Hire later than feels comfortable, the best YC companies wait, because employees add cost, complexity, and communication overhead you can't easily undo. The trigger is a clear, recurring bottleneck that a specific role removes, not general overwhelm. Until then, do things yourself so you understand the work well enough to eventually hire for it.
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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.
