| name | fundraise-team-hiring |
| description | Use when a founder is shaping the team for a raise or hiring against the round. Triggers on "team slide", "what hires do investors want", "how much equity for an early hire", "key hire before fundraising", "is my team fundable", "hiring plan for the round". Connects the team story, the gap-filling hires, and the equity to grant. |
Fundraise Team & Hiring
Investors fund a team's ability to learn faster than the market changes. "Why
this team wins this bet" must be answerable without hand-waving — and the gaps
must be named with a credible plan, not hidden. This skill builds both the story
and the hiring plan behind it.
When to use this skill
Use it while building the team slide in [[pitch-deck-builder]], when sizing the
option pool in [[cap-table-manager]], and when use-of-funds in the ask is mostly
"key hires."
The team story investors fund
- Earned right to win: the specific experience or insight that makes this
team unusually suited to this problem. Not a resume — a reason.
- Founder-market fit: why you, why now, the unfair advantage you carry.
- Named gaps, owned: every investor sees the holes. Naming them first
("we need a VP Eng by Q3, here's the pipeline") signals self-awareness;
hiding them signals you can't see your own business.
The hires that de-risk a round
The most fundable use-of-funds is hiring that converts your biggest risk into a
plan. Identify the one or two roles that most reduce investor doubt:
- If the risk is "can they build it" -> a senior technical hire or co-founder.
- If the risk is "can they sell it" -> a first sales/GTM leader once there is
repeatable pull.
- If the risk is "can they keep them" -> a hire that owns retention.
Hire against the milestone from [[fundraising-stage-selector]], not a generic
org chart. A pre-seed company hiring a CFO is spending dilution on the wrong
risk.
Equity for early hires (rough bands, calibrate to stage and seniority)
- First engineers (post-seed): ~0.25%-1.0%.
- Early senior leaders / first VPs: ~0.5%-2.0%.
- Pre-product-market-fit co-founder-level hire: 1%-5%+, vesting over 4 years
with a 1-year cliff.
Grant from a pool sized to the actual 18-month hiring plan. An oversized pool
dilutes founders for hires that never happen; size it deliberately in
[[cap-table-manager]].
Anti-patterns
- A team slide of logos with no "why this team" thesis.
- Hiring senior executives before product-market fit to "look fundable."
- An option pool set at a round-number default instead of the hiring plan.
- Handshake equity with no documented grant or vesting — a diligence landmine
([[fundraise-readiness-audit]]).
Deliverable
A team narrative (earned right to win + founder-market fit + named gaps), a
prioritized list of the 1-2 risk-reducing hires tied to the round's milestone,
and an equity-grant plan with vesting that rolls up into the option-pool size.
