🙉 When it feels right yet fails: 5 founder hiring mindset mistakes

TL;DR

🙉 When it feels right yet fails: 5 founder hiring mindset mistakes

🧑🏻‍🎤 Stop chasing unicorns: Build a band of rockstars instead

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When it feels right yet fails: 5 founder hiring mindset mistakes

“Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice” is one of my favourite quotes. Before I prescribe solutions, I always diagnose the root cause.

Because most of the time, the real issue isn’t what we did, or need to do. It’s the mindset that got us there in the first place.

In this case, we uncovered 5 common mindset traps Founders fall into again and again:

1. Hiring for capacity instead of capability

When workload increases, we assume we need to hire. That’s a linear mindset. 1 + 1 = 2.

But this founder (after a wrong hire) asked a more strategic question: “Do we even need a person or can we solve this with automation or process design?” 

That’s where smart workforce planning starts. Begin with the work, then ask:

When you hire for capability (instead of just capacity),  you’re bringing in people who turn 1 + 1 into 5, or even 10. That’s leverage.

2. Assuming senior hires will figure it out

They won’t. Not without context.

We often think: they’re senior, they’ve done this before, they’ll be fine. So we give them an ‘introductory onboarding’ = “Here’s our company values, here’s the product, here’s the system, here’s your role.”

Senior hires don’t need more generic onboarding (they can figure that out). They need deeper alignment — on goals, business trade-offs, historical decisions, team dynamics and what success looks like in your start-up. 

They bring experience, you need to give them the context to apply it effectively.

3. Thinking onboarding is just for the new hire

Every new hire changes the team dynamics. You’re not just onboarding the new hire, you’re resetting the whole team dynamic.

Did you tell your team why you hired this person? What problem they’re here to solve? How the team should work together? 

If you skip this, don’t be surprised when change creates conflict instead of progress.

4. Hiring for life instead of hiring for the next milestone

In start-ups, every hire feels like adding a new family member and Founders hope they’ll stay forever.

But hiring for “forever” blurs your criteria. You start optimising for potential, loyalty and long-term fit — rather than specific capability to deliver what’s needed now, in the next 2 to 3 years. If you don’t hit that milestone, there is no “forever.” If you do, the role evolves and so should the person. Some will. Some won’t.

Hoping someone stays forever can also be selfish. Because people do opt out when the business changes. The creative generalist who thrived in chaos may not want to stick around for structure and scale. And that’s OK. Sometimes “it’s not you, it’s me” comes from them, not you.

5. Assuming your best IC (specialist) can manage 

This one’s spicy, so let’s dig in.

Start-ups typically promote senior ICs (specialists) to manager roles without setting them up to lead. Then we expect them to manage other experienced hires (people who know what good leadership looks like! 😱). 

Weak management creates frustration and often, quiet resentment.  “Why am I not in that role?” starts to bubble. And before you know it, you start to lose talent and damage your culture along with it. 

If you’re promoting ICs into management, set them up. Give them the skills, training and support. 

Don’t hire and hope. Build the right foundation

Hiring is not a shortcut to growth, it’s a multiplier. It amplifies whatever system it lands in. If your clarity of strategy, structure and leadership aren’t ready, no hire will fix it. They’ll just expose it.

So before you scale headcount, strengthen your foundation. Not just for the new hire, but for the stage ahead – because building to scale means upgrading more than your revenue. 

It means upgrading how your business runs.

Stop chasing unicorns: Build a band of rockstars instead

“We only hire 🦄unicorns!” 

Translation: We’re waiting for a mythical creature to solve all our problems. Cute. Also: massive liability.

“I’ll know one when I see one.” 

Translation: I have no idea what I’m looking for. Dangerous words when time is ‘runway’.

In start-ups, we don’t need fantasy, we need firepower. A band of rockstars🤘 who, together, crush it harder than any solo act ever could.

That’s where the B.E.S.T. framework comes in. It cuts through the fluff and helps you hire the rockstar for what your team actually needs, not what you hope wanders in.

B = Beliefs

Your rockstars need to believe what you believe. Purpose isn’t just a poster on the wall, it’s the engine. If they’re not in it for the why, they won’t last through the how.

They’ll join because they’re fired up by the mission. They’ll stay because they give a damn. And they’ll go above and beyond — not because they have to, but because they want to.

When beliefs aren’t aligned, it’s like trying to sprint with a team that keeps stopping to ask where we’re going. Slow. Frustrating. Eventually, they’ll leave because they never really believed in the destination.

E = Experience

Spoiler: No one ticks every box. What matters is whether their experience is relevant for your business needs, now and near future. You’re not building a one-person show, you’re adding to a band. So hire for the gaps, not a polished CV.

Here are 4 questions to keep you grounded:

1️⃣ Do they have the experience to solve your most urgent business needs, right now?
→ High impact on current strategy.

2️⃣ If not, do you have the capability or time to grow them?
→ Low immediate impact, but you have time and skill to invest for future value.

3️⃣ Do they bring experience that maps to known future business challenges?
→ High impact for achieving long-term strategy.

4️⃣ Do they bring lateral experience from outside your function or industry?
→ High impact for business transformation strategy.

S = Skills

Skills are what we usually focus on in hiring, from technical, leadership and everything in between. But don’t stop there.

Always include meta-competencies in your hiring checklist. These are the skills that build other skills (i.e. multiplier skills!):
1️⃣ Self-awareness
2️⃣ Self-regulation (turning insight into action)

People with these skills can stretch in any direction, adapt to their environment and continuously be successful. 

T = Traits

Traits are our natural defaults, like preferring structure vs exploration, or being highly organised vs deeply creative. One isn’t better than the other; all have value.

Think of traits like your dominant hand. Writing with it feels easy. Your non-dominant hand? Awkward, but doable with practice. Now imagine signing 100 documents in 5 minutes — you’ll reach for what’s natural. Why am I telling you this? Because start-up pace is the same. Under pressure, we default to our natural type (a.k.a trait).

That’s why hiring for trait diversity isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s essential. If everyone’s structured, we miss fresh ideas. If everyone’s exploring, nothing gets shipped. Progress needs both. 

Unicorns vs. a band of rockstars

Don’t make the mistake of hiring for one role in isolation. Start-up success is a team sport, NOT a solo act. Yet we keep hiring as if one magical person will fix everything.

Hire to complement the whole team. Think like a band: who’s the drummer? Who’s the lead? Where’s the harmony — and where’s the missing piece?

💡P.S. I wrote about how I hired my HR team using B.E.S.T. framework. 👆Click here to read it.

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