Hiring Tips from Pebble Watch Founder Eric Migicovsky

TL;DR

Eric Migicovsky, a YC partner and Pebble founder, identifies three qualities for early-stage hires: flexibility of ideas, trust, and a multidisciplinary skill set. He stresses hiring people you already trust from prior work or school projects, and advises against hiring deep experts early because the product will likely change.

Key insights

• At the earliest stage, there is no roadmap; the most important quality is flexibility of ideas – the ability to think creatively and consider different paths, approaching the startup as a problem-solv
• Trust is the highest-priority quality across all company stages. The best hires were friends or fellow students from university or past workplaces – people Migicovsky had already worked with and knew
• When you trust someone, you don’t have to constantly monitor whether they will solve things “the way you would” – they can be left to figure it out independently.