Hiring at a startup — the first five seats and beyond

Don't copy the org chart of a bigger company. The first five seats depend on the founder skill mix and the business shape.

Solo technical founder building SaaS — first 5: (1) hands-on engineer, (2) customer-led marketer/content lead, (3) head-of-sales-shaped operator, (4) second engineer, (5) customer success / support.

Two-person team building services-shaped SaaS — first 5: (1) account executive, (2) implementation lead, (3) second engineer, (4) marketer, (5) ops coordinator.

Solo non-technical founder — first 5: (1) technical co-founder (this is hiring #0, not hiring #1), (2) early engineer, (3) yourself in sales until $1M ARR, (4) content/marketing, (5) success/support.

Common pattern across all of them: sales-shaped person within first 3 hires. Marketing-only first hires usually under-perform because marketing without a sales-feedback loop produces volume without revenue.

Write the scorecard before the first interview. Same idea as the Hiring Scorecard template: mission, 3-5 outcomes, top-3 competencies, disqualifiers.

The pre-scorecard error: "we'll know it when we see it." This produces inconsistent hiring, lots of false-positive senior hires (impressive talkers who can't deliver), and false-negative junior hires (great executors who present poorly).

How to score consistently:

1. Every interviewer writes the candidate's score privately BEFORE the debrief
2. Debrief discusses scores, not feelings
3. Reference checks verify specific outcomes (not "what's X like to work with")
4. Hire only when ≥2 interviewers score 4+ on the top-3 competencies

The 90-day plan goes in the offer letter. What outcomes are expected by month 3, 6, 12. Mutual contract — they know what to deliver; you know what you're paying for.

Contract when:

• The work is project-shaped (one website redesign, a 6-week build, an audit)
• You don't yet know if the role is full-time
• You need a specific senior skill 1 day a week that you can't afford full-time (fractional CFO, design lead, GTM advisor)

Hire FT when:

• The work is ongoing and core to your edge
• You need the person to absorb deep context that contractors won't
• You'd be devastated if a competitor hired them

What you almost never want to outsource pre-Series-A:

• Core product engineering — you'll lose the institutional knowledge
• Sales (early) — founders should own sales until messaging is dialled; outsourcing produces calls that don't close
• Customer success — early support is product research disguised as cost
• Founder-led work — the things that change the company's direction

What's safe to outsource early:

• Bookkeeping, payroll, tax filings
• Specific design projects
• Video editing, post-production
• Specific paid-acquisition campaigns once channels are validated