Founders- Hiring the best talent is your most important job.

Don't take my word for it, the title is a quote from Steve Jobs. Not an infallible leader for sure, but he knew a thing or two about building a great, and very valuable company. 

No matter how good you are, or your founding team. Without a great team, great hires, you will never achieve the best outcome for your team or your business.

But hiring as a start up is tough in so many ways. You're low on bandwidth and time, low probably on cash, low maybe in hiring experience. Spinning multiple plates and focused on your north star metric, which is unlikely to be hiring great people (though maybe it should be!!). So how can you hire well under these circumstances?

This is a topic I've given workshops on for both Techstars and Rockstart cleantech accelerators. Over the coming weeks I'll share some highlights of that workshop, and my 9 Tips for Hiring strategically import talent into your start-up

1- Plan to hire, don’t hire to plan

Founders that have just raised a Seed round often start by thinking ‘We have just raised $m so we should start hiring people’. You’re already on the back foot, possibly under pressure from your investors to deploy the capital and grow, this can lead to poor or rushed hiring decision. You are in for a world of pain if you are not prepared and ready to hire the best. Being reactive is never a good place to start. The cost of a bad hire goes way beyond the financial cost, large as that can be. Plan ahead.

Better to think in advance

As a CEO and/or Founding team, these are some of the questions you should be asking yourselves, and taking actions, to give your company the greatest chance to hire the best talent.

'To raise a successful Series X, we need to hit specific milestones by 12/18/24 months from now, and in particular we need to generate a certain amount of revenue by that time' (or hit a TRL, MVP or other key to get to where you (and your investors) need you to be).

• Who (what roles/skills) do we need to have in the organisation to hit these milestones (and that revenue target)?
• Who do we already have that can do those things exceptionally well?
• Where and when will we need these resources? (people)
• What gaps do we have in the organisation? Create draft job roles and responsibilities to address these gaps.

These are just for starters, over the next few weeks I'll share more of the questions, insights and actions you need to secure the strategically important hires you need for success. If you are a founder/CEO and impatient for the answers, or want more 'meat on the bones' of these topics, contact me via email or Linked In.

David