

Hiring Your First Employee - jason_tko
http://blog.makeleaps.com/2010/07/hiring-your-first-employee-for-your-service-business/

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popschedule
At what point does one go from the feeling that they have to do everything
themselves to make sure it's right to actually taking the leap of faith to
hiring someone. I feel like I am constantly bottle necking growth, but it gets
scary. What experiences have you guys had with this? What does it feel like to
hire your first employee?

~~~
prawn
"What does it feel like to hire your first employee?"

It's terrifying. Not just because you're changing something you're used to and
giving up control, but because you are becoming somewhat responsible for
someone's livelihood - they are literally banking on you to help them live,
eat, support family, etc. If you run out of work, what's going to pay their
rent?

I started a web dev studio in '98 with a friend. After 6-7 years, he moved to
London, wanting to work there, and I was a sole trader, using a few
freelancers.

Today, I have a full-timer, a 0.7ish (who cranks out stuff fast enough to be
considered a full-timer) and take on paid trainees from time to time. I pay
myself much less than I did when I was a sole trader but it doesn't really
bother me - I get a lot out of providing fun opportunities for two young
employees.

But before my first hire, I ummed and aahed for a long, long time. I made
half-hearted efforts to find someone and usually bailed before committing. In
the end, I gave a young, less-than-qualified but fast-learning, good-hearted
kid a trial and he did well. I can't even remember reading his resumé but we
met at a café to talk things over, got on fine and I can remember that he
could spell "definitely" in his emails. Sounds trivial, but the HN post the
other week about "when in doubt, always hire the better writer" really
resonated with me - when you're letting someone loose contacting the clients
you've nurtured for 5-10 years, you don't want them embarrassing you. You need
to trust them and it's easier if they show care and can spell.

I've never regretted that hiring, nor my second one either. They have jobs for
as long as I can keep the money coming in to pay them. Either my character-
barometer is sound or I got really lucky.

Terrifying to begin with, but rewarding later.

The only problem now is that I'm still the bottleneck. At 3-5 people, we're
big enough to need a production manager, but too small to be able to afford
one. All the worst parts of small business magnify too - even with an
accountant and bookkeeper, there are more boring and annoying parts to deal
with than ever, and I have sacrificed salary to bring employees on board. But
it's tough to jump from sole trader to a ten-person team, so perhaps this is
just a rough intermediary step.

A few keys:

    
    
      - start them on a trial
      - pick someone who fits your working culture (we are all very social in this shared office) and is a good personality fit
      - pick the person that can spell "definitely"
      - you might need to make sacrifices to take that next step
      - don't worry about running out of work to keep them busy, just roll the dice. As my friend is wont to say: No balls, no babies.

~~~
popschedule
"no balls no babies" haha, love that. Thanks for the great advice prawn. Yea,
definitely a leap of faith.

~~~
prawn
Hey, you can spell "definitely" --> hired! :P

------
mbenjaminsmith
A point I would make about 'Vision Over Job Description':

I think it's vital to also be open about the need for a generalist. If all you
do is give someone a title (plus vision), there's going to be enough of a role
associated with that title to create a set of expectations. It's easy to put
someone in a position early on where they think, 'an x doesn't do y, what's
going on?'

Even for a low-level employee, I would consider doing salary plus equity if
they're the first on board. I've seen it work before.

Another point I think is critical is if you expect someone to come on board
and wear all hats, you'd better make sure you're willing to do it as well. If
you're working all hours to make your business grow it will be easier for your
employees to swallow.

If they think they're working more than you they'll leave and that's hard to
recover from, at least in the sort term. Losing a team member hurts everyone's
morale, especially your own.

------
ahoyhere
We found our intern with the intention to hire if we found a good fit. (And he
found us by my comments here on HN!) I described somebody who was interested
in wearing many hats from admin to programmer, with at least some
programming/Ruby experience, and voila!

We lucked out on the first try and we will be employing him as soon as we can
get the paperwork together.

I highly recommend this type of approach for junior devs, do-it-all peeps, and
even admins.

Also, from my hiring days in corporations, my more general recommendations:

* hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you are totally crunched)

* ask them what they read on their own time

* figure out why they do what they do (or do what the job description says)

A smart, motivated, passionate, conscientious person with not-quite-enough
experience will quickly bring herself/himself up to speed. On the other hand,
a person with the exact skillset you need may be unbearable.

As for the money, well, we're a 2-person company. We have not just our SaaS
product, but live training courses, etc. Yes, it's kind of scary to employ
somebody, but we figured out that, worst case, we can just do one training
course a month to cover the monthly salary of our new addiction. That's a good
trade.

~~~
grammaton
> hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you
> are totally crunched)

I wish everyone in a position to hire thought like this. The overall quality
of developers in the industry would improve sharply, for one. Programmers as a
whole might be a less bitter lot, as well.

Kudos to you sir.

~~~
ardit33
yeah, but attitude alone doesn't build products. If we are talking for just
some simple web app, then that is fine, but if you are doing anything that is
technically challenging, you better have somebody experienced on the first 2-3
employees you hire.

You need both energy/passion, but also somebody that is good and has
experienced a lot, both successes and failures.

One thing I noticed really good engineers with experience tend to be a bit
more pessimistic/opinionated by nature, and also more pragmatic. They can
anticipate problems down the road (where a junior engineer would think
everything is jolly), while avoid over-engineering. Junior programmers are
more likely to either over or under engineer; brush potential problems as
"insignificant", or grossly underestimate what it takes to get something done.

Most of us have been there at some point. But also a junior engineer might
bring your fresh energy to the mix.

But remember, really good engineers, with experience,and with passion and
great attitudes, are hard to find. Mainly b/c they have no problem to find a
job.

