Well, this is simple. You want somebody invested and passionate about the project. Have you ever noticed, you can move mountains if you are genuinely intereste

Well, this is simple. You want somebody invested and passionate about the project. Have you ever noticed, you can move mountains if you are genuinely interested in something? That it is difficult to focus and too easy to procrastinate if you don't want to do something or find something boring? Corporations are good at solving large problems because they can throw funds and money at the problems. They can absorb the damage caused by people who are barely productive. When you are startup you can't do that. But the advantage you have is that you are looking for one person at this point in time and you can be picky and wait until you find the one. Bad hire at this point in time can frequently spell disaster for your budding enterprise. I don't want to say that it is totally impossible to find somebody who might not be interested about your idea but will still do good job. But it is unlikely and then remember, you are not only looking for your first engineer but also your first manager, possibly CTO, etc. Look at stories of successful startups -- in most cases first hires seem to have been critical and mostly seem to be passionate people who then established themselves close to the top of new organization.