Hiring your first ten people
Sample essay on why the first ten hires set the ceiling for everything that follows, and a practical loop for getting them right.
Sample content included with the FoundryLume theme.
The first ten hires are not employees. They are the culture, permanently. Every person you hire after them will calibrate against how these ten behave on a bad week.
Hire for the next twelve months, not the next five years
“Would they still be the right person at Series C?” is the wrong question at eight people. It filters for pedigree over usefulness, and it is unknowable.
The better question: would I want this person in the room during the worst week of the next year?
The loop that works
- Written work sample, paid. Three to four hours, on a real problem, with a real deadline. Nothing predicts on-the-job performance better.
- Debrief on the sample, not the CV. Talk through their decisions and what they would change with another day.
- Two references they did not offer. The ones they suggest are curated. The ones you find are informative.
- Reverse interview. Give them ninety uninterrupted minutes to interrogate you. Candidates who ask nothing hard rarely push back later either.
Say the hard things during the offer
The compensation, the runway, the parts of the job that are genuinely unpleasant. Every fact you soften now is a resignation in eight months.
A short list of red flags
- Cannot name a decision they got wrong
- Describes every previous team as dysfunctional
- Negotiates title harder than scope
- Needs the org chart resolved before starting
What we got wrong
In our fictional company history, we hired a very senior person too early. The role did not exist yet, so they built one — and it was not the one we needed. That was our mistake, not theirs, and it cost two quarters.
The lesson we would pass on: hire the person who will do the work this quarter, and give them the chance to grow into the role. Do not hire the role and hope the work appears.