When your startup is up and running, thinking about hiring full-time employees can be a daunting experience. Hiring the first employees in a company can set a precedent for the culture and values of the company. We have put together useful guides and templates to ease you into taking this important step.
After startups raise money, their next biggest problem becomes hiring. It turns out it’s both really hard and really important to hire good people; in fact, it’s probably the most important thing a founder does.
If you don’t hire very well, you will not be successful—companies are a product of the team the founders build. There is no way you can build an important company by yourself. It’s easy to delude yourself into thinking that you can manage a mediocre hire into doing good work. Here is some advice about hiring.
The WHO method for sourcing, interviews and references.
Many CEOs think the chief financial officer (CFO) is a utility position. It’s easy to see the CFO as a glorified “scorekeeper” reporting arrears on things like revenue, expenses, profit/losses, and cash flow/burn. But this work is actually a very small part of a CFO’s larger value: A good CFO doesn’t just keep the “score” — he or she puts points on the board. If hired and managed properly, they can become a superstar on the executive team.
In a startup, the chief marketing officer (CMO) is usually one of two critical positions responsible for driving growth, alongside the head of sales. Essentially, CMOs are responsible for — and held accountable for metrics-wise — growing the company’s base of users/customers. They are also responsible for increasing revenue and profits; driving engagement and retention; and leading creative, brand, and communications strategies.
When hiring a new employee, the emails can get endless. Coordinating interviews, checking references, assembling offer letters — at times it feels like you’ll be emailing people for the rest of your life. Well, not anymore. This resource contains a set of email templates that you can easily tailor for every stage of the hiring process. Simply copy and paste the template and fill in the blanks to make each piece your own.
This post is advice for early-stage startup founders who are hiring their first engineer. At this stage, traditional recruiting methods e.g. hiring a recruiter won’t work as well for you as they do for larger companies.
There’s no debating that the most important asset of your company is your team. So when building your team, why wouldn’t you want to approach it with the same rigour that you approach building a product. With every new job requisition you create, it’s critical to create a unique sourcing strategy to attract and hire the right candidates.
Enabling your team by ceding control is tough, so here’s my advice.
You’ve found the perfect candidate and the stars are aligning. There is just one problem. The candidate can’t or won’t relocate but you still want her to join your company. You’re trying to build a great culture at HQ but really want to hire this person. What are the necessary steps to build remote and distributed teams?
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