Startup Advice: Danger of Comfort Hires

When you’re building a startup, every early hire has an outsized impact. At a time when every euro or dollar counts, you need someone who not only justifies their cost but multiplies your output. It’s as if you’re looking for a unicorn: someone who’s productive from day one, deeply aligned with your mission, and able to scale with you.

One common mistake I see founders make is getting overly impressed by people coming out of big corporates. It’s understandable. Big names carry a certain credibility. There’s comfort in thinking that someone who worked at an established company must know what they’re doing. But a corporate background doesn’t always translate well into an early-stage environment. In fact, it is often the opposite.

Startups demand flexibility, urgency, and a willingness to wear multiple hats. Your first few team members should be generalists who are scrappy, resourceful, and comfortable operating with limited structure. They won’t have departments to delegate to or processes to fall back on. They’ll be asked to build, test, and fix things quickly, often in areas they’ve never worked in before.

That’s not how most corporates operate, and it’s not what most corporate environments prepare people for.

This isn’t about dismissing talent that comes from big companies. Plenty of exceptional people come from those worlds and thrive in startups. But you need to look past the logo and ask: has this person shown the ability to thrive in ambiguity? Can they go from idea to execution without a playbook? Are they prepared to take ownership, learn new skills, and move fast without being told what to do?

It’s better to find someone who’s worked in an early-stage team, freelanced, built something of their own, or even just shown a habit of taking initiative in unstructured situations. Look for signals of adaptability and bias toward action. A short CV with evidence of impact is more valuable than a long one with a lot of passive involvement.

Because here’s the thing: those early hires are also setting your company’s culture. If you accept someone who does mediocre work or who takes joy in bringing others down then that is the attitude others will latch on to. What you need to look for is attitude, learning speed, and hunger. You’re building a team that needs to believe in what you’re doing and be ready to roll up their sleeves. The best hires at this stage are the ones who see the mess and run toward it, not away from it.

Unfortunately, none of that is easy to gauge at interview stage which is why, of all the jobs a founder has to do, that of hiring is probably the second hardest after selling. You have to be open to the reality that you might / will make mistakes.

That also means that you have to be ready to make the hard decisions. If you realise that you made the wrong hire you need to take immediate action. Too many let emotions get in the way or reason their way out of doing so (‘it is better to have SOMEONE doing it, even if poorly, rather than no one, right?). That leads to much bigger headaches later down the line.

If, on the other hand, you find the right people, hold onto them. They’re rare and they’re the ones who make the difference between an idea and a company.

They’ll shape your success as much as any investor, strategy, or product ever could.