How do I interview and evaluate candidates when I've never hired before?
Skip trivia and whiteboard theatre, give a paid, real-world work sample that mirrors the actual job and watch how they think, communicate, and follow through. Always do reference checks and ask past managers the blunt question: would you hire them again? Hire slow and fire fast; a wrong early hire is disproportionately damaging in a tiny team.
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Battle-tested YC advice on landing your critical first engineering hire, from founders who've done it at scale. It reframes hiring as a founder-led sales and persistence problem.
YC's full curated body of hiring wisdom, from when to hire to how to close and evaluate early employees. The best free, high-signal resource for founders hiring for the first time.
The Neon Show (formerly 100x Entrepreneur) is one of India's deepest founder-and-investor interview podcasts, covering pricing, SaaS, and go-to-market from operators who've built for both India and global markets. Real, unfiltered lessons for Indian founders.
