Hiring a developer was a GREAT call
by ArdyA developer friend of mine told me a few weeks ago he quit his job and is now looking for opportunities, in case I know someone who's hiring. I wasn't planning on hiring a developer before my product has some traction, mainly because I'm bootstrapping the business with my personal savings, but I have a lot of trust in this person, so I decided to take a chance and hire him. However, we decided that he should spend a few weeks on learning about some of the technologies I'm using (Typescript, GraphQL, AWS Lambda, Chrome extension APIs, ...) before he starts.
He started on Feb 25th, and within a few days he was making valuable contributions. Now I feel MUCH more comfortable stepping away from product development sometimes to focus on strategy, sales & marketing, and talking to customers. And I'm much more confident we'll be able to send invitations to our early users before the end of this month.
A few things that helped:
- Using Typescript! He said the typescript types are like documentation to him (even though this is his first TS project). This, and the few weeks he spent on learning, made the onboarding extremely easy and quick even though the project is quite complex from a technical perspective.
- Having enough savings! I worked as a full-time employee for 6 years and saved aggressively. I could have quit earlier, but I wanted to have enough savings to be able to hire people and spend some on marketing if I need to. It wasn't only about covering my living expenses.
- Knowing the person. This took a lot of hiring challenges away. I fully trust him, and I know he is incredibly smart and passionate about what he does.
- Working remotely. I plan to keep the startup remote and not get an office. My friend is in another country and I couldn't hire him if I wasn't open to (and used to) collaborating remotely.
