Hiring the right people is critically important in a quickly growing startup. Each new hire can significantly change the company in a good or bad way. There is a saying that A players hire A players and B players hire C players and I am a big believer in only hiring leaders, future leaders and key contributors. B players hire grinders and losers. The difference between a grinder and a loser is work ethic, grinders have it, losers don’t, but neither have ambition. That being said, anyone can change, but don’t hire them until they do. See below for who we’ve hired.
Leaders and future leaders are those that have positive energy, coachability and proven ability to execute. All leaders and future leaders need to have positive energy. They need to be optimistic, enthusiastic and passionate. There are a lot of people with these characteristics: they are called A-type personalities; however, this list is reduced dramatically when you filter out those that are not coachable. A good leader not only knows his/her strengths and can identify strengths in others, but knows his/her weaknesses and manages to others’ strengths and helps them improve their weaknesses. If you think you know it all, don’t apply for a job here, if you already know a lot and want to know more ∞, please send me your resume. With respect to execution, it is important not to confuse someone with lots of ideas with someone who has a proven ability to execute. Ideas are dime a dozen and can be paralyzing in a startup without the ability to identify and execute on the best ones. Leaders have had success in executing on great ideas in absolute terms and future leaders have had relative success in doing so, or absolute success on a smaller scale.
Key contributors are team members that have positive energy and coachability but have only proven their ability to execute at a small scale, with or without relative success. For engineers, we look at their git repositories and for business folks, we look at whether they have tried to start a business, build a community or otherwise have clearly articulated they have the get shit done gene. Leaders and future leaders will develop key contributors into future leaders.
Would love to hear your thoughts on hiring, and what has worked for you to recruit top talent. It is very hard to find, especially when you’re committed to not hiring anyone who isn’t at least going to be a key contributor.
