We plan to bring eChai across 100 cities in India. It starts with eChai Startup Demo Day on 26 September, all in person. 13 cities confirmed, 684 founders registered. Any city that reaches 20 interested founders is on too. See your city

Co-founders, team & legal

Hiring your first employees

Your first ten hires are your culture.

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Everyone Idea-Stage Founder Builder Launcher Grower Indie Hacker Technical Solo Founder Non-Technical Founder Domain Expert Women Founder Anywhere Founder

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How do I hire my first engineer when nobody's heard of my startup? Treat hiring exactly like fundraising: personalized outreach, a compelling pitch, and relentless persistence, no one great responds to a generic jo... Intermediate 2 resources → What kind of people should my first ten hires be? Generalists who are fast, low-ego, and comfortable with ambiguity, your first ten hires ARE your culture, so hire for slope over intercept and valu... Intermediate 3 resources → 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 foll... Intermediate 3 resources → Where do I actually source candidates for my first hires without a recruiter budget? Your network is your best channel, but it runs dry fast, so treat sourcing as active outbound, not posting-and-praying. Mine LinkedIn, GitHub, and ... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I make a compelling offer and close a candidate who has a competing offer from a big company? You will lose on cash and brand, so don't compete there. Sell ownership, speed of learning, and proximity to the founders, and make the candidate f... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I structure and pass a candidate's probation period so I don't get stuck with a bad hire? Set a 3 to 6 month probation with written, specific milestones on day one, not a vague 'let's see how it goes.' Under Indian employment norms, a pr... Intermediate 3 resources → Should my first hires be generalists or specialists, and how do I tell the difference in an interview? Hire generalists for your first handful of seats. Early on the work shifts weekly, and a narrow specialist who only does one thing well will be idl... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I hire when I can't match market salaries and my runway is tight? Be honest about the gap and make the tradeoff explicit: below-market cash, meaningful equity, and a front-row seat to building something. Don't qui... Intermediate 3 resources → When and how do I make my first non-engineering hire (ops, marketing, or a founder's associate)? Make it the moment you, the founder, are the bottleneck on non-core work: when hours vanish into scheduling, vendor chasing, and inbox triage inste... Intermediate 3 resources →

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