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 Personal network (best for first 3-5) Investor intros Communities 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