At what point does one go from the feeling that they have to do everything themselves to make sure it's right to actually taking the leap of faith to hiring someone. I feel like I am constantly bottle necking growth, but it gets scary. What experiences have you guys had with this? What does it feel like to hire your first employee?
"What does it feel like to hire your first employee?"
It's terrifying. Not just because you're changing something you're used to and giving up control, but because you are becoming somewhat responsible for someone's livelihood - they are literally banking on you to help them live, eat, support family, etc. If you run out of work, what's going to pay their rent?
I started a web dev studio in '98 with a friend. After 6-7 years, he moved to London, wanting to work there, and I was a sole trader, using a few freelancers.
Today, I have a full-timer, a 0.7ish (who cranks out stuff fast enough to be considered a full-timer) and take on paid trainees from time to time. I pay myself much less than I did when I was a sole trader but it doesn't really bother me - I get a lot out of providing fun opportunities for two young employees.
But before my first hire, I ummed and aahed for a long, long time. I made half-hearted efforts to find someone and usually bailed before committing. In the end, I gave a young, less-than-qualified but fast-learning, good-hearted kid a trial and he did well. I can't even remember reading his resumé but we met at a café to talk things over, got on fine and I can remember that he could spell "definitely" in his emails. Sounds trivial, but the HN post the other week about "when in doubt, always hire the better writer" really resonated with me - when you're letting someone loose contacting the clients you've nurtured for 5-10 years, you don't want them embarrassing you. You need to trust them and it's easier if they show care and can spell.
I've never regretted that hiring, nor my second one either. They have jobs for as long as I can keep the money coming in to pay them. Either my character-barometer is sound or I got really lucky.
Terrifying to begin with, but rewarding later.
The only problem now is that I'm still the bottleneck. At 3-5 people, we're big enough to need a production manager, but too small to be able to afford one. All the worst parts of small business magnify too - even with an accountant and bookkeeper, there are more boring and annoying parts to deal with than ever, and I have sacrificed salary to bring employees on board. But it's tough to jump from sole trader to a ten-person team, so perhaps this is just a rough intermediary step.
A few keys:
- start them on a trial
- pick someone who fits your working culture (we are all very social in this shared office) and is a good personality fit
- pick the person that can spell "definitely"
- you might need to make sacrifices to take that next step
- don't worry about running out of work to keep them busy, just roll the dice. As my friend is wont to say: No balls, no babies.
Hiring someone has it's own set of challenges and issues you'll need to deal with, so if it's new territory to you, I'd highly recommend getting a VA or paying for hourly assistance.
That'll make for a smoother and easier transition. Ideally you can find someone who can scale out with you, and perhaps even become your first fulltime employee.
A point I would make about 'Vision Over Job Description':
I think it's vital to also be open about the need for a generalist. If all you do is give someone a title (plus vision), there's going to be enough of a role associated with that title to create a set of expectations. It's easy to put someone in a position early on where they think, 'an x doesn't do y, what's going on?'
Even for a low-level employee, I would consider doing salary plus equity if they're the first on board. I've seen it work before.
Another point I think is critical is if you expect someone to come on board and wear all hats, you'd better make sure you're willing to do it as well. If you're working all hours to make your business grow it will be easier for your employees to swallow.
If they think they're working more than you they'll leave and that's hard to recover from, at least in the sort term. Losing a team member hurts everyone's morale, especially your own.
We found our intern with the intention to hire if we found a good fit. (And he found us by my comments here on HN!) I described somebody who was interested in wearing many hats from admin to programmer, with at least some programming/Ruby experience, and voila!
We lucked out on the first try and we will be employing him as soon as we can get the paperwork together.
I highly recommend this type of approach for junior devs, do-it-all peeps, and even admins.
Also, from my hiring days in corporations, my more general recommendations:
* hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you are totally crunched)
* ask them what they read on their own time
* figure out why they do what they do (or do what the job description says)
A smart, motivated, passionate, conscientious person with not-quite-enough experience will quickly bring herself/himself up to speed. On the other hand, a person with the exact skillset you need may be unbearable.
As for the money, well, we're a 2-person company. We have not just our SaaS product, but live training courses, etc. Yes, it's kind of scary to employ somebody, but we figured out that, worst case, we can just do one training course a month to cover the monthly salary of our new addiction. That's a good trade.
> hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you are totally crunched)
I wish everyone in a position to hire thought like this. The overall quality of developers in the industry would improve sharply, for one. Programmers as a whole might be a less bitter lot, as well.
yeah, but attitude alone doesn't build products. If we are talking for just some simple web app, then that is fine, but if you are doing anything that is technically challenging, you better have somebody experienced on the first 2-3 employees you hire.
You need both energy/passion, but also somebody that is good and has experienced a lot, both successes and failures.
One thing I noticed really good engineers with experience tend to be a bit more pessimistic/opinionated by nature, and also more pragmatic. They can anticipate problems down the road (where a junior engineer would think everything is jolly), while avoid over-engineering. Junior programmers are more likely to either over or under engineer; brush potential problems as "insignificant", or grossly underestimate what it takes to get something done.
Most of us have been there at some point. But also a junior engineer might bring your fresh energy to the mix.
But remember, really good engineers, with experience,and with passion and great attitudes, are hard to find. Mainly b/c they have no problem to find a job.
