The right kind of person
Hiring startup warriors
Hi all —
I’ve decided to do something very stupid: I’m going to complete a (very short) book before my next birthday. The working title is “Figure it Out: Building a Real Business in a World of Overhyped Vaporware.”
The only problem with the plan is that my birthday is in a few weeks. Game on.
This week, a quick post: Hiring the right kind of startup warrior.
In the past months, we’ve made some excellent hires. There are people who’ve joined the team and quickly brought our business to the next level.
What I’ve noticed is that they all have very specific experiences doing the exact thing we need them to do.
This sounds obvious, but in the hiring process we tend to compromise:
“Well, they do have software sales experience, even if it was at a later-stage company.”
“Well, they haven’t done this exact thing before, but they have the right attitude and will figure it out.”
In the early stages when you’re just starting to turn into a real company, you need people who know what good likes in THIS EXACT context. This is most important for the FIRST hires in a department, the people who are tasked from building it from “kinda working but held together with duct tape” to “well-oiled machine.”
The goal becomes finding the people who’ve done it before at this stage and want to do it again, better. And finding an expert who can assess these candidates to make sure they made it happen - and weren’t just there when it happened. Then, selling these people on joining you.
It’s not easy to hire these people, but once you do, everything gets easier.