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

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