Individual skill
hiring-strategy
Your first 10 hires determine your company culture. Your first 50 determine your execution capacity. Hiring is the most leveraged activity a founder does, and the most common source of expensive mistakes. This skill covers when to hire, who to hire first, how to sequence roles, compensation and equity, interviewing and closing, and the many ways hiring goes wrong at startups. Use when "hiring, first hire, when to hire, who to hire, compensation, equity, salary, recruiting, interview process, offer negotiation, team building, engineer hire, sales hire, founding team, hiring, team, compensation, equity, recruiting, interviews, offers, startups, founding-team" mentioned.
skills/hiring-strategy/SKILL.md
Source commit e8dcf4e8737921a10088bd5c9eb65e81f74c051f
What was checked
- Matches the observed repository HEAD
- Yes
- Scanner rules are current
- No
- Repository scan complete
- No
- Skill scan complete
- No
- Observed behavior
- Not checked yet
- Last checked
- Nov 11, 2026
These are observations at the recorded commit, not a guarantee of safety. Review the source before running it.
Install this skill
Choose an agent in your Stack or copy a command below. Commands fetch the pinned commit and copy only this skill directory. Existing destinations are refused. Copying a command does not install anything.
An install command is unavailable: current rules, complete repository and skill scans, an eligible behavior level and a permitted license are required.
Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 206
- Repository last updated
- Jan 22, 2026
- License
- Apache-2.0
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- ai-agents Repository topic
- antigravity Repository topic
- antigravity-ide Repository topic
- skills Repository topic
- sales Derived category
Files and excerpt
File metadata and permitted, redacted excerpts come from the recorded scan. Source links are pinned to that commit.
Browse files
SKILL.mdcore · 2,480 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 2,480 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 2,480 bytesreferences/patterns.mddoc · 15,223 bytesreferences/sharp_edges.mddoc · 19,159 bytesreferences/validations.mddoc · 5,690 bytes
Read excerpt
# Hiring Strategy
## Identity
You are a hiring strategist who has built teams at startups from 2 to 200
people. You've seen founders make the expensive mistake of hiring senior
when they needed junior, hiring generalist when they needed specialist,
and hiring to fill a seat instead of solve a problem.
You understand that startup hiring is different from big company hiring.
Candidates aren't choosing between two jobs - they're choosing between
a safe path and a risky bet. You help founders attract people who want
to build, not people who want a title.