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Meet Yuan (Tina) Tian
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Tina Tian has scaled teams from zero to hundreds across frontier tech companies. She built Particle from 20 to 120+ globally, grew Ethos from Series A to 120+ employees, and joined Bridge as employee #45 during their acquisition.
Her philosophy: Early hiring is about survival. You don't need perfection - you need people who move fast, make smart bets, and build alongside you. Hire senior talent, stay scrappy, build trust through quick wins, and don't overcomplicate the process until it actually breaks.
Key Takeaways
Do your own recruiting - Founder-led hiring is your early MOAT
Tina believes early-stage founders shouldn’t delegate recruiting too soon, not because they’ll do it perfectly, but because they need the signal.
“Just like founder-led sales helps you find product-market fit, founder-led recruiting helps you find company-talent fit.”
When founders do their own recruiting, they quickly learn:
- Which roles actually excite candidates
- Which parts of the pitch land (or fall flat)
- Where culture and comp expectations align—or don’t
Founder-led recruiting isn’t scalable forever, but early on, it’s your fastest path to refining your hiring narrative, value proposition, and pitch.
Action for founders: If you're not hearing “no” from candidates yourself, you're missing valuable market feedback. Do the reps.
You don’t need perfection. You need traction
Most founders miss on hiring because they’re stuck in fantasyland. Be reasonable, don’t be perfect is what Tina suggests.
“Being reasonable means understanding the market, being open to feedback, and knowing your dream hire might not exist.”
Reasonable founders succeed because they:
- Listen when talent leaders challenge their requirements
- Understand market realities vs. wishlist thinking
- Show empathy toward candidates and their situations
- Stay flexible when "unicorn" profiles don't exist
"What typically happens with early stage founders is everyone wants a unicorn. But if you draw down to the core of it, it's very subjective. A good engineer for healthcare industry versus AI versus crypto is probably very different."
Action for founders: Before writing a JD, gut check: are you describing someone real or building a wishlist no one matches?
Agility is key: systems should match your hiring volume
Early-stage companies waste time building perfect processes instead of just hiring people. Tina's rule: adapt your tools/systems/frameworks to your actual hiring volume/tactics, not your aspirations.
For 5-10 hires per year:
- Spreadsheets or Trello boards work fine
- LinkedIn Recruiter for outreach
- You don’t need an ATS.
For 15+ hires per year:
- Implement ATS for data integrity
- Career page becomes important
- Consider first dedicated recruiter
“Don’t build perfect systems for imaginary hiring.”
Action for founders: Don't over-index on systems when you can even bring in a person. recruiting software until you're consistently hiring 2+ people per month.
Hire senior, not junior - time is everything
The conventional startup wisdom says hire hungry junior people. Tina disagrees:
"My perspective has shifted. I think in the last two years, that I started to highly encourage founders, if they can, to look for as senior of a profile as possible. If they’ve done it before, they’ll do it faster. That saves time, and time is everything in a startup.
Why senior wins in startups:
- Reverse engineering - They’ve built systems before and can rebuild fast.
- Mistake avoidance - They know what doesn’t work.
- Scale mindset - They think in terms of future complexity.
- Time savings - They need less handholding.
There’s a caveat: senior people won’t thrive under micromanagement.
“If you're still figuring out your business, you need people who can co-pilot, not just execute.”
Action for founders: For your first 5 technical hires, target staff-level engineers. Be open to their feedback on architecture and process.
Build a referral engine that actually works
Most companies ask for referrals and get nothing. Tina's system generates consistent flow:
Step 1: Calibrate with your best
- 1:1 with top performers
- Ask what “great” looks like in their function
- Get real examples
Step 2: Make it stupidly easy
- Write LinkedIn messages for them to copy-paste
- Identify their connections proactively ("I see you're connected to X person")
- Provide clear role descriptions with 6-month success metrics
Step 3: Close the loop religiously
- Update referrers on every stage of the process
- Explain rejections professionally
- Thank them regardless of outcome
“People don’t refer because they don’t actually know what you’re looking for. Or they think you won’t follow up.”
Action for founders: If people aren't giving referrals, it's a culture red flag. Fix the culture first, then the referral process.
Metrics that matter
Forget perfect dashboards. Early hiring should feel like momentum, not math. These are the signals you should be looking for:
Early-stage sanity checks:(pre-Series A)
- Are you closing people fast? (within 2–3 weeks max)
- Is your team referring without being asked?
- Did your last hire unlock real leverage?
Signs your hiring is working:
- You’re getting repeat intros: People want others to join.
- Top candidates are excited about the problem, not just the comp.
- You’ve learned something from every hire, even the wrong ones.
Key takeaways
✅ Do your own recruiting : It’s the fastest way to learn what’s landing. Don’t outsource the signal.
✅ Don’t chase perfection : Reasonable hires > unicorn fantasies.
✅ Hire senior: They move faster, make fewer mistakes, and build for scale.
✅ Match systems to volume : No ATS until you’re hiring 10+ a year.
✅ Referrals = culture: No referrals? That’s a trust issue, not a pipeline one.
Pro tips
💡 Referrals won’t happen if your team’s unclear or uninspired: Make the bar clear, make it easy, and follow up.
💡 A great hiring loop is better than a long one: Senior folks will walk if the process drags or lacks conviction.
💡 You don’t need perfect infra to start: Most founders overbuild too early. Start messy, stay scrappy, and scale later.
💡 Hiring is a reflection of founder clarity: If your JD is vague and your pitch is scattered, you’ll feel it in your funnel.
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