The 4 step algorithm to making your first hires

When I went to hire my first person at Column Tax, Erik Goldman (co-founder of Vanta) shared this 4 step algorithm that I used and had all hiring managers who worked with me use as well. I've shared it with all of the startups I've advised, and wanted to memorialize it publicly online. IntroAt some point, hiring becomes your most important job as a founder. After you've found PMF, hiring is likely your biggest job. Your team is your company. And your people will bottleneck your progress if you don't hire well. On the flipside, hiring someone amazing who can take work off your plate is the best feeling ever. Here's how to do it. How do you know when you need to hire?First, how do you know you need to hire? The test you can use is to ask yourself "Do you wish you had a replica of yourself to do known work you have?" -- if your answer is "yes", it's probably time to hire. If you can't easily explain the work you need to do (e.g. it's to find initial PMF or is something you haven't yet…