Ask HN: First 5 People at a Startup... who? why? Hypothetical Question for anyone but especially looking for people who have been a founder / early employee at a company that grew from less than 5 ppl to at least 20 ... If you were a founder in charge of picking the first 5 ppl ... - what do they do? - how do you pick them ? (whatever that means to you i.e. how you recruit them?) Question is somewhat purposefully open ended (i.e. I know you could say "what's the market?"..) |
If you are raising money, then you need your first few hires to have some attractive traits that will make investors confident you can deliver what you say. I'd say product/tech is critical of course, but then next is someone who can help commercialize the product and get it in the market. e.g. if a founder already has existing relationships in the market that solves that commercial side usually, if not s/he needs to hire someone who can help ease that entry into market.
Although I'd say there are just too many variables until you know the founding makeup, market and finances. I can give at least 3-4 more examples of different people to bring in under different scenarios, and I'm probably only hitting a few.
Recruiting depends on the type of position and the skillset needed, you'll find you need to recruit from different sources for different people, IMO there isn't a one size fits all way to recruit across an organization. As for how do you pick them, pick intelligent people who are good puzzle solvers and self motivated. It isn't that hard to figure out during an interview if you can avoid the trap of the typical ego based interviews (especially when hiring engineers).
1. This is the hardest one but all the 5 people MUST share your vision for the company and product/service. If they don't, you may still be ok but will be a long ride for you alone because they will just be employees who want to clock out at 5 PM. Again, nothing wrong overall but first 5 people should have more skin the game and must have that attitude. You also need to try and compensate them the best way possible.
2. I would look for behavior more than skills. Hear me out. I know that skills are needed but to build a company, you need people who have the correct attitude and mindset. Look for curious, always looking to learn, hungry to achieve something type people who don't need to be always told what to do. Again, you have to compensate them as well as possible. Skills can be learned but attitude/temperament/ambitions cannot be.
3. Kinda contradictory to #2, but 1 Person should be very skilled/experienced at the product/service/business domain. If that is only you, it's fine to start but need 1 more. But again, 1 person other than you at start is fine.
4. Look for previous track record. Just because someone says they are very ambitious doesn't mean anything. Ask open ended questions. Instead of asking "so do you learn using youtube", ask "what do you do when you cannot figure something out on your own" type questions. Look at their body language and how they go about solving problems.
5. People who care about Titles are usually not a good fit for early employees/partners. If prestige is important to them, they can be an employee some day but ideally not the first 5 hire.
Source: Bootstrapped founder for 6+ years who has done terrible overall in finding the top 5 people based on what I wrote (but I learned the hard way) but still made it to a team of 15+ and counting.
I have worked at two small startups that started out by outsourcing all HR/legal/accounting stuff to staffing agencies or independent contractors, and it resulted in missing paychecks, minor lawsuits, severely botched contracts, and can lead to serious problems with company ethics and employee retention.
Look for people who are excited about what you are doing, will commit, are comfortable learning new things. It's going to be very hard and early employees will wear many hats.
Ideally you can ask people you have worked with before and trust.
What am I bad at and needs to be done better? Fire yourself.
Hire someone who is good at it.
What are they bad at and needs to be done better?