Your First 5-10 Hires

Your first ~5-10 hires are disproportionately important compared to all future hires

They build the foundations of your culture; are we a startup that will do whatever it takes (legally and morally) to win, keeping standards high whilst enjoying the startup grind?

They become “Talent Magnets” attracting other top talent to join you, through the strength of their own network, and from their past achievements signalling that your startup is worth paying attention to.

They set the baseline normal for how you work; speed you release updates at, how involved with users you are, ideas they bring from past companies, new processes, technologies etc.

They influence your role and focus as the founder; if you hire the right skills and fully trust your team to execute without you, this frees up your time to work “on the business” instead of “in the business”.

So what signals should you look for?


Strong Signals of Early-Stage Startup Fit

Hands-on builder mindset
• Shipped full products solo or with a tiny team
• Built internal tools that saved previous teams 100s of hours
• Participated in or won hackathons or build sprints
• Maintains active open-source projects or technical blog

Early-stage exposure
• First ~15 employees at any startup (even if it failed)
• Stayed through multiple rounds of scaling (e.g. Series A → C)
• Took on hybrid roles wearing many different hats
• Early hire at Palantir or similar who left post-IPO - intentionally chose early-stage chaos over comfort

Founder or founder-adjacent
• Former founder or early CTO (even if they shut it down)
• Was no.2 or right-hand to a founder
• Helped scale a team and led hiring alongside IC work

Generalist adaptability
• Switched stacks or roles based on team needs
• Self-taught new tools/languages to unblock progress
• Built and iterated MVPs fast with limited resources

Mission-driven
• Chose roles based on mission, not prestige
• Genuine deep interest in your domain (side projects, personal story etc.)
• Left a stable job to join an early-stage or risky startup before

High ownership & communication
• Took lead on cross-functional projects
• Product focused -  interfaced with customers or non-tech teams
• Mentored juniors while still contributing as IC