Recent events dictate that we need to expand our Team beyond me, my CTO, and the gaggle of folks who have helped us out in our first few months.  Things are going well on a few fronts, and now we find ourselves at a point where we need more than the nights & weekends we've gotten from our Extended Team so far.  At least if I'm going to keep our full time people happy.

It is funny because when I started down this path, I had some ideas about things I would & would not do again when hiring people for a startup.  For instance, I don't want to hire anyone without having worked with them before — ideally in a startup setting.  The best case scenario is a "try before you buy" situation where you bring someone in on a part-time contract to see what they can do.  I have been around too many "poor fits" to know that a bad hiring decision can be very, very costly and hard to fix.  It is far better to recognize an issue in advance.

The tough part about this is that we need a few things from people we hire - 1) brilliance, 2) awareness of Web 2.0 technologies, 3) compatibility with the uncertainty and resource constraints of a startup, 4) humility to work well within a Team, 5) ability to multitask, 6) ability to drive things to completion without a lot of guidance.  I know people like that are out there, but they are hard to find.  And I've been around enough folks who say they are startup-minded only to get in and complain about everything.

So we're taking time now to talk with our Extended Team to see who really wants to make the leap.  We are fine in any eventuality but I do have an ideal scenario tucked away in my head.

Anyway, I do know we need one more ASP.NET person, ideally with some experience with Sharepoint.  Contact me with a resume' if you're qualified and interested.