Article

Startup Playbook

Sam Altman · playbook.samaltman.com Free Beginner

The bluntest, most quoted piece of contrarian hiring advice for early founders - 'don't hire, the most successful YC companies waited a relatively long time to start' - a useful check against hiring ahead of a proven need.

  • The most successful early-stage companies often delay hiring longer than founders expect.
  • Every hire should map to a genuine, already-proven bottleneck.
  • Broader startup-building advice from a YC vantage point, hiring being one section.
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The question it answers

  1. How do I hire well on a tight budget before I've raised real money?

Read with it

  1. A practical, operator-written guide to sourcing and evaluating early hires on limited resources - useful for the tactical 'how... hotjar.com Article Startup Hiring: Finding Your First Hires & Key Employees Hotjar
  2. Directly addresses the budget constraint most D2C founders face at this stage - how to compete for talent when you can't... fi.co Article How to Find the First Hires for Your Startup on a Budget First Round / Fi.co
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