Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

Agreed you're going to DRY yourselves into repeating the same naive mistakes as every trio of passionate and friendly guys who are looking to make their first hire and don't screen for whether they use the urinal without holding a cell phone

Then you'll build up all your institutional knowledge in some pillars of your company who will bounce the minute they get an opportunity offering better foosball tables and that's when you'll realize all your technical debt is baked so deeply into your processes you will have to hire a vice president to bail you out with a director in tow

Meanwhile as with most people you won't understand a gift horse as it's staring you in the mouth of a guy who's offering you a real break because you insist that work has to feel like a slog and you really want to be like the cool kids in the valley but you're not

You're just three regular stooges who don't know a corporation from a clambake and the next post is going to be about how you defaulted on your vision but you'll call it a pivot

If you want someone who shares your "passion" then you are looking for a cofounder, not an employee.

And to change the subject: you've been in existence long enough for someone to battle cancer and have kids but no income has been generated? Is making some money on the radar?

I think you are over-thinking it. A single part-time employee won't fail your start-up, a lot of other things will like not being able to deliver before your runway runs out. For great employees, it's a negligible loss if they want to take time off to do something else. Not everyone wants to toil away their lives slaving for somebody else.

But if you have other candidates who possibly wouldn't be part-time employees in your sights, you might want to try to hire them first. I know from employer's perspective part-time workers can be a little annoying as they get all the benefits with only eg 60% commitment. And they take as long vacations as the regular employees too.

Disclaimer: I have worked as a part-time employee, and I did deliver during my few work days as much as I would have done as a full-time employee. Moreover, it actually felt much nicer to me to do only a few days a week and being a full-timer at times was almost a bit depressing. Same old stuff, everyday, kinda bores you out.

> had cancer followed by twins. We reassigned the CEO title, thinking with heads over hearts.

This sounds like the person was punished for being sick and then having kids. Am I reading this wrong?

How do you pronounce that?