
Hiring Employee #1 - bradt
http://ryancarson.com/post/26412233938/hiring-your-first-employee
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mikk0j
While I appreciate Carson's candidness in blogging how they do things, there's
a couple of dangerous things in his recommendations.

"I’d recommend waiting until you’re overwhelmed with your work." This is a bad
idea. Do not. Hire when you can afford to pay close attention to what you are
doing. Your first hire is crucial to your company culture and direction, so
you need to be on the spot here. Packed schedule and cognitive overload do not
a good hiring setup make.

Additionally, that recommendation assumes that you are hiring someone to do
the stuff that you don't have the time to do. While that's certainly true and
helpful in many cases, it shouldn't be the whole truth. I like the maxim "hire
people smarter than yourself". Because if you do, maybe you'll see that you
weren't packing your schedule with the right things after all.

"Avoid hiring a friend as a first employee." Right, there is the fact that it
potentially changes the dynamic. But not in all cases. If you, say, hire your
closest friend since childhood, it's very possible that your friendship will
survive anything the work life throws at you, and makes that in turn stronger.
On the other hand, hiring a more 'distant' friend has the massive benefit that
you not only know the person, but likely know their network, too, and there is
no better filter or background check than sharing the same social circle.
Carson does mention this in "ask friends for recommendations" of course.

"I’d recommend your first employee should be a designer with strong frontend
dev skills." Um. What if that's exactly what we don't need? Ok, cheap shot,
but it's a bit silly to say that everyone needs a designer-dev (then again,
Treehouse training does prepare people for that...).

And while he says that you should start with freelancers, he doesn't mention
that the first hire can also (in most legislations) start as a contractor or
on trial period, which is a safety net for both the employee and the employer.

~~~
jandrewrogers
Yeah, some of the recommendations are specific to his application and
business, generalizing poorly to other startups.

For tech startups actually doing real tech development, like a new class of
distributed database, the advice about (1) hiring freelancers and (2) needing
front-end dev skills is obviously incorrect. Sometimes, the best first hire is
a very senior software engineer that has the domain expertise and experience
to lay the groundwork for a code base. The parts you can outsource effectively
are the parts that are not core to your business success and you have to be
able to identify which parts are which.

A first hire should be able to lead a role working on a core part of the
business, whatever that business may be. The competent execution of the core
part of the business will be a primary determinant of success.

~~~
zinssmeister
there is also nothing wrong with hiring a friend in a funded tech startup (as
employee #1). I'd actually recommend it, because you are still in that phase
where you are looking for people to work with you and not for you. And just
like when finding a co-founder, getting along with a person is very important.

~~~
mikk0j
I thought about this more after my comment. Yes, this is very true. Finding
employee #1 is different from finding a co-founder but not by much, especially
if you want them to stick around and work well with you. And founding a
company with someone you are already friends with is I think much more common
that founding with someone who you've just met.

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benjohnson
Because I suck at business, I've had had to hire employee #1 way too many
times. Here's what I've learned:

1) Hire someone with skills that fill in deficiencies that you have. If you
hate paperwork, find someone who is diligent. If you like meeting customers,
find someone who will do the heavy lifting when you've sealed the deal.

2) Don't hire a jerk, and make sure you get non-competes and non-solicitation
agreements in place. Take your prospect out to lunch and watch how they
interact with the waitstaff. That's a good window into their behavior, unless
they are very shy.

3) Be a good example - any character flaw your employee picks up on will be
parroted by them if they can get away with it.

I'd have more, but like I said, I'm not too good at this :)

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rodp
I respect Ryan and usually enjoy his advice, but I must say I disagree with
most that's written here.

Having freelancers who have 0 emotional attachment to your vision build the
first version of your product and then replace them with someone else is a
really bad idea in my experience. Your #1 employee should be someone who is
almost as excited about the product as you. Furthermore, they should ideally
have substantial skills and experience and complement you and the rest of the
founders well. Most important: they should be a culture fit. Competitive
salary and benefits shouldn't be cruical for the first employee. Vision and
stock options should. Trying to save money by hiring someone less experienced
or indifferent to your vision does not pay in the long run.

Ryan's advice is more about economics, but I feel that, since we're talking
about hiring the first person, it should have been about vision and
personality.

~~~
ryancarson
Fair comment. I think most people get too mired down in hiring that first
person, instead of getting to MVP. Better to crank it out, get traction, and
then build the proper team. Sure, it'd be better to hire the perfect person
first, but this isn't always an option.

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nwenzel
Don't forget that when you get to the point of Hiring Employee #1, tell them
that you may have to fire them or that they may be let go through not fault of
their own if the revenue and expenses don't line up the right way.

I have had that conversation with each of my new hires (we're at 10 people). I
want them to know up front that they're taking on some risk and that there's
no free pass in a small company in the same way that there is in a big
company.

That all may seem obvious to anyone reading here. It may seem to be an implied
part of joining a small company (or any company). But that part of the
conversation is important. It also reminds people that their work has actual
value.

~~~
drewmclellan
> tell them that you may have to fire them or that they may be let go through
> not fault of their own

This is really great advice. If there's one thing almost as good as being in
rock-solid employment, it's having a clear and accurate view on what the
stability of your employment position is.

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rdl
"Be generous with benefits" seems like a good policy in general, but should be
optimized for employee #1 (and the next few).

I wouldn't feel a need to get excellent healthcare for my first few employees
if they have existing good insurance on their own (I plan to keep my $100/mo
HSA plan indefinitely), but I value a $10k equipment budget and basically
unlimited Amazon book ordering more than they cost to provide, I'd value a
place to receive packages during the day, including cases of ammo, far more
than the cost to provide that. If you are a tiny startup, don't just do cookie
cutter benefits, pick benefits your current and prospective employees would
particularly value.

I'm not sure about spending a marginal dollar on benefits vs salary.

~~~
ryancarson
This is the value of using outsourced HR with a company like TriNet. They
allow you to offer really competitive healthcare plans.

I think it's really important from the beginning to say that you care enough
about your employees to get them the best healthcare you can afford.

It's not really that expensive, so why wait?

~~~
smiler
Btw Ryan, what's your view on running a business in the US compared to UK - is
it easier in one or another, cheaper in one or the other?

~~~
ryancarson
I'm moving to Portland Oregon, from the UK. I'm afraid that says it all :(

~~~
cwe
That and the frowny face say conflicting things. Are you happy to be working
in the states?

~~~
mhartl
He's sad that having the company in the UK didn't work out.

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bradt
I had tweeted Ryan the suggestion of writing this post yesterday and am
delighted that he's published it already. I was considering hiring employee #1
for WP App Store and this post has given me some extra confidence that the
time is right. Thanks again Ryan. I'd love to hear experience and advice from
HN'ers on this topic as well. Fred Wilson, perhaps a post of your own?

I haven't drafted the job posting yet, but if you're interested, sign up to
the email newsletter at <http://wpappstore.com> and I'll send out an email in
the next couple of days.

~~~
ryancarson
No problem - thanks for asking a great question.

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sandieman
Would be interested in hearing stock option philosophy on first hire. (how
much, vest schedule, etc)

