I am a contractor and part of a larger consulting shop so I'm biased but I have to agree with ahoyhere. You get a reliable burn rate which is adjustable on a sc

I am a contractor and part of a larger consulting shop so I'm biased but I have to agree with ahoyhere. You get a reliable burn rate which is adjustable on a schedule you can negotiate. If you're hiring a team of contractors you should get a group who have proven that they have an effective and efficient process for working together which they can apply from day 1 and you can probably scale the size of the team based on your needs and budget. When your needs change or you pivot and you need an expert in a new technology which I don't know I'm happy to walk away or swap places with one of my peers who may be a better fit. I'm also fortunate enough to have coworkers lining up future projects so neither you nor I need to worry about what I'm going to do if you no longer need me or just need to slow down development an focus your resources elsewhere. I'm certainly not invested in your startup the same way an employee might be. I'm not going to work crazy hours and I'm not going to pull off long shot programmer heroics (well not unless that's what you ask for). Instead I can measure my success only by the quality of the work I produce and the value I can deliver to you immediately. Building the tools you need to validate a product-market fit or get a MVP in front of users is often my end goal, not an incremental step towards hopefully seeing a return on some equity share. If I'm lucky I'm helping a startup build a new product every couple of months. I think that offers a breadth of experience which relatively few prospective full time hires can match. Startups will need employees and employees invested in and committed to their long term success. So while your looking for the perfect first employee, the one who has the combination of personality, skills, passion, and mindset you need, consider if the right contractors might let you get a lot done in the mean time.