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First Ten Hires

A hiring plan tied to runway, scorecards and a written bar, a fair interview loop, offers and equity done properly, and onboarding that makes each of the first ten hires count.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for First Ten Hires, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

201

Starter tasks

🚀 Founding & Startups

First Ten Hires

Hiring the first employees of a startup, choosing roles carefully, selling the vision and setting the bar for everyone who follows.

  1. Eighteen-month hiring plan tied to runway
  2. Role scorecards before any job post
  3. Hire, contract or outsource for each need
  4. Fully loaded cost per hire model
  5. Employer registration and payroll set-up
  6. Option pool and early grant policy
  7. Salary bands for the first ten roles
  8. Standard offer letter and contract pack
  9. Written hiring bar for the first ten
  10. Recruiting pitch that sells the mission
  11. Job posts written to widen the shortlist
  12. Candidate tracking board
  13. Structured interview loop design
  14. Weekly hiring pipeline review
  15. Founder sourcing hour
  16. Referral asks to investors and alumni
  17. Interviewer debrief and calibration
  18. Reference checks that find the truth
  19. No candidate left waiting sweep
  20. Monthly hiring retrospective
  21. Quarterly hiring plan check against runway
  22. Hiring metrics log
  23. Thirty, sixty, ninety day plan for each new hire
  24. Interviewing skills for a first-time founder
  25. Reading CVs and portfolios for signal
  26. Sourcing techniques on networks and code hosts
  27. Closing candidates and handling counter-offers
  28. Equity explainer sheet for candidates
  29. Employment rules primer for your hiring country
  30. Paid work sample or trial project
  31. Profile of the first engineering hire
  32. Timing and profile of the first sales hire
  33. Generalist or specialist for each early seat
  34. Recruiting agency or in-house decision
  35. Remote, hybrid or office for the first team
  36. Titles and levels policy for the first ten
  37. Fixing a stalled hiring funnel
  38. Probation reviews for every new hire
  39. Hiring employee number one
  40. Post-funding hiring sprint
  41. Recruiting open evening for local talent
  42. Tenth hire milestone review
  43. Non-technical founder hiring a first engineer
  44. Technical founder hiring a first non-engineer
  45. Solo founder making the first hire
  46. Hiring on revenue in a bootstrapped startup
  47. Hiring abroad through an employer of record
  48. Hiring in a small or island talent market
  49. Hiring the first manager among the ten
  50. Small acqui-hire of a two or three person team

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Eighteen-month hiring plan tied to runway

Founders who hire whenever someone good turns up usually find, eight months later, that the payroll has outrun the milestones the next round depends on. Writing down which roles you will hire, in what order and in which month, and checking each one against the cash you have, turns hiring from a series of impulses into a plan an investor or co-founder can challenge.

First tasks

  • List the three milestones the next funding round or profitability depends on
  • Write the capability each milestone needs that nobody on the team has today
  • Put every planned role in hiring order with a target start month
  • Recalculate runway after each planned hire using your current burn
  • Walk your co-founder or lead investor through the plan and note their pushback

Role scorecards before any job post

Without a scorecard every interviewer quietly judges a different job, and the candidate who interviews best wins rather than the one who would do the work best. A one-page scorecard per role, stating the mission, the four or five outcomes expected in the first year and the competencies that matter, gives every later step something to measure against.

First tasks

  • Write a one-sentence mission for the first role you plan to open
  • List what this person must have achieved twelve months after starting
  • Split the competencies into must-have and nice-to-have
  • Send the scorecard to every planned interviewer and collect their edits

Hire, contract or outsource for each need

Not every gap in a ten-person company needs a permanent employee: bookkeeping, design sprints and a one-off data migration are often better bought by the hour. Deciding for each need whether to hire, contract or outsource keeps permanent seats for the work that is core, continuous and hard to hand over.

First tasks

  • List every recurring task nobody on the team owns well today
  • Estimate hours per week and expected duration for each gap
  • Record a hire, contract or outsource decision with one line of reasoning each
  • Review active contractors for conversion to permanent roles @recurring(quarterly)

Make it yours.

Install First Ten Hires, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.