Mr. Sim writes that companies require different teams at different stages of development and hiring senior management too early can be problematic because: Hiring too early is worse than too late Investors would rather build a team around a vision than inherit a fully baked team Companies change often in their early days Sr. MORE >>

Advisory Board. At one of our initial board meetings we had agreed on the general principle of an advisory board and put together an overall stock budget to compensate advisors. Over the next week we exchanged emails over advisory board stock. The timing was perfect, my board meeting was in two days. MORE >>

Here are some others that @dowdle left in a comment: Other symptoms include: one of the first hires planned is a CFO, hiring a bunch of people with Big Co experience and no start-up experience, raising money without understanding terms, looking for office space prior to funding, putting IPO as the exit strategy. But it's not the norm. MORE >>

My advisory board matters – if you mention you’re advisors too much, there’s something wrong with the team. can hire someone else to make sales – It has to be the founders for a while, don’t hurry to hire a salesman. E ntrepreneurship is like riding a bicycle. Don’t count on Google or anyone to buy your business. MORE >>

The proactive solution is to hire sparingly, and spend the time and effort needed to hire existing experts in all cases. Don’t hire your friends and family, don’t assume they can learn on the job, and don’t assume that cheap is best. Probably 80% of the startups I know have found human resource issues to be the most treacherous. MORE >>