How to Hire for Your Startup: The First 8 People You Should Hire
You’ve turned your entrepreneurial dreams into a reality by creating a product or service and launching your business. As you start generating revenue and identifying growth opportunities, you might recognize that it’s time to hire employees. While it can be tempting to quickly add talent to your team, it’s critical to take your time and carefully assess candidates. Your business’s needs and budget will dictate the roles you need to fill, but any employee you bring on board should possess several key qualities: flexibility, passion, and trustworthiness.
This guide highlights eight essential roles to prioritize when you begin the hiring process and offers tips for finding the right team members for your new venture.
Hiring employees is costly and time-consuming.
8 Startup Roles to Hire
Immediately after starting a business, you’ll want to fill specific roles. Here are eight crucial positions to focus on when you begin the hiring process.
- CEO and Chief Operations Officer (COO)
The CEO and COO form the leadership backbone of your business. The CEO typically takes on a big-picture role, guiding the company’s direction, vision, and culture. In contrast, the COO primarily focuses on the day-to-day operations that keep your business running.
You can hire externally for these positions, but the company’s founders often take on these responsibilities. For this reason, they are grouped together in this category. Tierra Wilson, co-founder and CMO of Lovely Impact, suggests beginning as the CEO of your business before hiring out. If you and your co-founders already plan to take on these titles and responsibilities, hire the following seven positions next.
- Product Manager
The product manager will be your go-to person for everything related to your products. This team member manages product strategy, vision, and development, and typically collaborates closely with the engineering and marketing teams to create and market your products.
Founders often take on the role of a startup’s product manager initially. They are deeply invested in their product or service and may be hesitant to hire someone for this position right away. However, when the company is ready financially, this extra set of hands can make a significant difference.
Hiring a product manager allows founders to take a close look at training and documentation as they prepare someone else to take over specific tasks. This move also frees up time and allows founders to begin focusing on growth and concrete business goals.
- Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering Hybrid
A team member specializing in technology and development is crucial to your business’s success, particularly for tech startups. While you can hire freelance front-end and back-end engineers and utilize online tech support, having someone from your internal team take charge of this sector is beneficial. As your team grows, you can split this role into two separate positions.
“Having someone with the skills to decide what will work best for your business, as well as overseeing the integration and management of various systems, is key,” explained Sue Andrews, business and human resources (HR) consultant at KIS Finance. “They’ll need to consider everything from hardware to software and mobile technology.”
Andrews said this team member can also take the lead in building your online presence by creating an effective website. Alternatively, they can split this responsibility with your marketing manager.
- Chief Marketing Officer and Community Manager Hybrid
This team member will focus on your customers and their perspective of your product or service. Andrews said hiring someone with small business marketing expertise and promotional skills is essential to ensure your vision reaches the right marketing demographics.
“Find a marketing manager that is a jack-of-all-trades,” Wilson advised. “Until you can scale, they should be able to write copy, design collateral, code landing pages, run ad campaigns, and handle social media marketing.”
This individual should focus on customer engagement by getting to know your target audience. They can also act as an interim community manager to create and maintain a positive relationship between your business and your customers. This team member will collaborate with the product manager to integrate customer feedback into product development.
- Sales Manager
This team member will focus on generating new leads and revenue for your company. It’s a crucial role because small business owners who master sales first are more likely to succeed.
“Hire an amazing sales rep or manager and then use the money they bring in to hire more people,” Wilson recommended. “This is probably the hardest position to hire for, but [it is] worth the time and effort to get the right person.”
A skilled sales manager with industry-specific experience typically won’t need much training to generate leads and drive sales for your venture.
- Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Experts often recommend that startups outsource their accounting and finance roles. However, a startup will benefit from the expert help of a CFO. This is especially true when getting a bank loan and otherwise securing and managing finances.
“It’s essential that you have someone on the team who is responsible for the money and has an eye for detail to manage all aspects of the company’s finances,” Andrews advised. “In the early stages, this will range from major issues, such as securing bank lending and leasing premises, to everyday necessities, such as paying suppliers and managing the petty cash.”
- Business Development Manager
A business development manager is similar to a sales manager but finds ways to grow your business from both a marketing and sales perspective. For instance, this professional might focus on developing relationships with other businesses to increase revenue and growth potential.
A good business development manager can identify new business opportunities within your organization and with other companies. They’ll consider new markets, areas where you might expand, new partnerships, ways to reach other existing markets, and ways to appeal to your target customers.
For example, a competitor may offer a product or service you haven’t yet considered. Your business development manager will look for ways to keep up with their offerings and set your business apart to attract more attention to your brand.
- Customer Service Representative
Every business needs effective customer service solutions. Building positive relationships with your customers and clients is fundamental to your brand.
It doesn’t matter how great your products or services are if your business doesn’t effectively communicate with its customers. Without a professional handling customer questions, calls, or concerns, your reputation will inevitably suffer. You’ll want to fill the customer service representative role as soon as possible.
How to Find the Right People for Your Startup
Every new employee can significantly affect a startup, so it’s critical to hire people you trust. Andrews said word-of-mouth recommendations are the best way to find your initial team members. Connect with colleagues, friends, and people from your college alumni network to find those first candidates.
“If that doesn’t give you the right results, then a specialist recruitment agency is a good choice to make sure you find people with the exact skills and experience that you need,” Andrews suggested. “Good agencies will have contacts in the relevant market area and should be able to help you find appropriately qualified and suitable staff.”
Hire people whose values align with your business’s values.
Importance of Hiring the Right Startup Roles
Startup roles are critical because these individuals help form your company culture. New hires have the potential to strengthen internal relationships between team members and external relationships with vendors, customers, and other stakeholders.
Without filling crucial startup roles, your company will lack direction and strong leadership. When hiring, it’s essential to start at the top and expand your team when resources allow.
When filling essential startup roles, consider your business’s goals and values to find better matches and focus on the skills and qualities you’re looking for in workers.
Why Startup Employees Need to Fulfill Multiple Roles
Working for a startup is different from working for an established business. Startups are often strapped for resources and tend to grow and change rapidly. Because of this, their employees’ day-to-day responsibilities often evolve in tandem. Startups should hire multitalented employees who are flexible and ready to take on new projects as needed. Because startups can be unpredictable, their employees should thrive in changing environments instead of seeking repetition and stability.
Since startups are in the “growing” phase and don’t yet have an employee for every role, startup employees typically fill more than one. This common occurrence comes with its own set of benefits and limitations.
Startup Positions to Outsource
Some roles can be outsourced to freelancers and external services. Experts say business owners should outsource anything they aren’t great at as soon as possible.
Here are a few common roles many startups outsource:
- Accountants and financial advisors
- Administrative workers
- Attorneys and legal advisors
- Content writers and digital marketing experts
- HR and payroll specialists
- Web developers, designers, and programmers
As a rule of thumb, any occupation essential to your core business should be filled internally, while anything nonessential can be outsourced. As your team grows, you may bring these additional services in-house.
How the First Hires Will Shape Your Startup’s Company Culture
When hiring staff, ensure your new employees embody your company mission and vision statement as well as your organizational culture. Andrews said hiring staff members with the right values is as essential as finding those with the right skills because these early recruits will influence your company culture for the foreseeable future.
“If you get this wrong at the beginning, it’s really hard to correct further down the line,” Andrews cautioned. “Diversity brings strength to any organization, but it’s important to make sure the team has shared values and are able to work well together.”
As your team grows, set aside time periodically to review the current state of your scaling venture. Hold regular discussions about what’s working and what’s not so everyone understands what success looks like. These talks will help set expectations and ensure everyone is aligned when making business decisions.
Hire Slow but Smart
While it’s exciting to watch your startup business grow, there’s no need to rush the hiring process when it’s time for new employees. Having the right people in place early on is critical to developing your culture, brand, and future business goals. Take time to consider what roles you need and how filling those roles will help you meet major business objectives — then proceed to hire accordingly.
