> I'm not surprised. You're trying to hire people with experience and significant skills - for which they're probably already being paid really well. Why would

> I'm not surprised. You're trying to hire people with experience and significant skills - for which they're probably already being paid really well. Why would they quit their current projects and come work for you? Because I'd pay them just as well, and offer them much more exciting and meaningful work, with a potentially huge equity payoff if things go really well? > Honestly, a lot of start-ups just seem to want to hire incredible valuable people and offer almost nothing in return for that value. -- Argh, stop right there. I really need to figure out how to combat this conclusion that people jump to. People see "startup" and immediately assume "slave wages". I'm equipped to pay competitive salaries PLUS significant equity. Unfortunately, nobody seems to believe that a startup will really do that, even when I say so in black-and-white. How can I improve my messaging so that people don't jump to this false conclusion? > It's like... will you go work for this iffy guy in his shed for a couple of years on the basis of this product he's pinky-promised is awesome? This "iffy guy" is actually widely recognised as the world's top expert in this particular field, who's executed over $100M in projects in the past few years, and who is getting significant backing to set up a development team in a nice office in London's Silicon Roundabout. But when I say that "I have a startup and we're hiring full-time developers", people automatically assume that I'm some dodgy character who will pay you peanuts to work out of a shed. Obviously I need to improve my message somewhat; possibly just dropping the word "startup", since this seems to cause people to jump to wildly false conclusions. See my other replies on this thread for why freelancers are not an option for me.