
Ask HN: Do you have any rules of thumb for when to hire? - bluejellybean
More specifically I am asking about the timing for specific positions. Obviously having the cash flows to hire is a key but what other metrics have you found valuable to look at? Has anyone found any useful heuristics or books for, as an example, deciding between another developer vs another sales person? The majority of the material I&#x27;ve read on the subject has been geared more for larger organizations and not a small series-blah startup.
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muzani
Hire when it saves money. And certainly hire before it gets too bad because
every hire takes a while to learn.

One of the key ideas here is congestion. Nobody should work up to 100%
capacity. When you pass a certain treshhold, their effectiveness drops
sharply, similar to how traffic jams happen. For each person, and different
scopes of work, the treshhold is different.

You'll want to hire when people are crossing that treshhold.

Also remember that by hiring someone, you're adding the workload of training,
so don't do it too late.

