Advice for making my first few hires?

general

• ask the potential hire's previous previous employer.. reason being that previous employer might be out to dump this person so is likely to say whatever to get rid of liability
• people referred by your network is always best

tech:

• consider doing contract-to-full time for people you don't know (hire slowly, fire quickly)
• ask to see their pet projects (i.e. see if they have git repo or contribution to some open source project)
• review their code, at least for a week. if you spot the obvious red flags.. it ain't gonna get better after that
• don't do stupid quizzes that these tech companies do.. I found very WEARK correlation between good at puzzles and being good at what they do. Don't ask about algorithms and crap.. seriously, who writes bubble sort these days. Ugh.

sales:

This is probably beyond me (though I do sales myself) but if you don't have much sales background, there's a lot of "gut" instinct you have to use. From my experience, best sales guys are self-motivated and don't need so much "rah-rah". Stuff I'd look for are behavioral... like

• journaling what they did, how successful it was, etc
• starting the day with doing the hard stuff like cold calling
• looking for new lead sources without asking you every day
• not blaming XYZ for their deal not closing
• following up with leads till they say no

Hey there! Also a 23yo solo founder, but I'm just launching my product now. I can't offer tons of generalizable advice, but I can offer you my product for any and all technical hiring you'll do: Scenario will let you measure actual engineering skills instead of leetcode prowess.

Let me know if it looks interesting to you - I'd love to get your thoughts (and toss you some free credit)!

You obviously have a small company so the FIRST thing you need to consider is:

• Will I get along with this person

You need to talk to the human in front of you. Ask yourself if you would like to have a drink on a regular basis with him/her (even if hypothetical).
You don't want to hire the little "genius" who never keeps you posted on what he's doing.

Once I hired a guy who had really basic programming skills but he was nice and honest about it. After 2 months, he learned so much that he became a great asset for the company.

Don't have advice on hiring but, I would to talk about the opportunity of product design and marketing.

I read this article discussing a system to find great hires from First Round Review and I thought it had solid advice.

In general:

1. Tap your network, preferably a mentor-based network that has more experience and more established connections than you. IH might be a start, or consider other organizations you're a part of.

2. Narrow in on precisely what you want this person to do, then learn your blindspots and avoid them.

3. Always call references. Ask open-ended questions. Invite their thoughts, criticism, and impressions.

4. Respect them and their time. Share your vision and where you're at in the company authentically.