THREAD: Here are 3 common hiring mistakes I've seen when building an early-stage startup.

👇
When hiring early execs, you must ensure they are willing to get in the weeds.

While their title may be CMO, they will have to perform the job of a junior marketer

Too many execs think they're too good to get in the weeds.

Make sure you don't hire someone with that mindset
At launch, you want generalists who can wear many hats.

As you scale, you want specialists who are best in class.

Founders are often too slow to transition from the early generalists to industry-leading specialists

This transition is painful but necessary for future success
Never mislead someone on problems they will face if hired

It's better to tell them all the reasons they will not like working at your company

You want them to understand what it's really like - the good and the bad

You may lose candidates, but you'll build a stronger team
Have a hiring process.

Hiring without a process leads to disaster.

You don't know what you're looking for, and how to get where you need to go.

Spend the time to build out and communicate your hiring process to your team.
For more threads on business, startups, and entrepreneurship, follow me and check them out here.

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More from @austin_rief

18 Jan
THREAD: Here are 10 insights I've learned over the last 5 years from cofounding and selling business.

On startups, investing, marketing, and career advice:

👇👇
"I learn more from speaking with others than reading" is complete nonsense.

The smartest people in the history of the world have distilled their life's work into a few hundred pages.

No, a 30 minute convo with your buddy won't teach you more.
The best businesses in the world expand their target market

-Nike convinced the world that everyone is an athlete
-Apple convinced the world that everyone is a creator
-Shopify is convincing the world that everyone is an entrepreneur

Champion customers and they will reward you
Read 12 tweets
15 Jan
People find motivation is different places.

Many find theirs by proving others wrong. Here is a story that put a chip on my shoulder in the early days.

[thread]
2/ During the first year of @MorningBrew, a *very* well known media exec (you would know him by name) reached out to us.

He mentioned wanting to invest, or even buying @MorningBrew.

We told him every single thing we knew about our company, our readership, and the industry.
3/ After @businessbarista and I spoke with him, he made it clear he was interested.

We were very excited, and thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

However, we didn't hear from him for a few weeks.
Read 7 tweets
6 Jan
1/ "Why didn't @morningbrew raise VC money?" is a question I answer a lot.

So I thought I'd answer it here for everyone.

This is why we didn't raise VC money, and what I learned about raising capital.

[thread]
2/ Morning Brew started as a college side project in 2015.

In 2015, media was BOOMING.

Here were some headlines from the time.
3/ We had very well known media execs (whom you would know by name) telling @businessbarista and I that we *need* to raise capital.

They insist we raised $10s of millions of dollars to "pivot to video".

We had no idea what we'd even do with $10s of millions.
Read 14 tweets
30 Dec 20
1/ One of my 2020 New Year's resolutions was to share more about what I've learned.

I've written dozens of threads on everything from hiring to paid acquisition.

Here are a few of my favorite 2020 threads. Enjoy!
Read 6 tweets
28 Dec 20
1/ When @morningbrew began spending money on paid acquisition in 2018, 2 small insights exploded our growth ~10x in a year.

Small insights can have a huge impact.

Here is what we learned.
2/ The first insight was that the best way to grow a specific medium was to get promoted on that medium.

If you are a podcast, cross-promote with podcasts.

If you are a newsletter, cross-promote with other newsletters.
3/ We found that readers we acquired from ads in other newsletters were >2x as engaged as readers we got from Facebook or referrals.

Noticing this, we bought ads in every newsletter that would let us.

These ads were incredible effective in acquiring quality readers.
Read 16 tweets
17 Dec 20
1/ "What I've learned" meta-thread

I enjoy posting content on running a business, leadership and what I've learned along the way.

I will continue to add as I share more. Feel free to share with others!
2/ A thread on how we got our first 10k subs
2/ A thread on the best job pitch I ever received.
Read 12 tweets

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