Don't wait for the best candidate. Get the first hireable person onboard. When you're still getting off the ground, it's okay to work with a decent hire, than t

Don't wait for the best candidate. Get the first hireable person onboard. When you're still getting off the ground, it's okay to work with a decent hire, than to miss to holiday season because you couldn't get work done. If this is your first time hiring however, then you should interview a few people, in order to know what you are exactly looking for. Most people don't realize this, but hiring is closer to dating than it's to a test. You learn more about yourself with every date. Eventually you make an opinion of "good enough", and continue the relationship. Getting referrals is great. But that doesn't mean you skip interviews entirely. Your interview process should be structured. You exactly want to know in advance, who is asking what question and whether each question is measuring what you need as a skill. You can only do this well when you have a good sense of what you're looking for. In order to be fair to everyone who applies, you can send them a work-sample test. e.g. for tech interviews, you can use hackerrank.com, or for non-tech, you can use candidatemetrics.com etc. HTH (Source: A lot of hiring over a number of years. Now running a bootcamp for candidates: http://InterviewKickstart.com http://InterviewKickstart.com)