I am considering providing hacker recruiting services specifically for startups (bootstrapped or in seed stage), but I am not sure if I should establish my channel strategy directly to startup founders, or through recruiting agencies/headhunters. So, my question is ... how do early stage startups recruit hackers? Do they only rely on people they know? Do they hire headhunters or recruiting agencies? Do investors have a say on how/where you should hire the dev team?
How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
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Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#2For co-founder and early employee roles I only rely on people I know and/or their recommendations.
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#3For co-founder and early employee roles I only rely on people I know and/or their recommendations.
Ditto. I'm hiring right now for employees #3-5, and I can't imagine using a recruiter. The incentives for a recruiter are perverse. And I suspect the people I really want are the ones who are energetic enough to find what they want on their own.
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#4recruiters/headhuntes are never used. In fact all hackers avoid using headhunters/recruiters as its the first sign that the startup does not get it or know how to hire
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#5Early stage things only go off of friends or people they know or met already. So forget about those services the founders already know what they want at that early stage. Maybe it would work for large established companies only.
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#6recruiters/headhuntes are never used. In fact all hackers avoid using headhunters/recruiters as its the first sign that the startup does not get it or know how to hire
That is not true. A startup uses all resources at their disposal, including recruiters if necessary. A good recruiter can hire very specific people that you couldn't reach easily yourself, especially if you are young and haven't had the time to build a good personal network.
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#7For co-founder and early employee roles I only rely on people I know and/or their recommendations.
Ditto. I'm hiring right now for employees #3-5, and I can't imagine using a recruiter. The incentives for a recruiter are perverse. And I suspect the people I really want are the ones who are energetic enough to find what they want on their own.
Would you consider a recruiter if the pricing was much lower than what is charged by traditional headhunters? (thinking $3k USD per person)
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#8I'm still actively looking for cofounders. I go to tech events (Rails/Ruby user groups, etc), I went to the Cofounders Wanted meetup here in Austin. I put big banners on the product site advertising open positions. I put an ad on Craigslist looking for people.
I think the people who rely on their social network must either be friends with other hackers (I'm mostly not) or live in the bay area or something where there are lots of hackers. I mostly run in hippie/activist/academic circles and I'm not swarmed by people with tech/business chops so it's been a more difficult process for me. I would welcome a site or a service that would innovate around this problem.
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#9Having been recruited, and been forced to hire through a recruiter, I can honestly tell you that both employers and employees want to find a way around them. These are the guys that hang out in the most trafficked areas (certainly monster.com) and just try and pick off either the employee or the employer early so as to distort the market and increase barriers and inefficiencies. If the market is weak, then create something like behance.net or dribbble.com or github (and never throw in an extra 'b') where people can meet each other. Brokers distort Markets.
Re: How do early stage startups recruit hackers?
#10I'm still actively looking for cofounders. I go to tech events (Rails/Ruby user groups, etc), I went to the Cofounders Wanted meetup here in Austin. I put big banners on the product site advertising open positions. I put an ad on Craigslist looking for people. I think the people who rely on their social network must either be friends with other hackers (I'm mostly not) or live in the bay area or something where there…
Hey erik, I was in the same boat. Here's my advice. Be proactive and target specific individuals who are doing interesting work. Then invite them out for beers, and pitch them your idea. If they are not interested, then their friends might be. Most people are not looking for work, if they are working, and these are the people that you want to meet. So just invert your search, and instead of broadcasting, start focusing on the individual.