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The Startup Playbook for Hiring Your First Engineers and AEs

The Startup Playbook for Hiring Your First Engineers and AEs

10 segments available

Most founders think hiring is about interviewing. But it's actually about selling. For Startup School, Juicebox co-founder & CEO David Paffenholz joins YC's Harj Taggar to share how early-stage founders can find, pitch, and close top engineering and sales talent— from crafting better outreach to winning great hires from Big Tech— even when you're an unknown startup. Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs Chapters: 0:00 – Why your first hires matter 1:17 – What great candidates actually want 4:38 – How to sell your startup to top talent 7:49 – Finding and sourcing great engineers 13:17 – Writing outreach that gets replies 20:58 – Interviewing: sell first, assess second 25:59 – Closing fast and competing with Big Tech 31:06 – Common mistakes founders make 38:52 – When (and how) to hire a recruiter 43:11 – Final thoughts

Segments Timeline

1
0:00 - 1:20
1:20 duration242 words

Why your first hires matter

"Today we're going to hear from David Paffenholse, co-founder and CEO of Juicebox about how to source great engineering and sales talent. Juicebox is an AI sourcing platform backed by Sequoia and used ..."

2
1:20 - 4:38
3:17 duration683 words

What great candidates actually want

"after that for the first 50 people total. Today, Juicebox is a team of 20. We put a lot of thought into who the first 10 people were we hire and just as much thought into the next 10 as well. At the s..."

3
4:38 - 7:52
3:14 duration697 words

How to sell your startup to top talent

"we'll have to go to the second question, which is why should they choose your startup? We've already established that they probably want to have high impact. They're open to pretty high risk and they ..."

4
7:52 - 13:18
5:25 duration1053 words

Finding and sourcing great engineers

"This is where we're going to be going most in depth. proactively identifying and reaching out to the right candidates for you. We'll cover a bunch of different steps on how to make that good, but firs..."

5
13:18 - 20:59
7:41 duration1689 words

Writing outreach that gets replies

"You can think of this as the outreach step or the email sequencing step of getting in touch. There's some similarities for AEES and squeeze here. We'll want to personalize the outreach. Um, multi-step..."

6
20:59 - 26:01
5:01 duration1113 words

Interviewing: sell first, assess second

"dedicated for sourcing or coffee chats. Now, going on to the interview and closing stages. We'll be a little bit shorter on these ones um because a lot of this will be more custom to your company. Nex..."

7
26:01 - 31:06
5:05 duration1218 words

Closing fast and competing with Big Tech

"investor maybe an angel investor to reach out to that candidate and emphasize that same reason why they should be joining you. Closing the offers is going to be hard, especially with early stage compa..."

8
31:06 - 38:52
7:46 duration1784 words

Common mistakes founders make

"competitive and how have you seen any strategies for how can you be creative in your sourcing to find people who might not be so competitive but are equally talented? >> I think being able to find peo..."

9
38:52 - 43:11
4:19 duration1050 words

When (and how) to hire a recruiter

"related or stability of jobreated. it's probably not worth fighting that battle because they are likely going to end up going that direction. I think in the later stages if they have indicated they wa..."

10
43:11 - 43:14
0:03 duration14 words

Final thoughts

">> Thanks so much, David. That was really informative. >> Thanks for having me."