Best Practices for Hiring (and firing) Startup Employees

I was fortunate to learn many of the basics of hiring (interviewing, job descriptions, networking), management (goal setting, reviewing performance, PIPs) and firing (layoffs, termination) in previous roles — Amazon.com was extremely good at teaching me effective, behavioral interviewing practices, and many other elements of this presentation.

But it wasn’t until I founded TeachStreet that I became the person wholly responsible for the implementation of the decisions throughout the process — the presentation included below tries to summarize many of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

The Founders Institute asked me to give a presentation this evening in Settle, covering the topics “Hiring, Firing and Co-founders” — really, I think these principles apply to all early-stage startup employees (who all share characteristics of co-founders). I’m sure that I’ve omitted elements in the attached presentation, but I’d appreciate any feedback, and I hope you find this useful.

I have the greatest respect for my current and (most of my 🙂 ) past co-workers — I hope that the terminology in the presentation doesn’t convey anything different than that — I tried to use terms and imagery that will stick with the imagination and memories of the audience.

Keep in mind that employees can substitute the word ’employer for employee’ in almost all cases — that is, if your employer/boss sucks, you should fire them as quickly as possible!