Hiring the first employee for a startup is an extremely challenging and emotional process. You need to pick a person, perhaps someone you've never met before, to take responsibility for a part of your vision.

The most challenging aspect of hiring a first employee is that it involves a lot of trust. Not just on them, but of them on the company.

Both sides are taking a risk. Being the first employee in a team of 4 will have a massive impact on the company. Joining a company that is still not self-sustaining and that can go bust from one moment to the other has a professional toll as well.

One of the most challenging aspects of hiring for a very early-stage startup is finding the balance between skills and attitude.

Startups are not standard places of work. There's no support, it's fast-paced, and most jobs are badly defined.

More importantly, job descriptions will likely change over relatively short periods.

Even for founders things change rapidly. Being the CEO of a 3-person company does not have the same responsibility as being the CEO of a 30-person venture. And it's possible to go from 3 to 30 in less than a year, to 150 by the second or third year.

A challenge I've noticed in many deep-tech startups is that they focus on hiring technical talent.

Technical talent is fundamental to developing a prototype or the first version of the product.

But you need more than that to be successful. As soon as the prototype is ready, people need to start talking to customers more than anything else. They need to be aware of time and monetary constraints and need to keep an eye out for the objectives of the company, which are not the same of a research institution.

One more challenge founders need to be aware of is what happens when jobs are not long-term.

You may need someone good at mechanical design for a prototype. But once it's done, what will the person be doing?

It goes beyond ensuring stability. It requires you to think whether that person will continuously deliver value to the company. Deciding whether you want to outsource or perhaps rely on freelancers instead of employees can be tough before you have clear roadmaps and understand processes and timelines yourself.

Generalists are very sought-after candidates. And by generalists, I don't mean those with a very broad technical skillset, but those who are good at addressing specific issues and also good at communicating. Who can confidently go and talk to a customer and understand their needs as well as sit down and solder electronics?

I have also seen many founders who get very enthusiastic about senior candidates with corporate CVs. The entrepreneurial spirit is different from a keen commercial mindset. The ability to auto-start, solve problems by yourself, and not rely on support (HR, IT, secretaries, etc.) is hard to gauge when the person built experience only in large contexts.