, 4:06 PM
For me, generalists with experience (a lot of different specific skills) and have learned how to learn so they can solve problems is key.
A lot of thie hiring in the start, especially self-funded can be a little counter intuitive. The purpose of hiring is to free you up to work on more valuable parts of things, assuming you want to work on those things.
If you focus on hiring people better than you, it will get you more free time.
Some people rather than equity, focus on what folks are really after, payouts. Doing rev or profit share can be easier than dealing with the mess of shares, especially if you don't know if they will be devoted to it long term like you.
For sales roles especially finding someone who can become a better sales person than you, it might involve a rare exception and providing ongoing commission as long as the customer is engaged on the system, and the sales person remains there.
In terms of looking for the talent, if you are looking for fractional assistance before full time, online sites like upwork can help find the people who are ready for something stable.
The book above will give some food for thought and there are others I'm sure too.
by jokethrowaway on 11/9/23, 2:42 PM
Nothing can sink more your company than a bad hire because you can't afford to compete with big companies. Another option is to lose equity in the process, so you get people who actually give a damn.
Until then, outsource to agencies on the expensive side and be quick to fire them if not performing.
by austin-cheney on 11/9/23, 11:49 AM
by rcyeh on 11/9/23, 3:47 PM
https://a16z.com/hiring-executives-if-youve-never-done-the-j...
“The very best way to know what you want is to act in the role. ... In addition, ... bring in domain experts.”
by onion2k on 11/9/23, 2:13 PM
by camila45 on 11/10/23, 4:56 PM
by block_dagger on 11/9/23, 11:48 AM
by epolanski on 11/9/23, 3:40 PM
Realistically, early stage startups have a person do all of these things together and learn, they have no budget to hire talent in those roles.
If you're business is that successful without any of it..you may actually not need these people.
by bionhoward on 11/9/23, 11:11 AM
by ecmascript on 11/9/23, 11:04 AM
You start by doing the tasks you need done yourself. When you learn what is needed and can't manage it yourself anymore then you know what to ask and hire for.
by nonameiguess on 11/9/23, 1:45 PM
Largely, they have the problem you have. They don't know how to hire. We get some initial POC/MVP services up and running, but then it comes time to monitor, secure, upgrade, actually run the software for the long term, and they try to bring in people who can do that, but don't even know what to ask in an interview because they have no knowledge of these fields of practice themselves. The main company I'm working with right now has hired three guys to try and do all of the basic maintenance and daily operational work and they've so far fired all three. They either messed up badly from not knowing what they were doing, or at least realized they didn't know what they were doing, but also couldn't learn, and this company doesn't want to be wasting the money they're spending paying me to be a teacher, and I don't want to be a teacher.
I think my advice would be advice a lot of solos don't want to hear. Unless you're a genius polymath with at least inch-deep knowledge of virtually everything related to computing, which gets harder and harder as time passes and there is more to know, don't try to do it alone. Have co-founders that augment your gaps. Technically competent investors with expertise in how to staff at the executive level so you'll have others with you who at least know what to look in staff and how to hire, or can help you separate wheat from chaff if you're trying to use headhunters.
Also, don't be in such a hurry. Whether it's get more runway, cut costs elsewhere, I don't know, but take your time and do it right. Going through cycles of hiring the wrong person, having to fire them, and then doing it all over again, is disruptive, destructive, and will get you a bad reputation to the point no one reputable will even want to work for you.
Otherwise, your best shot is to get lucky. That happens enough at scale that the market is full of people who got lucky, but it doesn't mean the probability of success is high when explicitly using "get lucky" as a strategy. You can't just look at what the top people did and copy them any more than you can watch Usain Bolt's training videos and hope to become a great sprinter by doing whatever he does.
by giantg2 on 11/9/23, 11:22 AM
by aarvi on 11/10/23, 8:30 AM
in a nutshell: for a startup as early stage as yours, you need people. you will figure out what you need as you go along.
by brudgers on 11/9/23, 2:12 PM
You need to know what you are hiring for before you have a chance of hiring the right person for the role.
At this point hiring is an XY problem.
Because your problem is sales, not hiring a sales team.
Good luck.
by vb-8448 on 11/9/23, 12:45 PM
My guess is that you need a co-founder that can fill the gap instead of employees.
by zubairq on 11/9/23, 6:32 PM
by clnq on 11/9/23, 2:19 PM
by kidgorgeous on 11/9/23, 12:29 PM
by ozim on 11/9/23, 6:58 PM
Before you hire start doing that job yourself to understand it and hire only if you are sure you have to hire someone.
If it is only you then get at least one other smart person to share the job and go from there.
If you hire 5 people and take them “just do it” you can as well give me your money or to any other random person effect will be the same.
by broadwayinc on 11/9/23, 1:22 PM