Every startup goes through a challenging period where there is enough work for 15 people, but only a budget for 5 (or less).  In this case, your first hires are the most critical.  They should be salaried employees, on-site, with some significant equity incentive, right?   Well, here's a little bit of a lesson learned from our process of building a development team for Ubooly.

To be fair, this was the advice given to us when we were starting, paired with the sound suggestion to 'hire slowly, fire quickly."  So, with this advice in mind, we hired full-timers whenever we felt greatly undermanned, which was a regular occurrence with our fast-moving startup.  The result? We got married to employees and felt stuck.

As someone who’s managed large teams of contractors in the past, I can tell you that hiring full-time team members is far more stressful than onboarding a contractor.  A full-time hire may have to leave another company, you may miss that they aren’t a cultural fit, and you’ll have to deal with all of the formalities like benefits, options, etc. from day one.

Here’s how our process works for contractors: we review their previous work, chat over Skype, and then kick-off a test project.  We avoid making their initial assignment a serious commitment (for both parties).  If that works out, we move onto assignment #2.  Some folks may read this and think “that sounds great for small jobs, but not for someone in a leadership role.”  Our results have shown differently.

It’s true that some contractors fulfill a specialist role, but you’ll also find that others outgrow the role you initially give them.  Our lead writer, Chris falls into this category.  He started off with 10-15hrs of work a month.  After a couple of months, I started getting emails from him at all hours of the day brainstorming how our product could function better, or ways to make our processes more efficient.   Not only was Chris our top writer, but he understood our vision and was committed to the cause.  Chris is now full-time at Ubooly, and manages a team of 10 content creators.

Not every contractor is a Chris.  I’ve worked with plenty of contractors that are specialists and don’t need to be deeply committed to the business.  Often times, they love their craft and want to entrench themselves in their specific tasks.  We’re happy to provide those contractors opportunities to engage at a higher level, but never force it.

The whole notion of forcing hires into a full-time role is antiquated and silly.  I recently met with a mom who went back to her full-time job after having her first baby.  She admitted that there were times at the office where she desperately wanted to go home and spend time with her son.  She still loved her job (and was more talented than other candidates), but felt that she wasn’t giving her all at times due to this distraction.  This seemed like a no-brainer to me.  I would bet my right arm that she’d accomplish 80% of her current output if she put in half the time of her current schedule.  If her employer paid her 65% of her current pay for this new half-time schedule, this would be a win / win for both parties.

I’m not saying that contracting works for everyone. Some folks need the routine and stability of a full-time job. However, the next time you post a job for a full-time role in your company, ask yourself “Am I willing to bypass potentially better candidates just because they live in another city or want extra time for their family?”  We said “no”, and have never looked back.