Getting the hiring process right is one of the most critical and challenging aspects of building a startup. Early hires shape your company’s culture, operational efficiency, and future growth, yet many founders face this task without prior hiring experience or a clear sense of what their evolving business truly needs. Without being thoughtful about hiring—from crafting compelling job descriptions to setting consistent compensation and onboarding practices—startups risk bringing in team members who are misaligned with the company’s needs or culture, creating friction and slowing momentum. Over the course of my three decades as a startup operator, executive coach and educator of entrepreneurs, I’ve observed that investing the time upfront to build strong hiring practices not only helps attract the right talent but also lays a foundation for a healthy, scalable organization.
While you can’t prevent occasional mis-hires, you can try to minimize the possibility by including a project phase in your hiring process or even considering a project as a paid consulting engagement (“try before you buy”) for both you and the candidate. This allows the candidate to demonstrate what they are capable of and what it might be like to work with them—and them with you—once they are on board full time. Projects can give you a higher degree of confidence that this is “the one,” which can be super hard in the early stages of your startup when you are not sure what “the one” even is. If this is not a try-before-you-buy situation, I recommend that projects are performed just before you are ready to do reference checks and make an offer. This can be an especially helpful step if you are down to two finalists you really like so you can compare how each one approaches a project.
Unless you plan to do a trial engagement with them, try not to choose a project that takes more than one to two hours to do unless you pay them for the work. A startup I’ve worked with offers to pay for the time taken to do a project, and if the candidate declines payment, the startup makes a donation to a charity of the candidate’s choice as compensation for their time.
Below are some projects that can be effective at startups. Keep in mind that these projects test the candidate’s approach more than whether they do the work perfectly. Build alignment with your team on what good looks like for each project and plan to debrief once the assignment is complete and/or presented. Here are a few examples of what good might look like.
“The First 90 Days”
This is a good general test for any new hire, especially an executive, but also for a people manager or technical leader. Have the candidate explain what their first ninety days on the job will look like. Either leave it wide open or offer a few prompts like, “Who will you spend time with?” or “How will you get to know the business?” or “What accomplishments do you hope to make by the end of the first ninety days?”
Engineering and Design Projects
While there are some nifty tools out there that can test coding skills for engineers, I am a strong advocate for testing the softer skills. Those who design and/or build your product should be able to demonstrate their work beyond coding or portfolio samples. The best type of project here is a brief scenario about building a new feature or capability for your product that will allow the candidate to demonstrate not just depth of syntax knowledge or design best practices, but also how they will work on a problem with your team. These projects can be done as “homework,” although it’s nice if it can be done in person or as part of a video interview. Present a scenario and ask the candidate how they will approach it. You could give them some alone time to think about it and then ask them to talk through it. Ask them to cite how they thought about it and to explain the direction they took and why. Prepare to have another approach or idea for the scenario when they walk through their work. This can help gauge how the candidate handles feedback and if they are willing to collaborate on ideas.
Scenarios for Non-Engineering Teams (Marketing, Sales, Product)
I prefer scenario tests over presentations of a non-engineering candidate’s past work because such tests will show you how they use their experience to approach something new. Scenarios you may ask them to work through can be actual challenges you are facing, or they can be hypothetical. Here are some quick examples of scenario tests for a few functional areas:
• Product: Our CTO just came back from a “listening tour” with some of our customers and wants to explore a new set of features to expand our product offerings. These offerings are not on the product roadmap. What steps would you take to understand these new features and how would you approach the prioritization process?
• Marketing: We’re about to launch a new product for our customers. What steps would you take to plan for this product launch and how will you measure its success?
• Sales: We are building a product to attract new customers in a new segment. What information do you need to prepare your team to sell this new product and how will you set sales goals for the team?
You could imagine similar scenarios for finance, customer sup- port, or other functional roles. Remember, these candidates don’t know how your business functions day-to-day, so this isn’t about whether they have a perfect plan but more about how they approach the problem.
With all the interviews and projects, you still may not get it right every time. Again, hiring is hard. That’s why the try-before-you-buy approach is often the best way to go for both the candidate and your startup. One way to ease that process, if a trial candidate can work full time before converting to a permanent employee, is to offer them equity in your startup that will be granted when they convert, but with a backdated vesting schedule to when they started their trial.
If you’re hiring for a role for the first time and no one on your team has experience with that role—so no one knows what good looks like—ask an experienced advisor, investor, or friend with experience to be part of the interview process. They should be able to interview the candidate and help you formulate the projects you may assign.
Excerpted with permission from “After the Idea: What It Really Takes to Create and Scale a Startup.” Copyright © 2025 by Julia Austin. Available from Basic Venture, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
