Startup hiring guide: making the right first hires

Hiring a team is an exciting step for early-stage startups. But founders should resist letting enthusiasm push them into a rushed process that can result in lasting damage.

Hiring must be strategic. Early hires define workflows and contribute to the organization’s image. They also become key stakeholders and decision makers, directly molding a business’s growth and outcomes.

And hiring early-stage teams can be far more complex than bringing on late-stage members. Early hires must be able to thrive in a changing (and sometimes uncomfortable) environment

Learn when to make your first hires and who to add to your team first. Plus, explore common hiring mistakes to avoid when building a startup team.

Knowing when start the hiring process

Busy founders often say to themselves: “I need an assistant,” or “I wish I could delegate this.” And while the heavy time investment and multifaceted workload that founders experience can be uncomfortable, this alone is not enough of a reason to make a hire. Here’s when founders should actually start forming a team.

• Work consistently falls through the cracks: When founders start routinely forgetting about important work, like not following through with a promising lead or meeting a deadline with a client, they have too much on their plates. If a founder’s attention is split so much that they can’t reasonably keep the business running optimally, it’s likely time to hire help.
• Founders are bottlenecks: On very small teams, all decisions and approvals often run through founders, who have countless other tasks to tick off in a day. Not being able to quickly sign off on these asks prevents work from moving along and negatively impacts results. Founders can remove this bottleneck by bringing on other qualified leaders to guide teams and make decisions.
• Revenue or product velocity is stalling: Sometimes, founders become a deterrent to success. And if the startup's revenue or productivity starts to drop off because founders can’t reasonably keep up with consumer contact, marketing, or leading development, they should seek support.
• Long-term staffing needs develop: As a startup consistently shows positive results and begins cruising into the future, it needs staff to run the operation. Hiring intentionally for the long-term success of the company is wise—unlike bringing on a team in the heat of a stressful moment early on.

Who to hire first

Early hiring doesn’t mean filling in an organizational chart. It’s about meeting the company’s workflow needs and resolving pain points with thoughtful additions to the startup. Founders can strategize who to hire first by:

• Putting efficiency first: Early hires should support the founder, taking over tasks that this leader no longer has time for or doesn’t have the know-how to complete well. This way, the founder can focus on high-level tasks, like strategy, while specialists take over administrative, R&D, finance work, and so on.
• Bringing on experts: At an early-stage startup, teams define the way that work gets done, so founders want to hire experts who can efficiently design workflows, SOPs, and rules that drive growth and consistently positive results. Less experienced professionals may not have the ‘flight hours’ to provide this level of guidance.
• Avoiding over-specialization: While it’s wise to bring on someone trained in, say, payroll and onboarding processes to lead your human resources team, avoid hiring professionals who are too specialized in a niche (i.e., hiring a payroll and an onboarding specialist instead of an HR generalist). Generalists are able to move more fluidly through a wide range of tasks, which is necessary at small organizations where teams are small and people work across several functions.
• Knowing the work first: A founder should never hire for a role that they can’t explain in a job description because it doesn’t yet have clear roles and responsibilities. Founders must have a defined series of tasks and expectations that they expect the new hire to be able to fulfill so that this team member has direction on day one.

Finding candidates without a full recruitment machine

Founders don’t yet have a recruitment team. In fact, that team is one they’ll eventually develop through their early-to-mid-stage hiring process. Here's how these business specialists can find the right candidates without formal recruiting experience.

• Leverage personal networks and referrals: Founders can turn to other business leaders they trust for referrals, their investors, or look in other networks ‘close-to-home,’ like their alma mater’s alumni pool. Vetting reduces the potential for high-risk hires.
• Get comfortable with founder-led outbound outreach: Recruiting is just one more hat founders must wear at first, so they should be comfortable writing emails, running the interview process, drafting offer letters and contracts, and performing other similar tasks central to recruitment and hiring. Founders can tap colleagues who’ve been in the same position for advice from the field.
• Learn how to run the interview process: Founders should learn what to look for in an interviewee, like clear communication, curiosity and enthusiasm about the organization and its product, and confidence in their skills. For subject matter that’s outside a founder’s depth, they may wish to pull in an expert to confirm the candidate’s know-how. Applicants should also be able to demonstrate successful past work.
• Avoid casting too wide a net: Founders don’t need to post on every job board or reach out to dozens of candidates to fill a role; instead, they should focus on using their recruiting time wisely by spending it getting to know vetted candidates who are excited about the role and have the ideal skill set and availability.

How to hire for a startup without a recruitment background

Even when hiring recommended or referred candidates, founders still have to do their due diligence. Here’s some practical advice for vetting applicants.

• Trial projects: Ask the candidate to perform a paid trial project so that you can get a sense of the quality of their work. You can also bring the hire on as a contractor at first and give them smaller projects to see how they fare before scaling up their workload and the complexity of tasks.
• Frequent check-ins: Check in with new hires regularly to answer their questions and hear their on-the-job insights. You'll remove bottlenecks, prevent errors, and learn more about developing internal processes. You can also help these new employees consistently align their work to overarching business objectives.
• Early feedback loops: Provide honest, supportive feedback early on and listen to it from the employee, too. Oftentimes, the people who perform work firsthand can offer process improvements, especially on subject matters in which the founder isn’t an expert.

Common startup hiring mistakes founders make

Founders are bound to make some missteps in the hiring process, but some are avoidable—thanks to the leaders who have gone before them and shared what they’ve learned from their mistakes. The following are a few common errors to avoid.

• Hiring reactively under pressure: Startups are hectic, and founders will inevitably feel overwhelmed. But a few high-intensity stretches aren’t inherently signs that you need to grow your team.
• Optimizing for speed instead of clarity: Founders may feel that they need to urgently bring on help. But it’s a mistake to do so without first defining the roles, responsibilities, and workflows the new hire will fulfill. This new team member is bound to feel confused and frustrated in conditions where they don't even understand their job description.
• Letting bad fits stay: Avoid keeping team members who aren’t contributing well or clicking with the company culture simply because the organization needs the help, as these employees can spur errors, poor results, and even an uncomfortable workplace environment. Instead, find someone who is a better fit and will help the company move toward its goals.

The importance of onboarding

Onboarding should be a golden rule, even at small, founder-led organizations without an HR team. New hires need to know what the company’s goals are, how their work contributes to overall organizational success, and what is expected of them. They need to learn tools and the workflows they’ll be responsible for using, and understand the company culture.

In addition to showing new hires the ropes, use onboarding time provide information on success stories. If you have examples of excellent past work, share them. And ensure the employee knows how their progress will be measured by setting clear goals and being transparent about what KPIs you use to track them.

How Clarify makes founders’ lives easier

Hiring can be a time-consuming endeavor, especially for founder-run, early-stage startups. Clarify can free up founders' time by automating sales admin work in and outside the organization's CRM, giving these leaders the space they need to intentionally interview and sign hires.

Clarify captures meeting notes and updates from emails and on deals, so that founders don't become glorified notetakers or spend all of their time entering leads into a CRM. Driven by AI, Clarify summarizes conversations, surfaces deal insights, and suggests next actions, helping small teams move faster with fewer missed opportunities.

FAQs

When should I make my first sales hire as a startup founder?

Founders should have a demonstrated, consistent need for help and established processes they can teach to a new hire.

Should I hire a dedicated recruiter to run my startup hiring strategy?

Hiring a recruiter can be an expensive, excessive move for startups, at which founders can often confidently fill first roles.

How many interviews are typical for a startup hire?

Three to five interviews and a trial exercise should give founders sufficient information to make a hiring decision.

Should founders focus more time on hiring or on sales?

Sales drive early financial wins that keep an organization afloat, so founders generally shouldn’t prioritize hiring over this essential, revenue-building activity.