Put a Hiring Gate Before the Offer

Hiring is easy to justify narratively: everyone is busy, customers are waiting, and the next person will somehow create leverage. A hiring gate asks a colder question: which constraint changes, by how much, and at what fixed cost?

The founders and teams chapter argues for hiring against a durable bottleneck. This worksheet makes that claim falsifiable. It is not employment-law or compensation advice.

Name the constraint in units

Write the bottleneck as a queue: implementation projects waiting, qualified demos unworked, support tickets beyond service level, releases delayed by review, or founder hours consumed by repeatable operations. Measure arrivals, completions, backlog, and rework for at least four representative weeks. “We need help” is not a unit.

Then ask whether demand is durable for six months. A launch spike, one bespoke customer, or neglected cleanup may justify a contractor, a process fix, or a temporary sprint rather than a permanent role.

Price the commitment, not the salary

Build a twelve-month loaded-cost line: base pay, employer payroll charges, benefits, recruiting, equipment, software, management time, onboarding productivity loss, and any equity administration. US employers generally have withholding, deposit, reporting, and employer-tax responsibilities; current federal mechanics belong in the IRS employer guide, while state and local obligations require separate checking (IRS Publication 15).

BLS compensation data is useful context, not a startup multiplier: its Employer Costs for Employee Compensation program separates wages from benefit costs across surveyed employers, but your geography, role, and plan can differ materially (BLS ECEC archive). Use actual quotes and payroll estimates where possible.

Worked hypothetical: capacity before confidence

Worked hypothetical — not a benchmark. A three-person implementation team receives 14 projects a month and completes 10. The backlog grows by four monthly. Each completed project produces $6,000 of first-year gross profit. A proposed implementation hire has a $105,000 salary and an estimated $142,000 first-year loaded cost. After ramp, the role is expected to complete four projects a month, but the downside case is two.

At four projects monthly after ramp, steady-state annualized incremental gross profit capacity is 4 × 12 × $6,000 = $288,000 before coordination and error costs. At two, the steady-state annualized figure is $144,000, barely above loaded cost. Neither figure is first-year realized gross profit: the first year has fewer productive months during hiring and ramp, and projects may complete unevenly. Nor is gross profit immediate cash; customer billing and collection can follow completion. The gate should compare loaded cash cost with a month-by-month ramp, delivery, billing, and collection schedule—not simply place $288,000 beside first-year cost.

The gate should therefore depend on three facts: the 14-project arrival rate persists, onboarding can reach at least three completions monthly, and the rest of the system—sales handoff, data migration, customer availability—will not become the next constraint immediately. If those facts are not yet visible, authorize a 30-day process experiment or bounded contract engagement and measure the queue again.

Use a written gate

Approve the role only when the record contains: bottleneck owner; four-week baseline; work that will leave founders or specialists; coherent responsibilities; loaded-cost range; base and downside throughput; cash runway after hire; manager and onboarding plan; 30/60/90-day evidence; and a stop date if demand disappears before the offer.

A useful rule is that the role must still make sense if ramp takes twice as long and throughput lands one-third below plan. That is editorial risk discipline, not a universal financial threshold.

Review the system after the person arrives

At 30, 60, and 90 days, compare arrivals, completions, backlog age, quality, and founder time. Do not grade the hire solely on visible busyness. If the queue did not change, investigate whether the wrong work was assigned, onboarding failed, demand changed, or the stated bottleneck was only a symptom.

Limitations: capacity models understate collaboration and future capability, while revenue attribution can exaggerate an individual’s contribution. The hypothetical does not specify ramp duration, project completion timing, billing terms, or collection lag; those belong in the actual hiring case. Employment classification, pay equity, benefits, leave, termination, and local requirements need qualified advice in the relevant jurisdiction.