(AKA building a company, as one intern put it ‘it ain’t easy’)
I’ve been through several startups, across roles from engineering to business development. After very successful valley giants, my own unsuccessful startup, a very small part of two companies that actually went through the IPO and back to startups in the seed/A stage and advising a few others, some things have become clear. Rather, some observations and notes/advice from seniors have crystallized.
Startups, or rather modern age companies (lets face it, every industry seems to have upstarts disrupting the entire industry seem to be everywhere) seem to have one theme that is almost all too common, so common that I am writing this note.
Every startup at the start of its journey is an unproven model. Especially if the founders are first time founders. They don’t have good funding and the odds are overwhelmingly against them. So who would take a chance on such a company? Someone who doesn’t have a lot to lose. What I am about to say is politically incorrect. So I’ll say it. Usually it’s people who couldn’t get into the safer, more lucrative(probability adjusted) versions of those startups that survive and beat the odds. Of course there are some who just want to work in really small companies.

What we see is that overtime the hiring bar keeps evolving. The following are some high correlation phases:
> Seed/Series A
Here we see the founders, who are generally very driven and very high caliber bring in their friends, who they might hold in high regard. But, generally great people have great options. So they end up getting people who aren’t necessarily A-team. These people bring in other non A-team (often times much lower quality even). This becomes a problem, very soon. It leads to some ugliness as we will soon see.
> Series B-C
This stage is rather interesting. This is where you get the ‘really smart but not founder material’ people come in. They are the ones who truly take the company to the next level. These employees are the reason, other than a great idea that has found its time (aka the mythical PMF), that your company will thrive. They bring the best in class thinking your startup needs from solid data architectures to hiring practices. Treat them very well. It will be hard. Many of them are colloquially known as brilliant assholes.
> Series D-Pre IPO funding
This is where your startup will be best placed to acquire talent. The streetcred is highest. The attractiveness is super high. Save your later stage key hires for these roles. Given them good responsibilities, set them up for success. Manage internal politics well. You will make the earlier stage employees uncomfortable. Some of the ‘lucky early hires’ will start to leave at this point. Its hard to mix oil and water.
> Pre-IPO
This is when you will need to drop your hiring bar. There is simply too much demand, and if you keep prices too high(the bar) you won’t find many qualified buyers(people who can cross your bar). You might not want to do this. But it’ll be necessary. Your teams simply can’t get to the IPO requisite readiness and growth rates. I’ve been through two where I found this to be structurally true.
> Post-IPO
This is where you can raise the bar slightly again. Your equity is now de-risked by a little bit. And at this point it’s very unlikely you care as much. It’s probably been several years of very hard work.
The reality of it all becomes very clear, very quickly.
Anyone who’s worked in young, early stage company with a limited runway knows the challenges of being able to hire.
Some tips, therefore:
- Hire for hustle to begin with, it’ll go the longest of all dimensions in making sure your startup at least stays afloat
- Hire for culture fit. This is critical. Do *not* hire VP level staff without a strong culture fit. Hiring a bigCo person is likely a mistake at early stages
- Be generous with equity. The value an extra 10 bps brings is crazy.
Best of luck!
