What should you consider while hiring the first employee for your start-up?

Hiring first employee is a basic but a huge step for any start-up. Startup comes with a sudden sense of responsibility (of course, someone else’s livelihood is in your control) along with a strong signal that your company has a real merit. To help make your idea better, someone has to turn down other opportunities. And in most cases, that someone embraces a significant amount of risk to do so.
However, the bandwidth remains the most fundamental way in which it changes your business for the better good. A new person will be dedicating all of his/her focus and time to your company, meaning you will have to move faster. A lot faster!
Below are the basic fundamentals, any startup founder should consider before hiring the first employee:
The Sooner, the Better
Even if it’s tight at first, you should hire someone you know since you need him/her and can afford him/her. The extra energy which that person will be putting in with his/her brain power, creativity, and sheer legwork is totally worth the risk. The things will be doable in days, that could otherwise take you weeks. Your to-do list will be free from any work streams. In many cases, founders defer to hire someone even when they are overworked and end up regretting later. Avoid doing so.
See for Potential, Not (Just) Track Record
The ability to see potential and not just evidence of past success is an important key trait of a skilled and experienced hiring manager. You should always look for someone who has a strong passion or interest in missions that are similar to yours, and, who is really good at what he/she has done before (even if that’s a mixture of different things). Thus, unlocking the potential has to do with marrying someone’s passions and skills, so even if that person hasn’t yet found a way to truly unleash himself/herself, if your position can do it for him/her, you are likely to see the results soon.
Have Everyone on the Team Interview the Stars
The real trick here is finding a cultural fit for your team. Just because Person A and Person B get along, and Person B and Person C get along, doesn’t imply that Person C and person A will get along (let alone work well together). Let everyone interview that person and then make the decision.
Let Applicants Demonstrate Skill or Aptitude
Many people understand exactly how to answer interview questions in a way that shows confidence to  the hiring manager. Thus, the best way to scrutinize someone is to have him/her complete a task for you.
Invite Them, Truly, to be Part of the Team
You always have a choice, once you hire someone: Either, you can consider him/her as an employee, in the sense that you issue him/her directives, compensate the candidate for his/her time and evaluate his/her work, or, you can consider him/her a member of the team that has chosen to dedicate his/her time to making your vision a reality. And the truth is, the latter is one of the main reasons why many people join startups in the first place.
First hire for any startup company is a huge step in the its lifecycle. Thus, take the time to do things the right way and make sure that your first hire will be there for the haul. It is perhaps one of the greatest things that can happen to your startup in its early days.
 

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