Playbooks
Proven plays, ready to run
Step-by-step guides for hiring, referring, and growing your network.
Recruiters are strategic advisors, not order-takers: Wensi's talent playbook for builders
Challenge every requirement. If someone's done the exact same job, why would they do it again? Look for transferable skills and passion. Prep candidates like it's your job. Spend more time preparing candidates than screening them, it's how you win great talent. Build for team strength, not individual perfection. Complementary skills beat checkbox qualifications every time. Founders must own recruitment early. Talent strategy isn't outsourced, it's embedded in the business from day one. Measure quality, not just velocity. Success isn't offer acceptance, it's whether your hires actually move the business forward.
Founders build the foundation: Rita's Terminal 3 remote-plus playbook
Founders own the first 10 hires - Culture gets coded in these decisions, not delegated Remote needs rituals - Weekly happy hours, local meetups, annual off-sites turn distributed into connected Hire for culture and skills - Strong skills drive execution, shared values drive alignment. Terminal 3 looks for both from day one. 20-30 people = inflection point - That's when chaos needs structure and you bring in full-time people ops Meet every founder, always - Even at 30+ people, every hire meets all three founders for cultural protection
Transparent by design: Julien's Ryder talent playbook
Ban "trust me" culture : written decision memos are required for complex decisions. Best ideas win regardless of an individual’s title. Share your runway from call one : in the early days, tell candidates exactly how many months of cash you have. Wrong fits self-select out immediately. Interview with real problems : no tests or take-homes. Present actual company challenges and watch who gets excited vs. stressed. Hardware = survival mode always : revenue ≠ cash flow positive. Inventory costs create financial rollercoasters that require specific mindset. Never delegate what you haven't tried : spent 4 weeks running Meta ads before hiring specialist. Understanding enables proper guidance.
Recruit with personal curiosity, Daniel's Gauntlet talent playbook
Personal intellectual curiosity drives great recruiting : Learn what drives people, not just what they've done. Founders should own hiring until they can't stomach it. Delegate too early and you miss crucial market signals. Your first 10-15 hires either scale or fail : Some will thrive, others need graceful exits, both matter. Act as the emergency brake in DeFi: Someone needs to slow down the "move fast, break things" mentality for people decisions. Hire for slope, not just logos: Track learning velocity over pedigree, hungry talent outperforms coasting ex-FAANG.
The recruiter candidates remember: Evan Palmer's relationship-first talent playbook
Be a crypto user first, recruiter second. You can't evaluate what you don't understand. Speed and quality work together. With the right systems, you don't have to choose. Relationships outlast jobs. Even rejected candidates become future hires or referrals. Prep candidates to win. 30-minute coaching calls yield 100% offer acceptance. Hire polyglot builders. Multi-chain engineers who adapt fast beat single-ecosystem specialists.
Culture beats code: Matt Schwinden's web3 talent playbook
Culture is non-negotiable in crypto: Technical perfection without mission alignment will "decimate creativity" Traditional sourcing fails in Web3: Big tech targeting had minimal success - focus on GitHub contributors, hackathon builders, referrals and contributing within ecosystems. Build networks before you need them: The best Web3 talent doesn't update LinkedIn - they move through trusted networks Quality over quantity: In crypto recruiting, one A+ candidate from back-channels beats 100 spray-and-pray outreaches. Educate before you recruit. Most Web3 founders haven’t worked with internal recruiting, so start by teaching the value of having a clear process, interviewing with intent, and aligning the team on what you’re looking for and why it matters.
Building conviction over credentials: Jacob's Bull Moose talent playbook
Process beats volume : Quality-calibrated hiring systems trump brute-force candidate sourcing every time. Founders must stay involved : Zuck texts candidates. If you're delegating recruiting entirely, you're going to fail. Anti-pedigree recruiting : Founders often index on school/company too heavily. Find diamonds in the rough instead. Archetype everything : Map candidate profiles with trade-offs. Test multiple types to find what actually works. Define your value prop : Know what you're selling to talent and who it resonates with—then be honest about trade-offs.
Product-led recruiting: Kyle's ROI-driven talent playbook for Integral
1. Write a PRD for recruiting. Treat hiring like a product launch with clear requirements, success metrics, and iteration cycles. 2. Engineering owns the criteria. Let your technical team write the screening questions and evaluation rubric—then execute on their vision. 3. Revenue drives headcount decisions. Tie every hire to actual or forecasted revenue. No exceptions, no wishful thinking. 4. Compress and record everything. Cut initial screens from 60 to 15 minutes, record them, and let engineers review async. 5. Local beats global. Second-degree connections and coffee meetings convert better than cold outreach and expensive recruiters.
Founder-led hiring is your early MOAT: Tina’s talent playbook for Bridge
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. Referrals = culture: No referrals? That’s a trust issue, not a pipeline one. Match systems to volume : No ATS until you’re hiring 10+ a year.
How Dominic Rohde hires with precision: his three-tier assessment framework and the Hero.io & Coinvesting talent playbook
Business strategy drives people strategy. If they're misaligned, you have a gap that kills execution. Capabilities = behaviors. Skip the credentials. Focus on what people actually do and how they think. References and CVs are sales documents. Treat them accordingly. Never make decisions on 5% negative feedback. Hire for potential, not pedigree. Could unlock 70% of the talent market most founders ignore. Wait for true urgency. Let hiring managers feel real pain before jumping in—separates wants from needs.
Building lean talent systems that scale: Najdana’s Everclear talent playbook
Build structure early, but keep it lean. Structured interviews save time and protect against bad hires—without enterprise bloat. Trust your gut, but back it with data. Combine objective scoring with intuition for better hiring decisions. Fractional beats full-time until 50+ people. Most startups waste money on full-time people ops when 10-20 hours/week would work better. First call is sales, not just screening. Top talent interviews companies as much as you interview them. AI augments, never replaces. Use tools to move faster, but keep humans in the driver's seat for anything above junior roles.
Building high-agency teams: the Headquarters talent playbook
1. Hire mission-obsessed people who will push back on your ideas and challenge your thinking 2. Create a deliberately flat structure like sports teams: captains and the rest 3. Screen aggressively for energy and first-principles thinking, not domain expertise or credentials 4. Make founders the first filter in hiring, but put ego aside: you're at the mercy of your best people 5. Annual "recontracting" keeps focus - explicitly ask if people can commit for the next 1-2 years
From crypto native to crypto forward: Ryan Andersen's O1 Labs talent playbook
Keep founding teams crypto-native, scale with curious : Hire crypto-natives first, then expand to crypto-curious talent Spend 50% on hiring or get help : Dedicate half your time to recruiting or hire a talent lead Stick to two weeks, not two days : Move candidates through your process efficiently but thoroughly Open your books, tell hard truths : Share financials and challenges to filter for transparency-seekers Call candidates personally : Transform video feedback sessions into ecosystem relationships
Building in the open: the Protocol Labs & IPTS ecosystem hiring playbook
Collaboration > competition: Talent should stay in-network, not get lost to competitors Speed over polish: Ship at 70%, iterate fast, learn faster Versatility wins: Generalists outperform specialists in chaos Ecosystem hedge: Redirect talent, don’t waste it—build shared pipelines Infra matters: Hiring 300+ means tooling, training, and structured chaos
Building crypto teams that deliver: the Aptos & Accelera playbook
Early hires = future culture. The first 10 people shape everything from product velocity to community trust. Process should be lean, not lazy. Lightweight hiring loops still need rigor. Filter hard. Decide fast. Founders must drive it. Hiring is not a side hustle. Spend up to 50% of your time on it in early stages. Turn rejections into revenue. Done right, your rejected applicants become community champions. Don't hire for optics. VC-friendly resumes aren’t worth the burn. Hire for grit, alignment, and ownership.