Don't Make These Hiring Mistakes

Michael, Harj, and Brad explain that much online hiring advice is meant for companies with product-market fit, while most startups are still searching for it. Applying scale-up advice too early can speed a startup’s decline. YC’s guidance depends on growth, runway, and whether the company has found product-market fit.

Brad describes founders who want to hire to build more features, ship mobile apps, or reach profitability faster, though salaries add to costs. Harj says headcount can become a misleading progress measure that impresses investors, customers, or friends. Brad adds that founders may hire an available person simply because they seem impressive.

The panel says founders may assume an experienced executive will solve sales or product problems, but a leader skilled at managing a large team may not know how to make the first sales calls or find the first customers. Founders are often best placed to learn what customers need and adjust the product. They also caution against assembling an executive team because successful companies have one.

The panel compares a startup to a company with one or two urgent fires and many smaller, uncertain issues; founders should focus on the urgent problems instead of hiring in anticipation of every possible future need. Early teams need to change direction quickly, and a larger team takes more coordination. Specialists can help when a specific problem appears: at Twitch, a video infrastructure expert helped reduce bandwidth costs after the company had already built its video system.

The panel says hiring makes sense when a company has product-market fit and accelerating growth, but early hiring can raise burn, shorten runway, and add people-management strain. They cite Airbnb taking about 18 months after launch to hire its first employee, and Stripe hiring slowly before ramping up. Their advice is to resolve uncertainty about product-market fit before hiring to address it.