Hiring & Team

How to think about building your founding and early team.

Build · 6 min

What is this?

Early hiring is less about filling a formal org chart and more about finding people whose skills cover what the founders can't do themselves, and who can operate with real ownership before there's much process in place.

This includes co-founders, first employees, and early advisors.

Why it matters

Investors evaluate teams partly by asking "why is this specific group of people unusually capable of solving this specific problem?" Thoughtful early hiring also directly determines what your company can actually build and sell.

Step by step

1Identify the gaps in your founding team's skills honestly — technical, business, domain expertise, or sales.
2Prioritize people who can operate with ambiguity and ownership, since early-stage roles rarely have a fixed job description.
3Be explicit about equity, vesting, and expectations before someone joins, not after.
4Reference-check thoroughly — a bad early hire is disproportionately costly on a small team.
5Bring in advisors for specific gaps (e.g. a regulated industry, a technical domain) rather than hiring full-time for a narrow need.

What good looks like

You can explain, for each early hire, the specific gap they filled — not just "we needed more people."

Common mistakes

Hiring only people similar to the existing founders, leaving real skill gaps uncovered.
Skipping vesting or clear equity terms because "we trust each other."
Hiring too far ahead of actual need, burning cash before it's needed.
Avoiding a hard conversation about a mis-hire for too long on a small team.

Checklist

You can name the specific skill gaps your founding team has today.
Every early team member's equity and vesting terms are clear and in writing.
You've done real reference checks on key early hires.
You've considered an advisor instead of a full-time hire for narrow, specific gaps.