Look for these 3 qualities in your startup’s first hire

Having been a human resources and recruiting leader at three SaaS startups, I’ve seen firsthand the kinds of early hires that make a company successful. These very first hires, second to the CEO, differed in age, gender, parental status, etc., but shared a number of qualities whose “secret sauce” recipe I’m excited to pass on.

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The starting line: hard non-negotiables for your search

Let’s start with a few basic criteria that are table stakes for this very important hiring decision. Without them, it should be “game over” for any potential candidates. Your first hire needs to be:

• A great communicator From building your product to connecting with customers to setting and delivering on expectations, communication is at the center. Without the fundamental ability to understand and be understood, nothing else matters. The first hires referenced above were all amazing communicators, in good times and bad.
  

• A hard worker The very definition of a startup is a company that's building something out of nothing. Putting in many hours of hard work is a must. Your first hire will accept and live this reality from day one.
  

• Trustworthy As a founder, you have sacrificed time, money, and energy for your business. You’ve paid the opportunity cost to chart a new path. Find someone who will not jeopardize or squander your investments. Make sure you hire someone you trust.
  

Of course, it's easier to assess people you know personally or from your previous professional life on these basic qualities. Referrals from people you trust will also help you understand these qualities quickly. While it’s true that “good people refer good people,” a completely unknown candidate can be amazing too. Here are the three key traits that those candidates should have:

1. Adventurous: first hire at a startup is a ride not for the faint of heart

When evaluating your potential hire, my advice is to sidestep the comfortable, slightly bored Fortune 500 manager or employee who thinks a startup sounds “fun.” Startups are uncomfortable and nothing like large companies. Despite being enthusiastic, a corporate Joe or Jane may not be able to change drastically enough to be successful in a startup.

You want an unconventional pioneer, which I’ve seen in two slightly different packages. When I was at Company A, their first hire was early on in their career and didn’t want to climb the ladder of corporate America. They were energetic, crazy smart, learned quickly, and were wise beyond their years. At Company B, their first hire was very experienced and knowledgeable about how to run companies and had recently shifted into entrepreneurship. Upon meeting the CEO and subscribing to their vision, the first hire was a perfect “integrator” to the “visionary” CEO (terms from Traction's Entrepreneurial Operating System). 

Your company is likely doing something that has never been done or is disrupting the ways of a decades-old industry. As freeing and fulfilling as it is to build a startup, the road to success is long and winding. Your companion needs to be resilient and see the journey as its own reward. 

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2. Accountable: a company of two means taking ownership of decisions and mistakes

Without a team reporting to them, your first hire needs to be both a leader and an individual contributor. At Company B, the first hire was an execution Swiss Army Knife. They ran sales demos, were the first point of contact to customers, and managed all the internal software (they used the Google Suite). They didn’t delegate. They just got shit done, in spades, all day, every day.

Speaking of shit: it happens. Will your co-pilot own their role in short-comings and mistakes? There is no “they” in a startup—when things go wrong, it won’t be marketing’s or distribution’s fault. Whatever the gap was, it should have been discovered and addressed by us, not “them.” Your co-pilot needs to be willing to take responsibility for hiccups and make things right.

Your first hire also needs to think like an owner when making decisions, especially those about the company’s limited resources. As an HR leader, I daydream about signing up for a certain $20,000 applicant tracking system—one that would make my life so much easier. My enthusiasm is tempered, however, by the startup frugality I’ve adopted. I know and accept that if I had to spend my own money on it, I wouldn’t. Your first hire needs to think this way too.

3. Acting through ambiguity: can they push through when there’s no clear direction?

I worked for a software company that was trying to be the first to bring an innovative product into the market. There was no playbook to consult because we were creating something that didn’t exist. We just had to ship the product, with the understanding we would iterate and pay off technical debt later. In short: we couldn’t be perfect.

While perfect might be the enemy of good, not everyone is comfortable being imperfect. Many people, in pursuit of being good at their jobs and producing quality work, want to see more information or more data before acting. Startups aren’t the place for analysis paralysis. Hire someone who is comfortable with being good, not perfect, and who has a bias for action.

Because there is often no clear path in startups, the people in them face ambiguity, or not being able to go “by the letter.” Personally, I ran into this situation with a startup breakroom trope—the kegerator (a.k.a. having beer on tap on company premises). Had I gone “by the letter,” there would have been no alcohol at all, but I maneuvered the ambiguity and was able to find compromise between fun and safety during happy hour: I was the bartender and would serve each employee aged 21 or over one 12 oz. glass of beer, served with pizza. After one hour, if the employee wanted another beer, they got one more, end of story. Your first startup hire needs to think in this balanced way every day.

I hope you found a nugget somewhere in this blog. Successful first startup hires can come in many different packages, but they all prioritize doing things differently, owning up to their actions, and making things happen when there aren’t rules to follow. Happy hiring!