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Ask HN: How to hire if you're a profitable bootstrapped startup?

10 points by btstrpthrowaway ↗ HN
Hi HN!

First off, I wanted to thank everyone here for providing me the inspiration to bootstrap a startup. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321724 or http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1448750 )

Starting with less than $10k of my own pocket money, I was able to find an idea (online games) that grew profitable.

With the $10k to start, I was only able to hire freelancers to build the app I wanted to sell, but now that cash is rolling in and users are demanding more complex features, it's time to upgrade to a full-time in house developer.

This is where I'm at a loss. HN has great articles on pre-profitable hiring (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1445500). In fact that's how we got started. However, there seems to be a lack of advice for how a startup with good cashflow should hire.

I don't mean interview procedures, but rather how do you even start looking for someone? We'd like someone longer-term and more tech savvy that the median applicant on Odesk/Elance. We're not a large corporation yet and can't do campus recruiting (plus we need someone sooner).

Are the only options left getting a recruiter and mass job sites like Monster/Dice/Craiglist? Where do developers looking for startups hang out? Where would you post your job in this situation? Any help from people who's been there?

Much thanks from someone who's learned a lot from this site and hope to give back someday!

12 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 23.8 ms ] thread
fan
I personally have had some luck with Joel's stackoverflow career postings when it first started out. I'm not sure what it's like anymore.

Also, are you a programmer yourself? If so it's much easier because you can just reach back to classmates and friends.

Otherwise, you probably have a much harder time. There's an entire article here about how it's hard to hire a good programmer if you're not good yourself: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html

btstrpthrowaway
Yeah we actually just posted on that. The problem with stack overflow is that it seems to be overwhelmed by the HR department of ginormous firms (Adobe, Facebook, etc).

The "ambiance" of the place is more like a formal recruiting board versus a place to get talented hackers. Read through the other posts and then look at ours, it really seems out of place: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/Jobs/9293/

(Note: just want to show a point, if i'm not supposed to post specific info please tell me).

Actually, come to speak of it, the authentic jobs post by zaveri (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1932313) seems a lot more promising. Maybe I made a mistake with stack overflow -- the costs of authenticjobs seems lower too.

robdimarco
My greatest success has come from sponsoring local user groups in the technology that I am looking to hire in. Great way to make introductions. Most recruiters are a waste of $$, unless you are looking for a very specific, hard to find skillset.
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harukosama
Do you have any access to company lists at Google, MS, etc? Usually former employees have listservs discussing job opportunities.
rksprst
What city are you in? If you're in LA I know some good recruiters that recruit for startups.

In general, I would suggest reaching out to users of local meetups, niche job boards like 37signals, and recruiters that have a good reputation.

btstrpthrowaway
Unfortunately we're way on the other coast in Cambridge, MA. If you've had good experiences with firms that also work here I'd like to hear about it though!
brianm
A couple of the best recruiters I know just started an agency aimed primarily at early stage ventures. While they are recruiters, they are amazing, and understand building early teams.

http://lab8ventures.com/

btstrpthrowaway
That's interesting -- have you used this group in the past and thinks have turned out well? I've heard that some recruiters really can be great but often can only be found through recommendations.

Any other recruiter recommendations would be great too. I'm just afraid to go off of a random recruiter from Google Adwords (or even the organic search, given SEO's effectiveness these days).

brianm
I have worked with everyone involved, when they were on staff as our recruiting team. They were an awesome in-house team, and considering they are the same team, just as an agency, I am willing to bet they are still awesome.
hcho
Every month or so, there is a "Who's hiring?" thread on HN. I heard their frequenters are prety interested in startups.