Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 103 posts

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#51

Post by louison11 »

Something obvious I didn't understand at first: the earlier stage you are, the smarter the people you need.

They need to be autonomous, flexible, but above all brilliant at what they do.

If you get "average" employees who just wants to follow the specs and receive their salary, they will most likely cost you more to manage than they will create value.

In early stages, you're probably still trying to answer complex questions - and you need people who have the capacity to think outside the box to do so...

As you grow, you can start tolerating people who "think less" and just do what they're asked. You'll have managers to manage them.

In other words, the type of people you need at this stage are the type who could be almost be startup founders themselves. ;-) My 2 cents.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#52

Post by hobofan »

artur_makly wrote: post #35

In my 25yr experience as a serial entrepreneur, never hire full-time until they consulted with you for at least 6 months. So many factors can go wrong that are not related directly to hard-skills. It's marriage essentially.. so date around!

How do you go about finding freelancers that are willing to consider employment?

From all my experience, there are very few freelancers in general that are considering employment at all (though the percentage is slightly higher among non-devs). And for the few that are considering employment, you'd would usually have to put a lot of equity into the compensation package to make up for the (usually) significantly lower salary.

As a freelancer I've also offered that option to potential clients/employers, but clients always decline that, citing bad experiences in the past, where they've felt bait-and-switched as after the "trial period" freelancers usually want to switch over to employment.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#53

Post by krageon »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #18
hawk_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So for instance try doing marketing yourself for a month. People who try coding for a month and based on that try to hire a programmer make terrible clients/managers. I am not sure this advice would apply to anything that has even a little depth/nuance.

Fair enough, let's add some nuance. Learn about the subject, but stay humble — with a month of trying (failures & success) you're equipped with very modest experience, there is far more you don't know, obviously.

Imagining you will know anywhere near enough about a completely new (to you) highly complex field to hire well after only a month of effort is very, very far from humble.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#54

Post by Hasz »

louison11 wrote: post #51

Something obvious I didn't understand at first: the earlier stage you are, the smarter the people you need. They need to be autonomous, flexible, but above all brilliant at what they do. If you get "average" employees who just wants to follow the specs and receive their salary, they will most likely cost you more to manage than they will create value. In early stages, you're probably still trying to answer complex qu…

The caveat being… brilliance will cost you. If you incentivize them to care deeply and solve your hard problems, and they have the capacity to do so, they will. But if you don’t, they’re not just going to toil unnecessarily for an incommensurate reward.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#55

Post by RamblingCTO »

louison11 wrote: post #51

Something obvious I didn't understand at first: the earlier stage you are, the smarter the people you need. They need to be autonomous, flexible, but above all brilliant at what they do. If you get "average" employees who just wants to follow the specs and receive their salary, they will most likely cost you more to manage than they will create value. In early stages, you're probably still trying to answer complex qu…

Totally agree with that. This will play into your mental health as well. The more weight other people can carry, the less you have to do. Don't underestimate having to feed the brains of 10 people constantly when they can't/won't think for themselves.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#56

Post by Woshiwuja »

louison11 wrote: post #51

Something obvious I didn't understand at first: the earlier stage you are, the smarter the people you need. They need to be autonomous, flexible, but above all brilliant at what they do. If you get "average" employees who just wants to follow the specs and receive their salary, they will most likely cost you more to manage than they will create value. In early stages, you're probably still trying to answer complex qu…

Unless you are a startup which deals with highly complicated technologies and algorithms you don't need the smartest people around.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#57

Post by RamblingCTO »

olegp wrote: post #44

My advice would be to find advisors who are experts in these skills and have them screen for them, while you do everything else. Pay them for their time in cash or options. Make sure to hire senior level people first and then have them screen for these skills in subsequent hires going forward. Finding external recruiters that are able to screen for these skills is another option, but such recruiters are few and far b…

So now we get linkedin spam on hackernews, nice!

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#58

Post by cpfohl »

krageon wrote: post #53
repelsteeltje wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, let's add some nuance. Learn about the subject, but stay humble — with a month of trying (failures & success) you're equipped with very modest experience, there is far more you don't know, obviously.

Imagining you will know anywhere near enough about a completely new (to you) highly complex field to hire well after only a month of effort is very, very far from humble.

I dunno man, the 80/20 rule definitely applies here (and it's cousin Dunning-Kruger does as well, so yes, stay humble). Most software engineers are paid for their expertise in rapidly acquiring and mentally modeling complex domains...

Believing that spending a month of high-effort learning will teach you enough of the basics of just about any field that you can flush out terrible choices isn't _that_ ridiculous...

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#59

Post by zackprice »

Regardless of how smart someone is, don't hire assholes.

A single bad apple in a new team will drag everyone down, reducing communication, causing silos (as they avoid the bad person) and just generally making work not happen the way it should.

Re: Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team

#60

Post by ativzzz »

Woshiwuja wrote: post #56
louison11 wrote: post #51

Something obvious I didn't understand at first: the earlier stage you are, the smarter the people you need. They need to be autonomous, flexible, but above all brilliant at what they do. If you get "average" employees who just wants to follow the specs and receive their salary, they will most likely cost you more to manage than they will create value. In early stages, you're probably still trying to answer complex qu…

Unless you are a startup which deals with highly complicated technologies and algorithms you don't need the smartest people around.

I think in this case "smart" is equivalent to independent, self-directed, hard working
Post reply on HN