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Ask HN: Do startups ever hire 'established teams'

2 points by pain_perdu 7y ago

So two of my oldest friends/(former colleges) in tech recently approached me for advice: They have exited the 9-figure ARR SaaS app they built from scratch and asked me how likely it would be to find a an early-to-mid-stage startup that would consider hiring a senior team of 7 devs (avg. 10 years experience specially in high-scalability, AI and low-level coding) as a package deal (they have been working together for a long time and want to keep doing so). Is this incredibly unorthodox or if the talent and team are sufficient good are there some companies out there that would consider them all together? They're open to everything from medium-term contract work to FTE to an acquihire (they've built a new thing already but it's not ready for prime-time so currently just some decent IP and team of coding ninjas with extra bandwidth. My gut is that unless they seriously go the Acquihire route it's going to be damn hard to find one company to hire a whole team (despite the track record and skillset) at once so maybe it's a waste of time trying to reach out to do so. Or maybe I'm wrong and would love to hear people's opinions. Finally, if anyone does have experience putting together the necessary materials to go to 'market' with an acquihire effort I'd love to hear what steps/collateral are needed. Thanks in Advance!

JSeymourATL 7y ago
> 7 devs (avg. 10 years experience specially in high-scalability, AI and low-level coding)... First Action: Define WHO exactly you want to work for as a team. Create a Top 10 List of targets that make sense to the entire group. Relative to go-to-market materials; consider an Oren Klaff style presentation. > https://pitchanything.com/ https://pitchanything.com/ Start with The Big Idea. Naturally, you will also want refreshed, up-to-date CVs for everyone. In my experience, the real challenge isn’t finding potential employers—- it’s keeping all those individual team members together. Bon Chance!
PaulHoule 7y ago
From time to time I come across some person who is hiring a large number of people. For instance, I know somebody who wanted to hire 20 people for Barclay's bank to develop a web site for their new credit card. Half of those would have been in Delaware, half in Henderson, NV. He was scratching his head about how to do it, but if someone like that could hire a team instead of an individual they could get their job done quicker.

2 points by pain_perdu 7y ago

JSeymourATL 7y ago

> 7 devs (avg. 10 years experience specially in high-scalability, AI and low-level coding)... First Action: Define WHO exactly you want to work for as a team. Create a Top 10 List of targets that make sense to the entire group. Relative to go-to-market materials; consider an Oren Klaff style presentation. > https://pitchanything.com/ https://pitchanything.com/ Start with The Big Idea. Naturally, you will also want refreshed, up-to-date CVs for everyone. In my experience, the real challenge isn’t finding potential employers—- it’s keeping all those individual team members together. Bon Chance!

PaulHoule 7y ago

From time to time I come across some person who is hiring a large number of people. For instance, I know somebody who wanted to hire 20 people for Barclay's bank to develop a web site for their new credit card. Half of those would have been in Delaware, half in Henderson, NV. He was scratching his head about how to do it, but if someone like that could hire a team instead of an individual they could get their job done quicker.