Your first five employees will shape how your company works long after you have fifty. They set habits, train later hires and decide how customers are treated when you are not in the room. This guide helps you choose the roles, put them in a sensible order, find candidates in Pakistan and make offers that people accept.
Before you hire, map the work
List everything you and your co-founders did last week. Mark each task in one of three ways:
- Only a founder should do this, for example closing key deals or setting product direction.
- This is repetitive, for example answering the same WhatsApp questions or packing orders.
- This is blocked, meaning it is not happening because nobody has the time or skill.
Stripe’s guide to first hires gives a useful filter. It suggests prioritising roles that reduce the biggest risks to your startup, filling gaps in the founding team’s skills, and planning for the next six to twelve months rather than just this week. It also suggests using contractors for short-term or specialist work and full-time hires for core, ongoing roles.
A sensible hiring order
There is no single correct order, but most early teams follow a similar pattern:
- Hire 1: the builder you lack. If no founder can code, this may be an engineer. If you run a service or shop, it may be an operations lead who makes delivery reliable.
- Hire 2: a customer-facing person. Someone who handles inquiries, follow-ups and support, often on WhatsApp, so founders can focus on bigger deals and product.
- Hire 3: whoever removes the next bottleneck. Often a second engineer, a second operations person or a sales hire.
- Hire 4: a marketing or content generalist. Hire this role once you know which message and channel work, so they can scale it.
- Hire 5: finance and admin support. Many startups start with a part-time accountant or bookkeeping firm before hiring someone full-time.
The table below shows how this might look for three types of business. These are illustrations, not rules.
| Business type (illustrative) | Hires 1–2 | Hires 3–5 |
|---|---|---|
| Online fashion brand | Operations and fulfilment lead; customer support | Content creator; second operations person; part-time accountant |
| B2B software | Full-stack engineer; sales or customer success | Second engineer; marketing generalist; part-time finance |
| Home services marketplace | Operations lead to manage providers; support agent | Sales for provider sign-ups; marketing; finance support |
Where to find people in Pakistan
- Referrals. Ask your network, advisers and existing customers. People recommended by someone you trust are often your best early hires.
- Job portals. ROZEE.PK describes itself in its app listing as “Pakistan’s number one job portal”. Its app lets candidates search jobs in major cities such as Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, and filter by full-time, part-time, freelance and internship roles.
- LinkedIn. As of October 2026, LinkedIn’s hiring page says a free job post stays active for 21 days and self-serve users can run one free job at a time. You can add screening questions. Promoted posts run on a budget you set and are charged by clicks.
- University career offices. For example, the LUMS Career Services Office says partnering with it is free of charge and onboarding usually takes three to five working days. After that, you can post jobs and internships to students and alumni. Many other universities run similar offices, so contact the ones in your city.
- Startup Network job listings. You can list open roles alongside your startup profile so job seekers browsing the network can find and apply for them.
- Communities and freelancers. Tech meetups, professional groups and freelancers you have already worked with are good sources. A short paid contract can show you how someone works before you offer a full-time role.
Write a job post people will answer
Stripe’s guide advises making job descriptions as detailed as possible and tying each role to company goals. In practice, include:
- What the person will own in the first six months, not a long list of duties.
- The skills they need now, separated from the nice-to-haves.
- A salary range in PKR, the city or remote policy, and working hours.
- How to apply and what happens next, with a rough timeline.
Run a short, fair process
A simple process for a small team:
- Screening call (20 minutes): check motivation, salary expectations and notice period.
- Skills interview: Stripe suggests skill tests such as a coding problem for developers or a campaign plan for marketers. Base it on real work you need done.
- Paid work trial (optional): for anything longer than an hour or two, pay for the candidate’s time.
- Team and values conversation: how they handle pressure, feedback and customers.
- Reference check: speak to at least one former manager.
Move quickly. Good candidates may be talking to other employers, and a two-week silence can lose you the hire.
Make the offer in writing
A written offer letter avoids misunderstandings. It should cover:
- Job title, reporting line and start date.
- Monthly gross salary in PKR and the date it is paid each month.
- Probation period and notice period for both sides.
- Working hours, location and remote or hybrid rules.
- Leave policy, plus any allowances for internet, fuel or equipment.
- Confidentiality, and assignment of work and intellectual property to the company.
- Any equity, with the vesting schedule and conditions written out.
Stripe notes that early-stage pay usually combines salary and equity, and warns founders to be careful about how much equity they give away. If you offer stock options, explain them in plain language and ask a corporate lawyer how to set them up properly.
Before the first salary, ask an accountant which employer registrations and salary tax obligations apply to you, for example EOBI, your province’s social security scheme and income tax withholding. Get this right from the first month rather than fixing it later.
Onboard properly
Stripe’s guide recommends preparing tools and access before day one, introducing the new hire to the team and setting clear goals from the start. Give every new person a written 30-day plan with three outcomes, a buddy to ask questions and a check-in at the end of week one.
Your hiring checklist
- Map last week’s work and mark what only founders should do.
- Choose the next role based on your biggest risk or bottleneck.
- Decide whether the work needs a contractor or a full-time hire.
- Write a detailed job post with a PKR salary range.
- Post it on job portals, LinkedIn, university career offices and Startup Network, and ask for referrals.
- Run a short process with a real skills test and pay for longer trials.
- Send a written offer that covers pay, probation, notice, IP and any equity.
- Check employer registrations and tax withholding with an accountant before the first payroll.
Sources and further reading
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