How do I hire my first engineer at a startup?

John rejects the "we have VC funding, we should go ahead and hire as quickly as possible" instinct — "I don't think that's the case." The YC coaching he cites: "you should hire when you're starting to miss your first customer demands." With first and second customers that "were pretty big enterprises" and just the two of them, "we were starting to struggle." The first red flag was when they "actually truly missed something" at "a very crucial moment of the contract," while the customer was "still evaluating us versus one of the like long term providers." On engineering, Vivek says "the No. 1 thing is just being able to figure things out," plus the ability to "experiment, iterate fast" and "take ownership," without needing to be constantly handheld.

Hung says startup culture is actually really important because you'll be working with someone at least eight hours a day, "and then maybe some way more" — so you should at least be able to have fun and have a good laugh with them. He credits this approach for a team that is now a little bit more than 20 people who are all great friends with each other. The company even keeps Saturdays off the usual work clock: in Vietnam people normally work Monday to Saturday, but his team doesn't work the Saturday shifts and instead comes in to make TikTok content and have fun.