How To Hire as a Startup – The Biggest Mistakes Startup Founders Make When Hiring

How to hire top talent as a startup.

You are running a million miles an hour, working long hours, weekends, and feeling stressed. You need to hire some new talent to help you grow the business. Many founders go to market looking for a hire without really thinking about what and who they need, how they will attract them, how they will assess them in an interview process, and what success looks like when they start with you.

You have to spend time preparing to hire. I know you don’t feel you have any time to do this, but if you make a wrong hire, your business could fail. Yes, one wrong hire could be the difference between success and failure! On average, a wrong hire will cost a business over £300k!

My biggest tip to you is to plan, plan and plan.

Why do you need to hire? If you don’t, what would be the impact on the business?

If the answer to this is to free up your time (which often is). What are you going to do with this time and how will that impact the business?

Related: Don’t Leave It Too Late to Raise Startup Investment

The steps to making a great hire

Step 1: Create a job description

When doing this, it’s a great idea to add a 2 mins video from you. People want to know what they are going to be expected to do and have a reference point. Things may change as they often do in a startup, but having a baseline to assess performance against is vital. The video adds a lot to the job spec and allows the candidate to “meet” you. If you are selling autonomy, flexibility, share options, carve your own career, think again. Every startup says the same. Why would someone join your businesses specifically, and why should they take the risk of leaving their role to come with you on the journey?

Things to consider: Full-time vs outsourcing

“Hiring is a common challenge for early-stage founders, particularly in tech development and marketing. Should you build an in-house team or outsource to an agency or freelancer?

Both approaches have pros and cons.

The case for hiring full-time staff

Pros: A dedicated team focused solely on your startup.

Cons: Requires structure and management, employees may lack entrepreneurial initiative, significant time investment in training and guidance, especially early on. Without proper systems and processes, a full-time team can consume more of your time than expected.

The case for outsourcing

Pros: Agencies and freelancers are self-starters, used to working independently.

Cons: Not always available, as they have other clients. The level of attention you recive depends on how much you pay – bigger clients get priority.

Making the right choice

“There’s no universal right or wrong answer; it depends on your needs. However, if hiring early-stage employees, they must be self-starters who require minimal guidance. Otherwise, you’ll spend more time managing than growing your business.

• Most startups initially outsource and only transition to full-time hires later.
• Good hires won’t leave a stable job for a startup with only 12 months of funding. To attract top talent, you need at least 24 months of financial runway, ensuring their salary security for two years.
• Senior hires bring experience, can establish processes and require minimal oversight – but they come at a high cost.
• Junior hires are cheaper but need training and direction. For example, a junior marketing executive managing social media might lack strategy and experience, increasing risk. A senior marketing manager, on the other hand, has successfully implemented strategies in multiple companies and can apply that knowledge directly – but at five times the cost.

“So… identify which roles require experienced leadership and which can be handled by juniors. Be strategic about when to hire full-time, when to outsource and how to ensure long-term talent retention.”

James Church, Robot Mascot co-founder

Step 2: Create a detailed interview process.

Do this before you start hiring. You need to know how you will assess candidates and what good looks like. You don’t want to be doing this mid-process as you won’t have the time and may lose the perfect candidate with a time delay. Also, assign roles for each interviewer. If 3 people interview a candidate, there’s no point in you all asking the same questions. You don’t find out what you need, and it’s a terrible candidate experience.

Assessing people is not easy, but make sure the process is the same for everyone. Write the questions you are asking at each stage and the ideal responses. Creating a rating scorecard is also a good idea to ensure that you are objectively assessing people.

Step 3: Go to market

Hiring tech talent is particularly challenging as you are unlikely to receive applicants from an advert. You have to go and find them. Use LinkedIn to map competitors or complimentary industries and headhunt the right talent yourself. Getting a message from the founder has a lot of weight. Do not send generic messages to 100’s of people, be specific and make the message personal.

Step 4: Understand the candidates

Understand your candidates’ motivations. You want to learn about the person you are hiring, not just their skills. Ask them what they want to get out of a move to your company. You need to be able to actually provide what this person wants in their career. They may be great, but you’re not looking to grow the area of particular interest to them. His person will leave.

Step 5: Hire the perfect employee

If everything works well and you have found your perfect person, act fast. Put together an offer that is strong and also addresses the candidate’s motivations. This is really important and goes back to why they should join. They are likely to have multiple offers, so make sure they choose you!

As a startup, you may not have the biggest salary and will be looking at a blend of salary and equity. The balance of this you need to discuss with your new hire early on. If your new hire has commitments, that means they need a certain salary they are not going to be able to drop. Don’t see this as a lack of commitment. All too often I hear founders say “if they are really interested and believe in this company they would take extra equity over salary”. Remember, this is your company. You took a huge leap in starting up, and it likely took you a long time to make that decision, months, if not years. No one is going to have the same commitment levels as you. So asking someone with a mortgage, 2 kids, and a raft of financial commitment to take a salary drop and trust you is a BIG request….

Lastly, don’t forget to meet them/be in regular contact through their notice period and resignation. If they are good, they will be getting multiple counter offers from their current employer to stay.

The power of structure: how thursday.com turned an intern into a marketing sensation

Successful marketing requires structure and Thursday.com, a dating app, proved this with a standout campaign.

They made headlines across the UK after hiring an intern who brought the brand to life – earning media coverage, job offers and even a personal press profile. But it wasn’t just luck; the founders had a clear strategy.

Instead of simply handing her social media duties, they set specific challenges. Her first task? Turn £20 into 100 new users.

She used guerrilla marketing, creating a DIY sandwichboard: “I’m an intern at Thursday.com. They gave me £20 and I’ve just used this old bit of cardboard and a pen. Please download Thursday.” She added a QR code and wrote: “If I get 100 users, I get to keep the £20.”

Standing outside a London Tube station, she caught people’s attention. They scanned the QR code, downloaded the app – and the stunt generated thousands of new users.

Seeing the success, the founders raised the stakes: “Now you’ve got £50 – go do more.” She kept innovating and soon, her campaigns went viral, reaching social media and national newspapers.

The takeaway? Talent thrives with the right structure. The intern’s creativity was key, but clear goals and strategic direction made all the difference.

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