Most startups aren't looking to hire developers that are desperate for jobs. The point is they have a job they like reasonably well, they have other offers on t

Most startups aren't looking to hire developers that are desperate for jobs. The point is they have a job they like reasonably well, they have other offers on the table from other companies. Other companies here did not require them to moonlight for a week knowing full well it might not work out (keep in mind they would be moon lighting with you in addition to interviewing with other companies). So why would they agree to moonlight if -- even without moonlighting -- the job offer is already a tough sell? There are two possibilities: 1) You're looking for a co-founder of for perhaps the founding engineer, e.g., Sergey Brin and Larry Page hiring Craig Silverstein. You've impressed them to a great degree (they like your product demo, your background), and they are already willing to pay potential opportunity costs (a job at an established company, finishing their Ph.D. program, etc...) to join you. Then this really isn't a hiring problem per-se, this is a "finding a co-founder or founding engineer" problem; you are less likely be hiring someone "from the cold" for this in the first place (this is why so many companies are started by graduate students or former coworkers...) 2) You're willing to hire people who are unable to find other full-time work, in other words someone with no formal experience or experience in a completely wrong area (e.g., someone who worked on internal business web applications, but who wants to get into embedded programming). Then you're really looking to hire an intern (in case of no formal experience) -- where the process is essentially that, a contract to hire, or simply take a calculated risk. In other words, you are able to see potential in this person (which they've demonstrated by perhaps building an app in their spare time) and are willing to set them up for success (as oppose to trying to find the best candidates out of a pool).