We’ve shared a lot of resources about startup hiring:

• In-House or Outsourced? Here's How to Find the Right Fit

• 3 Simple Strategies For Employee Onboarding (Template Included!)

• 4 Keys To Great Onboarding As You Scale

• 6 Tips To Supercharge Your Customer Success Hiring Plan

• 6 Ways Startups Can Build a Winning Sales Team

• Interviewing Top Talent: 5 Strategies To Identify Rockstars

• How To Hire Stellar Startup Interns (applies to all hires!)

…to name a few 😜

But we have never dug into the important underlying topic:

SHOULD you hire?

And of course:

What do you do when you want to hire but can’t afford to?

Which is actually every startup at some point because resources are constrained and there’s always too much to do!

We keep it scrappy ourselves in our venture studio. We have a small full-time team and many experiments and companies at different stages at any given time. Gotta stay creative and lean when getting stuff done!

Here’s an overview (aka friendly reminder and sanity check?!?) of hiring tradeoffs plus 8 free or low cost ways to get things done without a full-time hire!

Should You Hire?

First things first — do you even need to hire?

The best startups, regardless of their financial position, are always careful and intentional about hiring.

Keeping headcount minimal has lots of benefits:

• More cash cushion and budgetary flexibility

• Move faster, less bureaucracy

• Fewer systems, processes, meetings, emails

• Fewer people to manage the additional people (hiring results in more hiring)

• Higher pay, better benefits

• Avoiding layoffs. When you do layoffs (which is different than firing someone because of performance), people lose trust and top performers start looking elsewhere.

Of course, if you don’t hire appropriately, it can cause:

• Increased workload, stress, risk of employee attrition

• Less career mobility (no new roles opening)

• Slower product, sales, or company growth

But it’s always great to explore all options before pulling the trigger on a new role!

8 Scrappy Ways To Get Work Done (Without Hiring!)

1. Use AI.

Duhhhhhhh. Can you build an internal tool quickly with Cursor, spin up a CustomGPT, or use an “out-of-the-box” AI tool (aka a wrapper) for your specific use case like creating presentations, analyzing data, prepping for sales calls, or building beautiful videos?

2. Software.

Can you buy or build a tool that solves the problem or does 90% of the work? (See “Use AI'“ above 😁) Zapier for anything is a great start. It may take a bit of time to research and implement but hiring humans takes time too!

3. Use a virtual assistant.

Duckbill is $100/mo. And Jacey Cadet has a 50% discount code for you ;)

They can do scheduling, calendar invites, research, travel reservations, gift ordering, and anything else you can think of online.

Cheaper and more effective (for now) than Agentic AI.

I love the idea of “requiring” employees to have a virtual assistant and see who can use their assistant the most.

4. Hire a great intern.

Technically it is hiring, but there’s no better startup ROI than interns. (More here on why I love interns and how to vet and hire top intern talent!)

You can find them for sales, marketing, engineering, anything. They are also eager to learn and can dig in on a new technology or subject when others don’t have bandwidth.

(Contractors can also be very cost-effective depending on the person and project!)

5. Barter.

Can you trade work-for-work with another founder? I know a founder who bartered sales training for an app build!

Or maybe you can offer career coaching, work experience, and a great reference to a recent college grad in exchange for a few social posts per week?

You have skills and talents that can help others. Post on LinkedIn or ask your network for what you need.

6. Sell ahead.

Pre-sell your product or sell a solution that’s manual behind-the-scenes while you get enough revenue to build the tech version. Not exactly doing the work but a good way to validate that it makes sense to hire and generate the cash to do so.

7. Commission-based work.

Pay for results only. I know of several founders who have found interns, friends, or side hustlers willing to cold call or set demos in commission-only roles. Not a forever thing but a great way to test a market or strategy before hiring.

8. Gut check.

Sometimes a founder or the team gets fixated on “needing” a role and loses sight of the big picture. Is this work still a priority? Should it be a priority? If you don’t hire, what happens? Does this role generate revenue or pay for itself quickly?

Stay Lean, Startup Friends!

Even startups with plenty of money use these strategies frequently.

Keep your hustle muscle strong! 💪💪💪

The best businesses (regardless of cash position) stay focused on efficiency, speed, budget, and ROI.

Do you have other scrappy ways to get stuff done? Other tools, services, or fun stories? Founders are the best at creatively solving problems! Share what has worked for you.