The First Ten Hires

What are your first hires learning from you?

More than the values page says. Your first ten hires watch how you decide, what you send back, whether you admit mistakes and whether customers come up in conversation. Then they hire the next ten in that image. Your first ten hires are your culture; everything after is a copy.

Take The First Ten Hires: fourteen questions, about five minutes. Answer for the last month.

What does the test look at?

Five dimensions of our own, two or three questions each:

• Pace. How fast decisions and work move around you.
• Candour. How openly hard things get said, including about you.
• Autonomy. How much people decide how to do their own work.
• Craft. How much the quality of the work itself matters.
• Customer focus. How present customers are in everyday decisions.

What do I get at the end?

A culture fingerprint: all five dimensions ranked, each with what that habit is teaching new hires, such as “You own your work here” or “Check with the founder before you act”. Your strongest signal comes with what it’s good for, its trade-off and one move. The dimension names are our own and still a draft.

How is it worked out?

Each dimension has two or three questions, answered from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Five of the fourteen describe the opposite habit, such as “I soften feedback so new people won’t feel bad”, and are flipped before scoring. Each dimension’s average sets its bar; 3 or more shows the lesson it teaches when strong, and below 3 the lesson it teaches when weak.

The questions, dimensions and advice are a draft written with AI and are waiting for a coach’s review. Treat the result as a mirror, not a verdict.

What should I read or take next?

Read how to build a company culture as a founder for the research behind early culture. If new hires check with you before acting, Two Weeks Away shows what else waits on you. Every tool for this stage is on the Founders page.