Startup Hiring and Management

Early hiring and people systems that do not collapse the team’s speed. Focus: first hires, clear roles, structured interviews, lightweight management cadence, and separation when needed.

When to Use

• Planning first 1-10 hires and sequencing roles
• Writing role scorecards and interview plans
• Designing an interview loop and evaluating candidates consistently
• Offers, compensation and equity basics (conceptual; align with counsel/accounting)
• Onboarding and delegation habits
• Installing a management cadence (1:1s, goals, feedback)
• Performance improvement plans (PIPs) and termination process

When NOT to Use

• Deep legal employment advice -> startup-legal-basics
• Org design at scale (50+ people) without additional context

Common Mistakes

• Hiring without a role scorecard -> scope creep and misaligned expectations
• Over-indexing on pedigree over demonstrated outcomes
• Skipping structured interviews -> inconsistent evaluation, bias
• No 30-day milestone -> slow feedback on hire quality
• Delaying hard conversations -> performance issues compound
• Hiring ahead of need -> cash burn without impact

Quick Start (Inputs)

• Stage: pre-revenue, early revenue, post-PMF
• Bottleneck: shipping, sales, support, growth, operations
• Budget: cash runway constraints and compensation philosophy
• Role: the next role you want to hire, and why now

Workflow

1. Decide the hiring sequence (not just “who sounds good”)

• Start from the bottleneck to revenue and retention.
• Define what the founder will stop doing after the hire.

2. Write a role scorecard

• Use assets/role-scorecard.md.
• Include: outcomes, scope, non-goals, competencies, and must-have experience signals.

3. Design the interview loop

• Use assets/interview-loop-plan.md.
• Reduce bias: structured questions, score rubric, and independent scoring.

4. Run references and make an offer

• Use assets/offer-checklist.md.
• Decide compensation ranges and equity band (conceptual, validated externally).

5. Onboard fast with outcomes

• Use assets/onboarding-30-60-90.md.
• Define “first shipped value” and how you will measure it.

6. Manage with a lightweight cadence

• Weekly 1:1 agenda (use assets/1-1-agenda.md).
• Clear goals and feedback loops; avoid “silent misalignment.”

Resources

Templates

Data

What Good Looks Like

• The next hire removes a real bottleneck and changes what the founder does weekly.
• Interviewing is structured; decisions are explainable and repeatable.
• New hires ship a measurable outcome in the first 30 days.