Ask HN: Where to find first employee? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where to find first employee?

3 pointsjakobegger9 comments

I've been working on a Mac app for a couple of years and I've reached the point where I can afford to hire my first employee. But how do I find an employee?

I've tried a couple of things that cost no money:

- attending meetups

- posting on Facebook groups

- posting to local university job board

- posting on Twitter

So far nobody seems interested (and I feel a bit bad for spamming social networks)

I'm considering buying an ad on a commercial job board, or on Stack Overflow, but these ads are expensive -- $500+ per ad. Are they worth it?

Any other ideas?

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In general, early employees come from either your social network (not meaning Facebook et al, just people you know) or from like minded people like you might find here.

For a single employee either your terms need to be good or the person needs to be bought in big time (e.g. basically be a co-founder). Frankly just hiring an engineer isn't a cheap proposition so make sure you are really ready for it. It is possible you are more ready for a part time person or a contractor you can use X hours from monthly. If you hire someone vs contracting them the costs are fairly different, so make sure you have figured that part out too. Payroll taxes, workers compensation, liability insurance etc all add up pretty fast if you hire an "employee" vs use a contractor.

Also, don't feel bad for making legitimate posting on social media for a position. You aren't a recruiter spamming everyone you know daily for different positions, you are looking to find someone for your project, and most likely that person will come from your network of contacts.

In principle I don't mind sharing my business with a cofounder -- but I just assumed that hiring someone is easier than finding a cofounder. What are the odds that I'll find someone who shares my vision?

First, it is awesome that you are at the point of even being able to consider which way to go, that is a milestone you should be proud of and super happy you reached. So Congrats!

No doubt, hiring is way easier IMO. But it comes down to funds and growth etc. I guess it would also depend where you are at, in the US in most larger cities/areas, a solid mid level developer will be making say anywhere from 70-110k/year. Then take payroll taxes, non health based insurance and the general administration costs that go with managing an employee and all the sudden that person costs you at minimum an additional 15% per year.

Adding the first person is the most expensive in my experience, as the cost is incremental after that, at least to a point. There are thresholds that happen though and cause additional administrative functions & costs to come into play etc. For example, crossing 20 employees, crossing 50 etc.

As long as you are going into it with open eyes and full awareness, I'd personally hire someone or contract it out on a 1099 which is less overhead and work, saving you cash.

If $500 seems expensive you might not be ready to start paying somebody $5000 every month, not to mention all the additional expenses that come with having an employee.

You could advertise for 10 months for 1 month salary and it might take that long for an employee to get up to speed and actually contribute anything useful. If you hire the wrong guy it could take longer before they are useful. Not to mention the additional drain on your time as you teach them about your codebase and how you do things.

If you hire the wrong person and have to let them go after a month or two you are out of pocket $20k and back to square one. (And if its not working out I suggest you be prepare to make this tough call)

Good point, compared to the salary a single ad is not a lot; but it still seems like a lot of money to spend $500 just to find out if there is an OS X dev looking for work in Linz. That's why I'm asking here if anyone has experience with this kind of stuff.

I find hard to believe that nobody is interested. Are your conditions realistic or you're living in a place of full employment maybe ?

Anyway HN might be the best place ;-)

I recommend you this: https://entreprises.42.fr/en/

Where is your company based and what other positions if any will you consider hiring for?

My company is in Linz, Austria. I'm looking for an OS X developer, or for a web developer with experience in Ruby on Rails: https://eggerapps.at/jobs.html

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