Pay fair market rate and decent equity. Or pay below market rate and substantial equity.
Why any equity at all? It's a job.
Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#12Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#13Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#14Pay fair market rate and decent equity. Or pay below market rate and substantial equity.
Why any equity at all? It's a job.
Profit sharing/equity sharing is an excellent way to motivate employees and attract talent, especially if the employment nature is as risky and unstable as an early stage startup.
My friend works as a social worker, completely different field, and her employer created a profit sharing plan. They all love it. This is not limited to tech.
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#15Pay fair salary/equity/benefits.
Have a clear understanding of your identity, mission, direction, goals.
Have a clear understanding of what you're looking for in a hire.
You're looking for someone to be a fit to what you're doing as much as they are looking to be apart of something that is a fit for them. Pay, product, culture, and various mix of expectations and what each side wants is what makes this works.
You'll want to be as clear as you can about what's exciting about what you're doing, where you're going with this, and who you're looking for to join you on this journey.
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#16If you're willing to keep an open mind, try poaching someone from a non-tech company that wants to jump ship. There are an increasing number of such people.
They likely are getting underpaid compared to their peers at a tech company.
The downside is, a "senior software engineer" at a non-tech company might not be quite the same level as a "senior software engineer" at a tech company. I say this as one of the former myself.
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#17Pay fair salary/equity/benefits. Have a clear understanding of your identity, mission, direction, goals. Have a clear understanding of what you're looking for in a hire. You're looking for someone to be a fit to what you're doing as much as they are looking to be apart of something that is a fit for them. Pay, product, culture, and various mix of expectations and what each side wants is what makes this works. You'll…
Thank you for your advices. I will clarify this before contacting people
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#18If you're willing to keep an open mind, try poaching someone from a non-tech company that wants to jump ship. There are an increasing number of such people. They likely are getting underpaid compared to their peers at a tech company. The downside is, a "senior software engineer" at a non-tech company might not be quite the same level as a "senior software engineer" at a tech company. I say this as one of the former m…
Which kind of company do you define as a non-tech company? Do you mean a company where the main focus isn't the tech?
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#19I’m all ears if you’ve got something interesting and lots of equity? I work at Amazon, lots of experience with the cloud, scale, computer science etc. 6 years experience as a dev.
Check us out calltrackingmetrics- bootstrapped 50+ and growing , we focus on our team, culture and customers.
Re: Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
#20Just pay them 20% more of what they are currently making.
Do you think money is the only criteria? In this case it seems impossible to compete with US Startups.
So you're not in the US? Then why would you need to compete with US startups on salary? If you can do even half of that you should be able to get great talent in most places. Competing on the work environment, benefits, equity etc should be much easier too.