A Framework for Your Next Hire

Deciding who to hire next is a critical strategic decision for an early-stage founder. Instead of relying on gut feeling, a structured process can help identify the role that will have the highest impact on the business.

The Framework:

Track Your Time: For one to two weeks, meticulously track or list all the tasks you perform as a founder.
Group Tasks into Roles: Categorize every task into the standard SaaS departments (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Support, Engineering). This will give you a clear picture of how you are currently spending your time.
Ask Five Key Questions: Look at the grouped tasks and ask yourself:
- Weakness: Which of these roles am I bad at and someone else could do better?
- Enjoyment: Which of these roles am I good at but don't enjoy doing? (These are often the first to delegate to avoid burnout).
- Impact: Which of these roles, if leveled up with a dedicated hire, is most likely to grow the company?
- Elimination: Which of these tasks could I simply stop doing without a major negative impact?
- Internal Delegation: Which of these tasks could I hand off to an existing team member?

General Hiring Order:

While every company is different, a common and effective hiring order for bootstrapped SaaS is:

Customer Support: This is often the first hire. It's a repetitive task that frees up a significant amount of founder time for higher-leverage activities.
Developer / Marketer / Salesperson: The next hire typically fills the biggest skill gap on the founding team. If the founders are technical, they should hire a marketer or salesperson. If they are non-technical, they must hire a developer.

The goal is to systematically fire yourself from the jobs you are worst at, enjoy the least, or that have the lowest strategic value, allowing you to focus on the critical tasks that only a founder can do.

Tags: #SaaS #hiring #team-building #delegation #founder #strategy