From experience, part time / contractors for early stage startups are usually counterproductive. They just won’t be committed, loyal, and giving 120%, while incurring massive management overhead. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a success story. Proper full time employees or don’t hire at all.
FoundersNot unless they have the potential to convert to full time. Then it becomes an open ended work trial, which is nice for both sides to build conviction in each other. 100% agree if there is no full time potential.
Founders
Depends. Most companies don’t bother to hire from high inflation countries. There’s amazing, less tapped talent there and they only work in contract basis due to currency/laws. I hired them, even as founding engineers and would totally do it again.
Founders
It all breaks down to incentives. If your contractor is financially happy, he will take it more personally than you.
Founders
100% this. Also contractors are not going to wake up at 3am to fix a customer issue. The equity/responsibility that a full-time employee has is the best alarm clock.
Founders
I think the opposite. I've experienced a startup with fractional execs, like fCTO, among first hires. They provide strategic value , motivated. Then a contractors or devs shops for implementing. Those are not as motivated, thus execs will oversee it. it is the cheapest and fastest option to validate product idea
Founders
It really depends - definitely agree if the contractor is a more junior engineer. We hired a part time contractor to build a specific frontend page and it was great because he was a senior engineer, capable of filling in the gaps and working pretty independently.
Founders
Kind of agree based on my experience as well. The first few hires are really crucial even if it costs you a little more
Founders
Not sure that don’t hire at all is the solution. It’s about time to market. If the time spent to onboard, educate etc is lower than the value they bring might be ok. Talking about devs now. CM, bizdev, legal can be part-time
Founders
Agreed. It's simply the best way to burn money with little to show for when you're early on.
Founders
it depends. a senior contractor that can spin things up quickly and effectively can often have a lot of impact with less long term financial commitment required from the startup. it’s often v expensive to get someone great full time.
Founders
agree but I think once you hit a certain headcount (maybe 100-200) it starts to make more sense. helps avoid massive layoffs during the bear market. also - many crypto founders are inexperienced and don’t know how to make good use of contractors.
Founders
depends on the role - the best hire is no hire though, if we’re talking true early stage
Founders