What traits should we look for while hiring in an early-stage startup?
One of the most important lessons I have learned is to look for leadership skills in early employees in addition to the field expertise.
What are the qualities you think are vital when hiring in an early-stage startup?
How well we communicate with each other. In early-stage startup usually < 30-40 employees , it's essential we all get a long with each other and communicate what's going on in different components of the company. In startups we wear many hats but it's hard to bubble up the information to your co-workers about where the work was performed and how it's relevant to the company.
Give them a problem that's small in your company, for me it would be a software bug I know I can solve but I want to see how well we can solve it together because that's what they were going to do.
Also test them on their tools, what tools do they know how to implement and why they chose those tools: I use plotly for plotting and there's some significant reasons why - 1.) being interoperable.
Thank you. This is quite helpful ..working together towards a direction is the major thing for a early stage startup
I’d look for generalists with product, growth, flexibility, marketing, customer oriented mindset, people who can take ownership; those who’re able to make decisions with confidence and humility, being able to explain their why, and favour asking for forgiveness rather than permission; a preference for action over words (and are able to communicate effectively with the team).
Basically someone who’s “Indie Hacker Shaped” and has a reasonable amount of experience. Full stack SDLC / product development.
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This is quite insightful. Thanks a lot. I am constantly on the lookout for such people. Let me know if you know anyone.