You Made the Hire. Now What?
You spent weeks finding the right person. Fast forward three weeks and something feels off. Not catastrophically wrong, just... off. They're nice. They're trying. But you're not sure.
This is the moment most leaders get wrong. Not the hiring. Not the firing. The part in between.
Paddy Lambros, former Talent Director at Atomico: "I don't think I've ever seen somebody who's had a really bad first month turn it around and become a top performer." Meanwhile, Olivier Gaudin built SonarSource to 800 people with zero managers and, when he noticed a values disconnect, froze hiring entirely to fix the environment. Roland Siegwart at ETH Zurich takes the opposite view: "Brilliant people can learn extremely fast if they are given the context."
Who's right? Having spoken to dozens of founders on this podcast, we think neither extreme works on its own. The real question is: Were your expectations clear from the start? And is the learning curve real?
Below is a framework built around three checkpoints - Week 1, Week 2, and Month 3-4 - to help you answer that honestly.
How to Set Expectations Before a New Hire Starts
This is where most leaders already lose. They know what the role is called. They have a rough sense of what the person should do. But they haven't defined what success actually looks like at month three.
Before your new hire walks through the door, answer these questions. Write them down. Be concrete, not aspirational.
What should this person have accomplished by month three?
Not "gotten up to speed" or "integrated with the team." Specific outcomes. A salesperson should have closed X or built Y pipeline. An engineer should have shipped Z. A marketing hire should have launched a first campaign. What are the tangible milestones?What does performing in this role look like on a daily and weekly basis?
What meetings are they in? What decisions are they making? What are they owning? If you can't describe the rhythm of a good week in this role, you're hiring for a title, not a function.What does this person need from you in order to succeed?
Be honest. Do they need context you haven't documented? Access to people you haven't introduced them to? A clear mandate you haven't articulated? The gap between what you expect and what you've actually set up is where most "performance issues" are born.What would make you say "this isn't working" at month three?
Define the red lines now, while you're clear-headed. When you're in the fog of month two, you'll rationalize. Having this written down keeps you honest.
This isn't just useful for evaluation. It's useful for hiring. If you can't articulate what great looks like in this role at month three, you can't assess candidates either. The backwards thinking starts before the job posting goes live.
What to Look for in a New Hire's First Week
Week One is not about performance. It's about signals: does this person show up in a way that suggests the trajectory will be there?
Think back to the first week and reflect honestly:
Energy and intent
Did they arrive with genuine curiosity about the company, the product, the team?
Not performative enthusiasm, but real questions that showed they want to understand how things work here.Did they take initiative to orient themselves, or did they wait to be told what to do?
In a startup, the information isn't neatly packaged. The people who thrive are the ones who go looking for it.How did they handle the inevitable chaos of a first week?
Every startup onboarding is messy. Did they roll with it, or did you sense frustration that things aren't more structured?
Early relationship signals
Did they proactively reach out to teammates, or only interact when required?
Noa Perry Reifer, who built people and culture functions at On and Neko Health, makes a sharp observation: relationships in a new company don't come naturally. You have to invest in them deliberately. The people who get this start building connections from day one.Did you observe any friction?
Not conflict, that can be healthy, but a disconnect in how they communicate, how they respond to feedback, how they handle ambiguity.
Are you being honest with yourself?
Did you set them up for a good first week?
Did they have the access, context, and introductions they needed? Or did you assume they'd figure it out because "that's what startup people do"?Are you already explaining away small concerns?
"It's only week one" is a valid statement. But notice the instinct. Are you observing, or are you already making excuses?
How Fast Should a New Hire Start Contributing?
By week two, you should see the first signs of contribution. Something that signals this person is starting to convert context into action.
Paddy Lambros calls this "time to first value" and argues it should happen on day one: a salesperson shadows a call, an engineer commits something useful. The principle is sound even if the timeline is generous: the faster someone contributes something real, the faster they build confidence and the faster you get signal.
