How do you find the first hires for your startup, especially remotely?

Slava Bobrov
51 replies
As we know, the first hires are critical for every startup because they shape its culture

Replies

Karthik Kamalakannan
Online communities have been a great way for me to find great people. They know you already, and they might know what you are doing already via the community. Quick turn-arounds, no BS (since you need to face them again in some community meetup), and the quality of people we find is insane.
JC Alvarez
@imkarthikk I second this. Online communities are great sources for passive/active job seeking talent. I don't believe the future of hiring is in posting/searching across Indeed and sites like it.
Sudharshan C. Babu
@imkarthikk This is solid advice. What communities have you found good hires in?
Karthik Kamalakannan
@jcalvarezjr You're right. We live in times where almost everything and everyone is accessible in many common places. Today's hiring is done by social validation first. Then comes the other drill-downs about the cultural-fit and such.
Penny Watson
Great question - how do you know or asses exactly what skill sets you need to round out your founding/early team to increase your chances of success? It can be so challenge to view your own strengths and weaknesses without bias. And understand how VCs/investors view you.
Madhurima Halder
@penny_watson00 Hi, so if you're hiring remotely (which is something mostly all of us would be doing right now), here's an article from Recruit CRM that could actually help you figure out what to look for in CVs. !https://recruitcrm.io/blogs/what... Hope this helps.
Eugene Hauptmann
Ah, my favorite type of question, thanks @slava_bobrov I think your industry specifically – Neurotech makes it even more interesting. I would recommend to start with strong co-founders or partners that would help you establish a brand. For example a CTO with previous successful exits would help you decompose a structure of your first hires. Or maybe in your case it would be a Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) that will help you attract PhDs in your field. Ultimately I would look for intersections of fields that are close to what you're trying to do and scout the talents from there. As @imkarthikk mentioned, online communities are a great resource. I am personally a big fan of hiring from Discord and Slack communities in past couple years. Once you get your Product Market Fit and raise next round (or invest your own money) your life will become easier as you'll start changing you organization and introduce a Head of HR that will be a core point for your hiring, once your team grows beyond 50 people. Last but not least, besides hard and soft skills in your first hires, I would look for a culture fit first, for people that buy-in on your great vision, and *want* to be that first employee, and share most of the risks founders have. And to find this kind of first hire takes time and lots of referrals. Good luck with your first hire!
Eugene Hauptmann
Oh, and if you are not building hardware product, then being remote or WFH is not such a big deal, you just need to build your onboarding and internal processes accordingly. However if you do build hardware, I'd recommend to be at minimum in the same timezone, better in the same country, and ultimately in the same city. It will let you go easier on your logistics expenses and migrate to the lab/office once everyone is ready. @slava_bobrov
Mona Erb
I guess LinkedIn is still a great source to hire people and have easy access to their profiles and CV's plus a good overview of other skills, additional training and web activities. It's definitely a time-saver and makes hiring much easier :)
Eddie Briseño
@mona_erb I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn because of the asynchronous networking opportunities that creating/distributing content provides :^)
There are many different ways and platforms to look for. We started to invite candidates to timz.flowers, the Async Video Meeting tool, we are creating ourselves. There we are explaining the project in a flower and are asking some background questions. The candidate answers whenever finds time and we just watch the different results. You can immediately see who knows how to deal with new tools (digital savviness), who understand the project and the system and who is contributing with valuable statements and links. Quite powerful method. We found our best developers that way and they are really remote - dwelling in different time-zones from Newzealand to Argentina, across China, Poland, Persia and many more countries. All of this makes no difference, when you see them being creative in a flower.
Jack Davis
It might be best to work for an established company in the field you are trying to make a startup in. So if you were interested in Neurotech you could work for Neuralink and after a couple of months or a year you could tell some of your friends in the company of your idea and why it is better than what is going on at the company you are working for. Then you might get a team of 2-4 and start on your own project.
Alexa Vovchenko
We find developers on github and check their commitments. One non-tech guy found our founder on Wykop (Polish Reddit) and asked to join the team. Later on, this person advised one of his colleagues to us. So, it's basically networking and social media activity. It's important to check if peeps join you 'cause the like the product or they just need a working place.
Asraful Islam
Once you get your Product Market Fit and raise next round (or invest your own money) your life will become easier as you'll start changing you organization and introduce a Head of HR that will be a core point for your hiring, once your team grows beyond 50 people.
DigiDaniel
I'd recommend targeted outreach. For example, I knew that I wanted to build a chrome extension that could help people find Airbnbs with fast WiFi. I looked to see who had previously built extensions for Airbnb and then cold emailed a few people. I was able to find an awesome co-founder! We've never met in person, but we have video call check-ins every 1-2 weeks.
Swadhin Das
I think your industry specifically – Neurotech makes it even more interesting.
Jesús Vivas
Great question, I think the best way to reach talent is LinkedIn but also communities like Indie Hackers or Reddit. But it's not easy at all and now is even harder because you compete against companies around the world. We (froged.com) are looking for a Head of Content and it's taking us a lot of time to find international profiles to cover our open position. Threads and questions like yours help other users :)
Leo J Barnett
There's various channels and patience definitely pays off to find the perfect person. Personalising every message to strong hire is super important. Say why they're a good fit, what you like about their portfolio. Search projects or companies with the same domain as you, you can then seek their current or past employees. Specific search Hunting: - Linkedin - Stackoverflow - Look for people that have worked on similar projects / problems. - Github (same as above) - Product hunt! Check out competitors talent. - Local universities can be good bets on first hires too. Job Posts: - Slack Communities - Workinstartups.com Co-founders: - Foundersnation - Co-founderslab Recruiters: Don't always have the best reputation BUT if they find the perfect person try and negotiate full release on contract to avoid having a middle man. It may not be successful for everyone you get in touch with, but most of those people will have a network themselves which you should use as a potential door. Always follow up too! You may not always catch them at the ideal time. Hope that helps and good luck! @slava_bobrov
Ruth Even Haim
We found our first remote hires on Upwork & Fiverr (the process of finding quality people there can be a little longer, but worth it at the end). Lately we've also started using Facebook groups and LinkedIn to find people for key roles in the company, and that's been working great.
Yash Sharma
I failed everything remote man.. zero deals.. I am a hard core techie and 14 years been running my show.. am back doing local connects and ground sales. Screw the plague going on for me.
Bayazid Bustami
I second this. Online people group are incredible hotspots for aloof/dynamic occupation looking for ability. I don't accept the eventual fate of employing is in posting/looking across Indeed and locales like it.
Bayazid Bustami
I guess LinkedIn is still a great source to hire people and have easy access to their profiles and CV's plus a good overview of other skills, additional training and web activities. It's definitely a time-saver and makes hiring much easier :)
Utkarsh Mehta
At TechHut I am guiding 50+ students to become a Full Stack Developer. They will learn MERN Stack and will get experience working on a live product. I am prepared to have multiple internship structures for organisations so that they will get curated candidates for the open positions.
Eric Stanley
I am here to get ideas because I want to start hiring some remote guys to help around. I hope this discussion will help me with that.
Madhurima Halder
@erediast_plingnr Recruit CRM has a well-researched article on hiring remote talent. It might be helpful for you. Here's the link: !https://recruitcrm.io/blogs/best... Hope this helps!
Madhurima Halder
Hi, apart from using online communities and social media, I firmly believe that finding your first hires would be much more beneficial if you recruit by using an ATS (Applicant Tracking System). There are several right ways to hire your first fresh batch, but doing so with the use of technology will actually help you recruit without any conscious or unconscious bias. Here's an example of one of the best affordable ATS' for startups: !https://recruitcrm.io/ (Recruit CRM) Hope this helps!