getting it right: your first international hire

• Who’s this for? Startup Founders looking to make their first international hire.
• What’s the TL;DR? Hire a swiss army knife over a specialist.
• What’s the ChatGPT Summary? The article discusses the importance of making a good first hire when expanding a startup internationally. Some common mistakes made in this process include hiring someone who is not fully committed to the work, hiring someone with management experience who may not be able to work at the pace required, or hiring someone who does not fit the company culture. The text recommends hiring someone who is hungry and trustworthy, such as a young consultant, investment banker, or recent MBA graduate, who is able to handle the multidisciplinary nature of the work and is willing to take on additional responsibilities as they grow with the company. The text also advises against sacrificing quality and suggests using a rigorous interview process with take-home work to assess potential hires.

I’ve recently met a number of startup Founders who express regret when asked about their first international hire. The typical response is something along the lines of  “our first hire wasn’t great, it set us back a few months, but we’ve learnt a lot from the experience”. After hearing the same thing a few times, I thought it’d be useful to share some of what I’ve learnt.

If you’re an Aussie or Kiwi Founder hoping to build a big business, expanding overseas is often viewed as a potential unlock to a big market. It can be a defining moment for the company, and it’s something you only get to do once. I don’t think I need to convince you that your first hire on the ground is important.

The big mistakes I’ve seen are:

• Hiring someone with great experience on paper, but who isn’t fully on board with what it actually means to do the Day 1 work
• Hiring someone who is used to upper-level management (typically in a bigger company) and isn’t able to move at the pace you need
• Hiring someone who isn’t a culture fit

The biggest trap I’ve seen Founders fall into is thinking they need to get someone with great connections who’s worked at a big company and knows what it takes to scale a business. I frequently hear things like “we got the ex-Head of Sales at [insert big company] to come on board”. That's great but it's probably not what you need in your first hire.

What you really need is someone who is hungry, and who you trust. You want to avoid hiring someone who seems great based on their experience but isn't on board with what it actually means to work in an unstructured environment. During the interview process, these ex-Head’s of will probably convince you that they’re deeply passionate about the problem you’re solving and that they love your product. They’ll also probably say that they’ve spent enough time working at big companies and now want to work on something new and exciting. 

However, launching internationally is often not as glamorous as it sounds. It means localising your product, talking to customers, researching the market, searching for offices, setting up basic sales processes, and a whole lot more. When I joined an Aussie fintech startup as their first US hire, I spent hours calling various government agencies, speaking to banks, setting up an office and PO box, conducting interviews, and ordering equipment, all whilst being 14 hours behind my colleagues in Australia. 

Being the first boots on the ground means a lot of multidisciplinary foundational work. This person will be working across sales, operations, product and marketing. This means that they need to learn quickly and be willing to toss aside their Job Description to just get shit done. 

So what types of people can do that well?

The three cohorts of people that come to mind are young consultants, investment bankers, and recent MBA grads. These people likely have a few years of professional experience, they know how to grind and they’re usually hungry. You’ll want to make sure you find someone who also knows how to figure out stuff on the fly. Young people also typically have the added benefit of having more free time. 

You can usually lure these people away by selling the opportunity. If they’re good, they’ll be given responsibilities years ahead of schedule.  You can also typically hire these people at cheaper rates than say, for example, a VP of Sales at Hubspot. Many Founders stretch their budgets to overpay for senior hires, and then regret the decision in a few months.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• Don’t make sacrifices: Hiring in a foreign market where you have no brand presence is tough. It’s likely that no one has ever heard of you. Irrespective, it’s not worth sacrificing on quality. A good hire who you can trust will save you countless hours in the future.
• Have a rigorous interview with take-home work: I have mixed feelings about intense interview processes with long take-home exercises. However, for your first hire, I’d recommend that they meet a large number of the team and that they also complete some long-form exercise. Unless they’re already super knowledgeable on the space in which you operate, I’d suggest asking them to put together a deep dive into your industry. This should include things like market dynamics, competitive landscape, business models, and most importantly, some commentary on what they view as key opportunities and risks for your business and/or the industry. If you don’t like the sound of this, any exercise that will test their critical thinking and decision-making skills should do the job. If they’re not willing to put in the work ahead of time, they’re probably not the type of person to go above and beyond for the company.
• Remember the Stockdale Paradox: Admiral Jim Stockdale was a Prisoner of War during the Vietnam war. He made it out alive and attributes this to his unwavering faith that he would prevail in the end, whilst also having the discipline to confront the brutal facts of his current reality. Adapting this to hiring, you want to sell the eventual dream whilst also being completely upfront about the grunt work that it’ll take to get there. I’ve seen a number of cases where a potential employee is only sold the grand vision and feels severely underwhelmed when faced with reality.
• Meet in person: If you don’t know this person, you should try to meet them face to face. It’s very hard to build trust over Zoom.
• Conduct backchannel references: This is the best way to get an honest read on a potential hire. Try to leverage your network to find someone who was worked with this person in the past (without crossing any boundaries).
• Consider internal talent: If you already have a human swiss army knife working for you and they’re open to relocation, consider offering them the role.

There’s a lot to consider when hiring internationally and much of this advice will vary based on what your company does and the stage at which you’re at. Whilst no hard and fast rules exist, I firmly believe that hiring a hungry generalist who you trust is a great way to seed your overseas operations. 

As always, I’d love to hear thoughts and feedback. You can reach me on LinkedIn or Twitter.