The Bad First Hire They Kept Too Long
The Story
Hypefury’s first hire was a customer success person. Yannick called it “our first and worst hire.” The person wasn’t a good cultural fit for the role. But the founders kept them on too long instead of acting quickly.
They eventually found the right person through their existing network: someone they’d met during their journey who showed genuine interest in helping customers. After that experience, their hiring approach changed completely. They prioritized developers over other roles to stay competitive, and they correlated every new hire directly to revenue growth, refusing to add more people until hitting $30-40K MRR.
The team eventually grew to around 15 people across 9 countries, fully distributed, using Deel for contracts, ClickUp for projects, and Twist for communication.
Lesson for Creators
When a hire isn’t working, act fast. Keeping the wrong person too long hurts morale, slows you down, and costs more than the discomfort of letting them go. Also: your best hires often come from your existing network, not job boards. The person who already knows your world and genuinely cares about the problem is worth more than someone with a perfect resume.
Related
- Hiring Weirdos - The Bottom of the Resume — Looking for passion and personality rather than credentials when hiring
- The Greg Egan Sci-Fi Lunch at Anthropic — Cultural fit and shared values mattering more than raw skills
- Delegate What You Love, Not What You Hate — Finding the right people to delegate to and how bad delegation destroys momentum