The Best People Don’t Need Convincing
There’s a mistake I see a lot of founders make when they’re hiring. They try too hard to sell the job. They talk about how great the company is, how exciting the vision is, how big the market is. And they assume that if they just pitch it the right way, the best people will come running.
But that’s not how it works. The best people don’t join because you convinced them. They join because they saw something inevitable—something that was already happening—and they wanted to be a part of it.
I’ve seen this firsthand.
When I started my latest company, I didn’t need to tell people why financial connectivity was broken. Everyone in the industry already knew it. Financial advisors are drowning in inefficiencies, their workflows scattered across tools that don’t talk to each other. The problem isn’t subtle. And that’s exactly why the best people want to work on it.
If you have to sell someone on why your startup matters, they’re probably not the right person. The people you want—the ones who will actually build something great—already feel the pull of the problem.
The Right People Recognize the Right Problems
In 2014, Brian Chesky sent an email to his team at Airbnb. He said, “Don’t f*** up the culture.” What he meant was: once you lose the DNA of why you exist, it’s impossible to get it back.
The same thing applies to hiring. If you start hiring people who just want a cool startup job, you’re done. You need people who already see the problem the way you do. People who, when they hear what you’re building, think: Of course. That has to exist.
If you’re building a financial operating system for advisors, the right hire isn’t someone who needs a pitch on why that’s important. It’s someone who already feels the pain. Maybe they’ve seen their father struggle as an advisor, drowning in manual work. Maybe they’ve spent time inside a firm and thought, This is insane—why hasn’t someone fixed this?
Those people don’t need convincing. They just need to see that you’re the ones solving it.
Why You Shouldn’t Hire for Credentials
One of the worst ways to hire is to look at who worked at big-name companies and assume they’re the best. I’ve hired people from FAANG companies before. Some were great, but a lot were just good at working inside FAANG.
At a startup, you don’t need permission-seekers. You don’t need people who need structure to operate. You need people who see something broken and can’t stop themselves from fixing it.
When we’re hiring, we look for proof of that. It’s not about where they worked; it’s about what they did. Did they build something on their own? Did they break things, then fix them? Have they taken real risks before?
The best hires at early startups are often misfits in big companies. They’re the ones who get frustrated with bureaucracy, who refuse to accept “that’s just how it’s done.”
The Work Is the Pitch
So if you’re hiring, here’s my advice: stop selling. Just build. Build so fast, and so well, that the right people can’t ignore you.
Great people don’t join companies because of pitches. They join because they see something happening that they can’t not be a part of.
If you make something undeniable, they’ll come to you.
