Comments on: 5 People, You should not hire for your Startup! http://reachaccountant.com/blog/?p=85 Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:19:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: young startup http://reachaccountant.com/blog/?p=85&cpage=1#comment-6 young startup Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:33:00 +0000 http://reachaccountant.com/blog/?p=85#comment-6 perhaps , it was not his attitude and rather lack of incentives that drove him out of the startup. I had hired a similar kid out of college who I tried to pay next to nothing . He accepted at his junior level , that the salary was fair and began working. He also asked about equity but I laughed at him , I had somehow managed to retain 95% of the startups equity by paying the rest of the team salaries. Soon he realized though , that he was almost working for free with no incentives helping build my company ( he never once complained about the occasional grunt work , only did he mention something while I decided to enforce his one month leaving policy ). He was obviously smarter and better acquainted with startup norms compared to rest of the team , who sat quietly getting measly salaries without any equity. So I don't know why you were "speechless" , he wanted to work in areas that he was not experienced in , so in the process , he could build his skills and at the same time help my company. Additionally I must mention , I stifled him from access to the company servers , databases and critical areas . Every time he would implement something he would have to wait , for one for my overworked team to implement the requests. Hence I reached the realization , that he was of a different breed , one that I could not exploit , for my grunt work + other "cool" and "good" stuff that he could boast to his college friends about. I let him go and we parted on the good note. I realized that one day his company could be bigger than mine and he will be a great contact to have. perhaps , it was not his attitude and rather lack of incentives that drove him out of the startup. I had hired a similar kid out of college who I tried to pay next to nothing . He accepted at his junior level , that the salary was fair and began working. He also asked about equity but I laughed at him , I had somehow managed to retain 95% of the startups equity by paying the rest of the team salaries. Soon he realized though , that he was almost working for free with no incentives helping build my company ( he never once complained about the occasional grunt work , only did he mention something while I decided to enforce his one month leaving policy ). He was obviously smarter and better acquainted with startup norms compared to rest of the team , who sat quietly getting measly salaries without any equity.

So I don’t know why you were “speechless” , he wanted to work in areas that he was not experienced in , so in the process , he could build his skills and at the same time help my company. Additionally I must mention , I stifled him from access to the company servers , databases and critical areas . Every time he would implement something he would have to wait , for one for my overworked team to implement the requests.

Hence I reached the realization , that he was of a different breed , one that I could not exploit , for my grunt work + other “cool” and “good” stuff that he could boast to his college friends about. I let him go and we parted on the good note. I realized that one day his company could be bigger than mine and he will be a great contact to have.

]]> By: madhouse musings! » Blog Archive » Hiring for Startups: A few tips to note http://reachaccountant.com/blog/?p=85&cpage=1#comment-5 madhouse musings! » Blog Archive » Hiring for Startups: A few tips to note Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:43:31 +0000 http://reachaccountant.com/blog/?p=85#comment-5 [...] There was a recent discussion on MVP gang about a particular “wrong-hire” which prompted me to write this longish experience-based note. For more on the discussion Robin of ReachTax has a blog post off it here. [...] [...] There was a recent discussion on MVP gang about a particular “wrong-hire” which prompted me to write this longish experience-based note. For more on the discussion Robin of ReachTax has a blog post off it here. [...]

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