Almost all my professional life has been in startup. Though I do hate startups that offer normal pay and cheat one saying that you might earn big if company goes big. I do hate startups that tells youngsters that one day you might be earning filthy rich by sacrificing today. All of those happening of prosperity are very small.

In this article I will tell the best way to hire people for startups

Be honest

What most startups managers do is that they think that they can run their company with just motivation and dreams, even though their employees starve. Such kind of people are not deserved to be successful. A business should be kept so that it brings happiness to people, not dreams with starvation.

When you hire, be honest. Tell the negative side of your business. Don't say that your business will become a zillion rupee one one day. Tell them the truth that to succeed is difficult, and lot depends on luck.

Well, no matter how much belief and dream you have on your projeect, its just belief and dream. Know that. Don't be a drunk stupid, be a sober intelligent when talking to people about hiring them.

Pay well

Startups can pop into existence and go out of existence. So paying well is a must. Usually startups pay five times the salary as normal companies would. The logic is, if some one goes off because of cultural misfit, he or she can be comfortable for a while to search a new job.

An employee should be aware of volatile startup culture. the onus of making them aware lies in the startup itself.

Don't overpay

Just because startups do pay well, it does not mean a startup must over pay like 25 times that of normal salary. You are not here to attract devils that prey on money. You are here to see some one who fits your dream.

Get people sharing same vision

Actually this should be the first point, but I am typing as last. One must get people having the same vision. Recently one of the startup thats getting my weekend consultation wanted to hire people. Fortunately they had some of its product developed. Rather than  getting resumes from people and pondering over it, we asked possible job seekers to use the product.

The result, many who applied for job for the sake of applying vanished. Out of tens of people only three used the product, none understood it well, thus showing their lack of interest. Worst some said they had seen the product in and out when we found no trace of them in our server logs. We black listed those liars.

We are hoping to find some one who will be bloody interested to use the product, say wow and contribute to it.

In case if your product is not in beta or whatever, tell the person about your dream, tell that person to develop a small module and promise to pay if its good. If the person comes back with  a good stuff, pay him or her and hire.