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

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

#91

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

bwb wrote: post #10
rriepe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "passion" is a huge red flag word for me. In the same realm as "ninja" or "rockstar."

What do you all call the feeling around enjoying the work you do because of the mission and/or technical challenge and/or team? Or, the feeling of wanting to do high quality work wherever you are? Generally, I've never worried about that being called passion.

> "What do you all call the feeling around enjoying the work you do because of the mission and/or technical challenge and/or team?"

That's passion.

> "Or, the feeling of wanting to do high quality work wherever you are?"

That's professionalism, although one might also describe it as being passionate about behaving professionally.

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

#92

Post by mindcrime »

dangus wrote: post #72
mindcrime wrote: post #5

Meh... In most cases, talking about "passion" in this context is just a roundabout way of saying "we want people to work harder for less compensation." Expecting founders to have "passion" is fine, since they (presumably) own equity stakes that will make them wealthy if the company is successful. But unless you're giving your early hires a large stake in the company, I'd suggest dropping the "passion" verbiage and tr…

> Hire the guy (or gal) Ugh, they’re called people. “Hire the person” or “hire them” works fine. The way you’re saying this makes it sound like you expect that the candidate will most likely be male, and that a girl (never mind someone who is gender fluid or genderqueer: doesn’t exist in your sentence) is a secondary choice, relegated to a secondary option in parenthesis. I can understand if you think that I’m readin…

Fair enough. I'd edit my post, but it's too late now.

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

#94

Post by dang »

jarofgreen wrote: post #16

Get over yourself and hire them. I've worked part time for several companies and I'd argue strongly against the idea that part timers can't be committed and have an impact on the company. In my last job, I worked part time and lead a project to migrate the whole company to Git and Ansible for deploys. I then lead another whole project to migrate all the developers from an old dev server with issues to a new shiny dev…

> Get over yourself

Please edit nasty swipes out of your comments here. Perhaps you didn't mean it that way, but that's the way it lands on the internet, and it evokes worse from others.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#95

Post by aries1980 »

skrebbel wrote: post #86
eropple wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that employees of small startups can be expected to have said startup at top thing on their minds, bordering family etc. They won't be credited like founders, compensated at-the-time remotely near market, will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it, and in the event of success will be hilariously undercompensated, if not actively screwed. So--why?

> will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it Says who? Srsly stop working for shitty startups. And stop assuming all founders are exploitative psychopaths. We're not. Many of us just want to build an awesome company that's an awesome place to work at. You don't need to overwork the team for that. But you also won't get there with a bunch of disinterested contractors who just do their assigned task…

> with a bunch of disinterested contractors

Contractor here who was a first tech hire for a startup once. I've seen more disinterested employees than contractors in the UK. Employees tend to leave at 1700 sharp, while contractors often the last one who shuts the lights off. You can't let go employees with a 2-week notice, so guess who's going to work around the clock when the project is behind schedule?

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

#96

Post by f6v »

I think you shouldn't hire him, but your reasoning is somehow wrong. Early stage startups require decision-making on the spot, daily. If the guy isn't there, he'll be out out the loop and you'll be frustrated. So the reason not to hire lies in logistics.

Now, about passion and culture... I don't know if this is your first ride, but you probably know that business models and products change. I personally joined a startup which was building brain-training mobile app. Half a year later we were doing marketing automation for recruiters. I think few of the founders have passion for the product, they have passion for building things, or for making their equity worth millions. So you've got to look for employees who like building things, rather than excited about your product.

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

#97

Post by eropple »

skrebbel wrote: post #86
eropple wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that employees of small startups can be expected to have said startup at top thing on their minds, bordering family etc. They won't be credited like founders, compensated at-the-time remotely near market, will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it, and in the event of success will be hilariously undercompensated, if not actively screwed. So--why?

> will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it Says who? Srsly stop working for shitty startups. And stop assuming all founders are exploitative psychopaths. We're not. Many of us just want to build an awesome company that's an awesome place to work at. You don't need to overwork the team for that. But you also won't get there with a bunch of disinterested contractors who just do their assigned task…

> Says who? Srsly stop working for shitty startups.

I don't work for "shitty startups"--it's rare that I work for "startups" at all. But, then again, my skillset is in demand in a way that accentuates the seller's market, and so I also don't have to. I'm very fortunate.

> And stop assuming all founders are exploitative psychopaths. We're not. ... You don't need to overwork the team for that.

You don't have to. But, as a matter of course, it happens. Even to those with the best of intentions.

Causes and passions are charity work or open-source work. Tying your day job--and by extension your health and your well-being--to them is not wise. As a founder, you both have an incentive to tie your own to such--but you have an even stronger incentive to tie others' to it, and so you literally can't be trusted.

It's nothing personal to state that founders are not to be trusted. It is, in a very real and literal sense, just business. Cash on the barrelhead and an absolute intolerance for fuckery are the only ways an employee has to protect themselves from exploitation.

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

#98

Post by loco5niner »

dangus wrote: post #72
mindcrime wrote: post #5

Meh... In most cases, talking about "passion" in this context is just a roundabout way of saying "we want people to work harder for less compensation." Expecting founders to have "passion" is fine, since they (presumably) own equity stakes that will make them wealthy if the company is successful. But unless you're giving your early hires a large stake in the company, I'd suggest dropping the "passion" verbiage and tr…

> Hire the guy (or gal) Ugh, they’re called people. “Hire the person” or “hire them” works fine. The way you’re saying this makes it sound like you expect that the candidate will most likely be male, and that a girl (never mind someone who is gender fluid or genderqueer: doesn’t exist in your sentence) is a secondary choice, relegated to a secondary option in parenthesis. I can understand if you think that I’m readin…

When you complain about innocuous things like this, you weaken your argument.

Guy or gal is fine.

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

#99

Post by mindcrime »

superzadeh wrote: post #32

Controversial opinion but learned through experience the hard way here, repeatedly proven, anyone that you feel "like lack of commitment from him could possibly influence our culture in a negative way", just pass (at least until you have product market fit or a repeatable business running). As soon as shit hits the fan, they will either leave or drop performance, and you will have to let them go. In your case, I thin…

The truth is, that person is not a normal employee, it's the first hire in a very early stage business. If you treat that hire as a regular employee, you will build expectations and won't be able to live up to it, and it will backfire for both of you 6-8 months down the road.

If that's true, then I hope that person gets compensation that is consistent with that status. I wouldn't have a problem with that... what gets me is when people want somebody to basically act like a founder in terms of commitment, but the compensation is just "regular employee". F that.

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

#100

Post by GreenJelloShot »

skrebbel wrote: post #86
eropple wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think that employees of small startups can be expected to have said startup at top thing on their minds, bordering family etc. They won't be credited like founders, compensated at-the-time remotely near market, will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it, and in the event of success will be hilariously undercompensated, if not actively screwed. So--why?

> will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it Says who? Srsly stop working for shitty startups. And stop assuming all founders are exploitative psychopaths. We're not. Many of us just want to build an awesome company that's an awesome place to work at. You don't need to overwork the team for that. But you also won't get there with a bunch of disinterested contractors who just do their assigned task…

> Srsly stop working for shitty startups.

I guess 99.9% of all startups are "shitty" then.

> we would like the core team (first 3-4 hires) to share our passion to some degree. Perhaps naively we'd like them to become pillars of our company and help us inspire future employees.

It sound like they don't want workers, so much as worshipers. Call me pessimistic.

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