Raising the bar

We’re back in full interview mode at Secfi and looking to hire for multiple roles. It’s a fun and exciting time, but it comes with it’s stresses.

It’s always exciting meeting hungry candidates who want to work at Secfi and help take the company to the next level. There’s a ton of entrepreneurial minded candidates out there that are excited to join a small startup like Secfi and I learn from them every time I have an interview.

At the same time, hiring is easily the hardest part about running a startup. A bad decision can be costly on not just the balance sheet, but everyone’s time as well. Like everyone, I’ve made bad hires in the past and it was not been fun dealing with the result.

There’s a fairly simple mantra when it comes to hiring at startups and that’s to hire someone that “raises the bar”. You want to look for people that raise the average bar of the company in terms of drive and skillset. That doesn’t mean necessarily that person needs to have more experience in areas. Someone with little experience but intense drive and commitment can raise the bar.

It’s no surprise that the bad hires we’ve made were people that we weren’t convinced raised the bar of the company. Whereas the good hires all brought something unique or were so driven that they raised the bar.