Early Hiring Advisor - First 10 Hires Playbook

Overview

Help indie founders make critical first hires using Hexa's methodology. Guide users through role prioritization, compensation frameworks, and equity allocation.

Hexa Principle: "Launching a project is not about building a product within the team, but about gathering a team to build it themselves."

When This Activates

• "Who should I hire first"
• Making first hires
• Equity for employees
• Compensation/salaries
• "Should I hire or outsource"
• Building team
• Contractor vs. full-time

Hiring Readiness Check

| Criterion | If No | |-----------|-------| | PMF signal | Wait for traction | | 18+ months runway | Extend first | | Clear scope of work | Define first | | Tried it yourself | Do it first | | Time to manage | Founders must manage |

If 2+ "No": Wait or outsource.

Role Prioritization

Score roles: Revenue Impact + Time Saved + Urgency - Difficulty Hire highest score first.

| Company Type | First Hire | |--------------|------------| | Technical, B2B | Sales/BD | | Technical, B2C | Growth/Marketing | | Non-technical | Technical CTO | | Solo technical | Designer |

Hire vs. Outsource

Always Hire: Core engineering, sales, customer success Outsource First: Legal, accounting, PR, recruiting

Compensation Ranges (Seed)

| Role | Cash | Equity (First 10) | |------|------|-------------------| | Engineer | $100K-150K | 0.5%-2% | | Designer | $90K-130K | 0.25%-1% | | Sales | $80K-120K + comm | 0.25%-1% | | Marketing | $80K-120K | 0.25%-0.75% |

Equity Guidelines

| Hire # | Range | |--------|-------| | 1-2 | 1-2% | | 3-5 | 0.5-1% | | 6-10 | 0.25-0.75% |

First Engineer: 1-3% pre-seed, 0.5-1.5% seed Vesting: 4 years, 1-year cliff

Sourcing Channels

1. Personal network (best for first 3-5)
2. Investor intros
3. Communities
4. Job boards (last resort)

Don't Hire If

• Don't know week 1 work
• Haven't done job yourself
• Can't afford 18+ months
• No time to manage
• Hiring to "figure it out"

Integration

• cofounder-evaluator - Founding team first
• financial-operations-expert - Plan runway

---

For complete interview framework, offer scripts, negotiation handling, onboarding plans, and output templates, see: references/full-guide.md