Question: your startup can hire 5 staff members. Which skills do you hire first?
Hey all,
I've been thinking about this question for some time now: when startups are early stage - maybe even pre-market fit - what are the skillsets they most need to spend on with the budget they have?
I'm sure the answers will vary depending on industry, but maybe there's some constants? Maybe there are patterns that, regardless on brand, product or service, will always be a super valuable skillset that startups need to pay for.
If you had an annual budget for, let's say, 5 staff members - what skills are you hiring for first and why?
An early-stage SaaS startup needs:
Super early on, a good founder can handle 1, 4, 5.
Understand your strengths and limitations and you'll figure out the rest.
This is definitely a logical, sensible approach IMO. There's been a lot of talk in the comments about sales. Does that factor into the marketing piece for you?
Depends on what product you're selling and what is your initial market.
I'm assuming you're starting by selling to mice. There's no dedicated sales function there. Only marketing, developing a self-serve onboarding process, and customer success for the top-tier customers who will eventually push you upmarket (CS must also be performed by the founder(s) initially).
So bottom up, over time you will first develop a Customer Success department before Sales.
Not the original commenter but I am guessing that's under 4 (hence the relationships part on that point).
Or the above is more D2C business.
I would never hire 5 people if I were in pre-market fit.
Spend all you have, to first see the rubber hitting the road and get the initial traction, or the lack of.
I've been there and done that mistake :)
Great point! To expand on that, is there a point when you know it's time to quit? How much time or money does it take with lack of traction before you call it a day?
I would say you must investigate and create a believe in traction, before you start building the MVP. (I read somewhere that Jeff Bezos takes decisions when he is at least 70% convinced)
How much time and money building the MVP would take? that depends, but try to minimize to the extreme possible.
Then I would not go any further, unless I find customers that would pay (not just say that they like it).
These are my personal conclusions in retrospective, so just my two cents.
If I had a B2B, I would definitely hire
1 born-to-sell salesman,
3 technical people,
1 marketing superstar
with that order.
That's a reasonable approach, for sure! At what point do you start factoring in UX and user research to improve the product? And where does that fit in to your original answer, in your opinion? Who owns it?
My roadmap would be like the following
1- Build an MVP
2- Sell it
3- Get feedback
4- Improve the product
5- Scale up
6- Hire more people
7- Repeat
I can (and have) built an MVP myself as a technical guy. So the 2nd step is possible with a great salesman, I would be responsible for the 3rd step after switching my role to project/product manager (which I am more passionate about), 4th step is possible with a strong technical team, A marketing specialist would make the 5th step possible. I would start hiring people for UX, Product, and HR together with the previous roles at the 6th step at the end of the first iteration.
But all of this is hypothetical as my first employee in my first start-up attempt was my neighbor who I hired for having a vehicle (which I needed desperately) so that he could take me to the industrial sites to advertise the product. :)
Realities of the world. When you need to do business in the world practical will always kill the ideal.
So a 40/60 split between sales/marketing and dev. Are you a technical or non-technical founder?
I am technical but I would prefer to start working as a project/product manager if I was at the stage of hiring 5 people for the company.
That makes absolute sense. You can stay technical (like in the trenches technical) if you have a non-tech co-founder. But otherwise someone will be a frontperson for the business. Better for it to be one of the founders than a paid salesperson (who can leave at any time).
At this point where I am with https://geeksandexperts.com/, I think the most challenging bit has been sales, sales and more sales!! You can never have enough of sales, especially as CEO it has been tough because you can mostly hire PT talent to help with the tech build, and marketing is also something that can be done as you go. But being able to sell, without being salesy, and in an authentic way, and also telling your story is what will drive the initial traction. Wdyt?
I think you're right - certainly in my case, anyway. Not only are sales vital, but it's also the part I hate the most. I'm more introverted as a person, so being the shark or the hard seller isn't me. Even the soft sell approach is tough, and I legitimately think it's an impressive skill to be able to do it in an authentic, sell-like-you're-not-selling kind of way.
Nicely put, Norrie. Selling is a necessary evil!
This is going to be very situational, but in almost all scenarios the answers will be marketing and sales.
These are five people/skills you need to run the show.
-design
-build
-write
-distribute
-operate
Nice! Do you do it all initially? Or do you hire one person per skill? Is there a skill you absolutely can't/won't do from that list?
That depends. I would be okay with doing all of it, but soon enough try to focus on what I'm really good at and find other people to do the rest, either as cofounders or hire someone.
I think this shouldn't be prescriptive at all. Should be based upon a gap analysis done on your strategy.
Not just industry. Per market, sector, how your business is structured, etc. There are just too many variables for anything to be a constant.
So, check where the market is going, see where you are going to play, with that information sort your capabilities accordingly.
That's an interesting perspective, I like it. Where do your own strengths and weaknesses stand with that? When you're too busy to keep doing everything yourself, is there something you'd definitely offload first based on what you don't like doing?
I am a marketing generalist with a strategy focus.
I am not in active entrepreneurship phase at the moment. So anything I say would be hypothetical. Therefore what I offload will still be on what needs to be done.
For example is it SaaS? If so I'd offload dev/devops to someone - I don't actually trust in myself to handle a live production environment. Also the support -- it takes so much time from the valuable few you have. But if it is service, training, productivized service or infoproducts, I'd not need that.
Is it B2B? If so, I'd offload the sales support/ops (keeping track of, research, prep, etc) to someone - I am not bad at sales but it doesn't energize me. But in a B2B environment, there is nothing better than a founder to be in a sales meeting with a salesperson. It creates a serious weight. But if not B2B, I'd not need it.
Am I looking to integrate ML/AI to product? Than an ML focused dev. Because my understanding of that domain is extremely limited. But if is not ML, than I wouldn't need that.
That's why I wrote the original comment. It would depend on the situation.
1 dev
1 support
3 marketers
Marketing > Code, always.
Interesting. Would you consider yourself a technical or non-technical founder?
100% non-technical.
For my first company, I spent 10mo doing market research and blogging/networking while I interviewed agencies for the initial build. By the time I launched, I had about 3,000 email subscribers, which was pretty solid. I built that business up to 40 employees before selling last year.
This time around, I am doing the same thing, and it's working (focusing on marketing while I have contracted the build). Actually, I just tweeted about hiring some marketing folks.
Excellent! Sounds like a rinse and repeat, which is brilliant. If you've found what works, you've nailed it. Are you encountering any new issues this time around?
Thanks! I'd only clarify that I found "rinse and repeat" that works for me based on what I have an eye for in business. I'm heavily bias towards marketing/buzz building because that's an area I made work. There are dev-first folks who really do well too (but I think that a tech-first approach is a harder one based on the experiences of folks in my network).
This time around, my issue is patience. Content marketing, for example, takes a long time to yield results. Even more today than when I first did it back in 2012/2013.
Well received. Makes sense.
I am founder AI2sql. I would hire a marketing manager, a salesperson, and a business development manager.
Nice, thanks for the insight! Are you currently doing everything on your own?
Yes, I am a solo founder ;)
And the remaining 2?
Also, are you a technical founder or a non-technical one?
technical one :)
1 would be the most important IMO, sets the foundation to valuable, long term, growth and user acquisition. 2 and 4 are just important support roles for growth. 3 is something I think you need for short term growth but you would always use it. 5 to obviously build the product.
When you say "paid marketer" you mean performance/direct-response advertising? Like PPC?
Also, do you identify as a technical or non-technical founder?
I would probably pick one paid media type to start, probably Google PPC, or maybe Facebook.
Eh, I never really worried about the labels. I've built basic stuff myself, the current startup I built with no code but I don't have the expertise to take it to huge levels, at some point I will need to hire an actual developer or professional.
Hmm, I hear you. So your expertise is split? Or would you say you have a focus domain?
Personally for VCvsME.com ?
I'd go with: 1. Marketing. 2. Marketing 3. Marketing. 4. Marketing. 5. Software Development and UX.
Nice! You're the first person to mention UX, which is fascinating given its popularity in the full-time employee markets globally right now. Have you made a first hire yet? Or are you working up to it?
I would adjust this to marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, sales lol
Wow, 80/20 split. This is definitely one of the more marketing-focused splits in this thread.
Do you consider yourself as a technical or a non-technical founder?
I'm a technical co-founder although that's a bit of a vague term, I can "code". With VCvsME.com however, it's built in Bubble - but it's my first Bubble application. @studiostack No, I have not made my first hire, working on it.
The biggest variable I have seen is the price of your product. If it's a cheap self-service product, like 10-200 USD/month, you will die without marketing skills in-house.
Then I would have 1 or 2 people covering marketing/operations/support and 3 engineers/product guys.
If it's an expensive product, like 200-5000 USD/mo, at least 1 sales role (best case: a founder) is needed. Marketing is less important here. Especially early game.
I personally feel that the initial hires should tilt towards engineering. In the early stages, it's essential to ship fast and that, to a significant extent, correlates with the number of engineers you have.
Regarding sales/marketing, there should definitely be a member of the founding team doing it, but if we're talking five people I'm assuming the company either managed to raise or to bootstrap decently. In that case I'd add a sales guy and a marketer. In our specific case, the marketers are an outside agency.
Founders included, I'd go with something like:
3 engineers
marketer
sales guy
in that order.
In general, you want to hire do-ers and generalists in the early days. It's good to have one "Program Manager" that can serve a chief of staff type role. Assuming a software business and a product-minded founder, you'll then need a Head of Engineering, Head of Marketing and Head of Finance.
Try hiring for areas where skills are close to zero.
3x developers (or 2 developers and 1 technical architect/administrator)
1x designer
1x marketer
All staff should help with marketing, business strategy, technical design, visual design, documentation (including customer FAQ's), customer support, etc.
Version 1.0 of the product should be 'just good enough' to justify, obtain and retain customers. Get to this ASAP. It's easier to market a product that exists, even in basic form.
Once you start getting customers, improve the visual design, add/enhance functionality and up the marketing.
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