Building the initial team for seed stage startups at andrewchen

These early-stage teams are made up of a handful of entrepreneurial types with a high tolerance for ambiguity. They spend their time testing new ideas and clamoring for customer feedback, and if they don’t have customers yet, they might be shipping first and asking questions later — often, as the adage goes, asking forgiveness, not permission.

People who join small teams crave the challenge of new things.

Hiring a perfect team means finding perfect fits along just two scales: you want people who are ideal for the work you want them to do, and ideal for the culture that you are building.

As an early tip, be as much of an observer as you can. Don’t try to disrupt or change things too much early on. You’ll come to a product and have your conceptions of what needs to change, but most times there’s a culture of making decisions and reasons for why things haven’t been high priority in the past. You don’t want to pull the trigger too qui

1. Work at a startup. 2. Work at a big company. 3. Get a mentor to help you navigate it all. 4. Find a cofounder to balance you out and share the load. 5. Convince people to join you. Your founding team should be anchored by seed crystals—great people who bring in more great people.