first-hires-playbook

First Hires Playbook

Overview

Your first 10 hires define your company's trajectory more than any product decision. The mistake: hiring generalists with "good vibes" instead of role-specific operators who can build the function from zero. This skill covers when to hire each critical first role, how to write job descriptions that attract builders (not corporate ladder-climbers), interview design, compensation, and offer construction.

Authoritative Foundations

• SaaStr/Jason Lemkin — First VP hiring benchmarks — First VP hiring benchmarks
• Elad Gil — High Growth Handbook (hiring executives) — High Growth Handbook (hiring executives)
• Molly Graham — Giving away your Legos (scaling teams) — Giving away your Legos (scaling teams)
• Patty McCord — Powerful (Netflix culture, hiring for density) — Powerful (Netflix culture, hiring for density)
• Claire Hughes Johnson — Scaling People (Stripe COO) — Scaling People (Stripe COO)
• First Round Review — Hiring playbooks — Hiring playbooks

When to Use

Trigger phrases: "first hire", "first engineer", "first CS hire", "hiring playbook", "founding team", "early hires", "when to hire marketing", "first product hire", "hiring timeline by ARR stage"

Hiring Timeline by ARR

Role	When	Why Then
Founding Engineer	$0-500K	Build product alongside you
First SDR	$500K-1M	Prove outbound repeatability
First AE	$1-2M	Founder transitions from selling
First CSM	$1-2M	Churn becomes math problem
First Marketer	$2-4M	Content engine needs owner
First Product Manager	$3-5M	You can't be PM + CEO anymore
Head of Engineering	$3-5M	ICs need technical leadership
VP Finance/Ops	$5-10M	Financial complexity demands it
VP People	$10-20M	50+ employees needs people ops
First Data Analyst	$3-5M	Decisions need data, not gut

Step-by-Step Process

Phase 1: Role Definition

Every first hire solves a specific business constraint, not a general "we need help" feeling. Define the constraint first:

• "I'm the bottleneck on product velocity" → Founding Engineer
• "I can't do enough discovery calls" → First SDR
• "I'm closing deals but churn is killing NRR" → First CSM
• "No one knows we exist" → First Marketer
• "I'm making decisions without data" → First Analyst

Job description architecture for first hires:

1. Why this role exists: "We're at $XM ARR, growing X% MoM. The constraint preventing us from reaching $YM is [specific constraint]. You'll own solving that."
2. What you'll do: 5-7 bullet points. Each starts with a verb. Each is measurable. No "help with" — only "own," "build," "design," "hire."
3. Who you are: Traits, not years of experience. "You've built X from scratch" > "7+ years of experience."
4. Why join now: Specific to this stage. "You'll be hire #8, shape the GTM function, and grow into VP as we scale."

Anti-patterns to avoid in JDs:

• "Rockstar/Ninja/Wizard" (cringe, filters out serious candidates)
• "7+ years of experience" (irrelevant for early stage — what did you BUILD?)
• "Nice to have: MBA" (filters out operators)
• Generic company description (candidates judge your writing — show taste)

Phase 2: Sourcing

Where first hires come from (in order of effectiveness):

1. Your network (warm intros — highest signal)
2. Investor network (VC talent partners, portfolio company alumni)
3. Targeted outbound (find people doing the exact role at companies 1-2 stages ahead of you)
4. Communities ( Pavilion, RevGenius, Lenny's community, specific Slack groups for the function)
5. Job boards (Work at a Startup, Wellfound, YC Jobs — avoid Indeed/LinkedIn spray unless you love filtering 500 resumes)

Outbound sourcing template:

Subject: [Mutual connection] said you're the best [role] in SaaS

Hi [name],

[Mutual connection] mentioned you when I asked "who's the best [role] you've
worked with?"

We're [company] — $X ARR, X% MoM growth, [one-line value prop]. We're hiring
our first [role] to [specific mission].

No obligation — would you be open to a 15-minute call to see if this is
interesting? Happy to share details but no pressure either way.

Best,
[Your name]

Phase 3: Interview Process

5-stage process for first hires (2-week clock):

1. Screen (30 min): "Why are you interested? What have you built? What's your superpower?" Also: check for stage-fit. Someone who thrived at Google may drown at a 10-person startup.

2. Work sample / Case study (async): Give them a REAL problem you're facing. For a marketer: "Here's our ICP. Write the first 3 emails of a nurture sequence." For an engineer: "Here's a bug report. How would you debug it?" Real work > hypotheticals.

3. Deep dive (60 min): Walk through their work sample. Ask: "Walk me through your thinking." "What would you do differently with more time?" "What assumptions did you make?" This reveals HOW they think, not just what they produced.

4. Team / Culture (30 min): 2-3 team members. Assess: "Do I want to work with this person at 10pm on a Wednesday?" Technical skill is table stakes. Low-ego, high-ownership, direct communicators win at early stage.

5. Founder close (30 min): Sell the vision. Answer their hard questions. Ask: "What would make you say no?" Address concerns directly. Give them a decision timeline: "We'll have an answer by Friday."

Red flags across all stages:

• Blames previous employer/team for failures
• Can't articulate what they specifically built vs what their team built
• "I managed X" — you need builders, not managers (for first hires)
• No questions about the business (not curious = not invested)
• Takes more than 24 hours to return the work sample

Phase 4: Compensation

First 10 hire compensation framework:

Role	Salary Range	Equity	Notes
Founding Engineer	$140-200K	1-3%	Technical co-founder territory at low end
First AE	$80-120K base / $160-240K OTE	0.2-0.5%	50/50 split
First SDR	$50-70K base / $80-110K OTE	0.1-0.3%	Variable-heavy
First CSM	$80-120K	0.2-0.5%	+ variable for expansion
First Marketer	$100-150K	0.3-0.8%	Head of/VP trajectory
First PM	$120-170K	0.3-0.8%	Often promoted from within
Head of Eng	$170-220K	0.5-1.5%	Critical — don't cheap out

Equity rules of thumb for first 10 hires:

• 4-year vest, 1-year cliff, monthly thereafter
• Early exercise options (83b election — let them buy equity before it's valuable)
• Extended exercise window (10 years post-departure, not 90 days — this is standard for progressive startups)
• Be transparent: tell them the company's 409A valuation, total shares, and what their ownership % means

Phase 5: Offer & Close

Offer letter essentials:

• Role, start date, reporting structure
• Salary, equity (number of shares + % of company), any variable comp
• Benefits summary
• At-will employment statement
• Confidentiality and IP assignment (attached separately)

Closing first hires:

• Speed matters. Top candidates get 3+ offers. Move from final interview to offer in under 48 hours.
• Give a deadline: "Offer is open until Friday at 5pm." Avoid exploding offers (less than 72 hours) unless there's genuine competitive pressure.
• Sell the stage: "At your last company you were hire #200. Here you'll be hire #8 and own the entire function. In 2 years you'll be VP."
• Involve your investors: Have lead investor call the candidate. It signals seriousness and gives them a relationship.

Onboarding: First 90 Days

Week 1: Context

• "Here's everything: metrics, customers, problems, constraints."
• Meet every team member 1:1
• Read every customer call recording from last 30 days
• Shadow you for 2 days

Week 1-2: First win

• Give them a project they can ship in week 1-2. Something visible. Build confidence and credibility.

Week 3-4: Ownership

• Define their metrics: "You own X. We'll review weekly."
• Give them budget authority within their domain
• Let them make mistakes — don't micromanage

Month 2-3: Scaling

• They should be operating independently by day 60
• Weekly 1:1s (30 min) with CEO
• They start documenting their process (for their future hires)

Output Format

FIRST HIRES PLAN

Hiring Stage: Pre-Seed / Seed / Series A
Current ARR: $X M
Current Headcount: X

Hiring Priorities (next 12 months):
1. [Role] — hire by [month], because [constraint]
2. [Role] — hire by [month], because [constraint]
...

Compensation Budget: $X/year total new comp
Equity Budget: X% remaining in option pool

Per-Role Plan:
- Job description (link)
- Interview panel: [names]
- Target start date: [date]
- Sourcing channels: [specific communities, networks, outbound targets]

Implementation Checklist

• Every role solves a specific business constraint, not general "help"
• Job descriptions are constraint-first, not generic
• Work sample is a real problem from your business
• Interview process designed and panel assigned before sourcing begins
• Compensation benchmarked against stage, not public company bands
• Equity communicated as % of company, not just number of shares
• Offer-to-close timeline under 48 hours from final interview
• 90-day onboarding plan written before offer goes out
• Extended exercise window (10-year) in equity docs

Quality Check

Before delivering, verify:

• Output matches the user's stated request
• Named frameworks or sources are reflected in the recommendation
• The deliverable is specific enough for an agent to execute
• Any assumptions, risks, or dependencies are explicit
• No unsupported claims, invented facts, or private/internal references are included

Common Pitfalls

1. Hiring ahead of the pain. "We'll need a marketing team eventually" is not a reason to hire a marketer at $500K ARR. The role will be undefined, they'll flounder, you'll fire them, it'll cost $50K+ in severance and recruiter fees. Fix: Hire when the constraint is active and painful, not theoretical.

2. Hiring for pedigree over stage-fit. The ex-Google PM who's never talked to a customer will fail at a 10-person startup. Fix: Prioritize "built it from zero" over "managed a $100M product line."

3. Under-equitying first hires. If you give first hires 0.1% and expect founder-level ownership mentality, you'll get employee-level effort. Fix: First 5 hires: 0.5-3%. First 10: 0.2-1.5%. These numbers scale down fast — hire #50 gets 0.05%.

4. Slow offer process. Top candidates are off the market in 2 weeks. If your process takes 4+ weeks, you'll only hire people who can't get offers elsewhere. Fix: 5 stages, 10 business days, offer in 48 hours.

5. Skipping the work sample. Interviews measure interview skills. Work samples measure work skills. The correlation between them is weaker than you think. Fix: Every role gets a real work sample before the final round.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This skill provides general informational guidance based on publicly available frameworks and operator experience. It is NOT legal advice, accounting advice, tax advice, financial advice, insurance advice, or professional services advice.

Consult qualified professionals for your specific situation — attorneys for legal/equity matters, CPAs for tax and accounting, licensed brokers for insurance, and certified security assessors for compliance. This skill does not create a professional-client relationship. Use it as a starting point for research and preparation.

Execution Artifacts

• references/framework-notes.md — Named frameworks and reference tables
• templates/output-template.md — Deliverable shell for agent output
• scripts/check-output.py — Lightweight deliverable validator

Related Skills

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• hiring-contractors — Freelance talent, IP assignment, management
• hiring-agencies — Agency selection, engagement, measurement
• solo-founder-gtm — Tool stacks by stage, AI agents, hiring triggers