The Hiring Mistake I Keep Seeing Founders Repeat (And Why It Costs Them 6–12 Months)

Over the past year, I’ve seen the same hiring mistake repeated by smart, thoughtful founders — and it almost always slows their company down by at least six months.

It’s not about hiring bad people. It’s not about weak CVs or poor interviews.

It’s about hiring for what the company is today, instead of what it needs to become next.

Time-saving concept: An imaginative idea featuring a hand inserting a clock-themed coin into a saving bank.

The mistake: Hiring for who the candidate is right now, not the candidate's trajectory or growth

Most founders hire to fix immediate pain:

• “We need someone who can just execute.”

• “We need help now.”

• “We can’t afford someone too senior yet.”

  
  

So roles are designed around the current state of the business — current processes, current scale, current problems.

On paper, the hire looks great.The process goes well. The person performs.

Then the company grows and expectations change — and the role shifts.

Why this keeps happening

Founders are usually operating under:

• Budget pressure

• Time pressure

• Cognitive overload

• The emotional stress of a previous bad hire

There’s also a strong pull toward comfort hires — people who:

• Look familiar

• Have done exactly this role before

• Don’t challenge assumptions too much

There is also an over-reliance on referrals (Referrals are great, however, in any company there has to be a healthy balance between a referral/direct applicant. Having too many referrals join can quickly turn the company into comfort hires and you might be missing out on top talent).

Let's Elaborate on Referrals:

Say you have a Head of Sales join your company and the Head of Sales needs to hire their first Account Executive. The Head of Sales used to work at a big tech company, this tech company just had redundancies, the role is not advertised online as the Head Of Sales says they have someone great for the role: This person is interviewed, then hired.

Six months later: The team is expanding now there is an opening for a Business Development Representative, the Account Executive then refers a colleague they used to work with at their previous tech company that had redundancies for a BDR position at the new company: Person gets hired.

What happened here?

While this might not seem problematic and we might think: Great! We made a great hire without even having to advertise the role, what happened behind the scenes was that relying on referrals:

1. Narrows Down Your Talent Pool: Referrals come from people who

   • Have similar backgrounds, networks, and experiences

   • Know people like themselves

   That means you’re not selecting the best candidates—you’re selecting from a small,

   non-representative sample.

   
   

2. It reinforces homogeneity and bias

   Even well-intentioned employees tend to refer:

   • People from the same schools, companies, demographics

   • People who “feel familiar”

   Over time, this creates teams that:

   • Think alike

   • Challenge each other less

   • Miss blind spots

   This isn’t just a diversity issue—it’s a decision quality issue.

   
   

3. You amplify early mistakes as you scale

   Early teams often look alike. If hiring relies only on referrals:

   • Initial biases get copied forward

   • Every new hire reinforces the same pattern

   This compounds quickly and is hard to undo

Referrals aren't necessarily a bad thing, however, in order to have a hiring process that gives you a true view of the talent pool available, the best way to approach referrals is to interview them alongside external talent pool.

Two figures analyse a digital chart

The hidden cost no one talks about

The real cost of comfort hires isn't the salary.

It’s what happens 6–12 months later:

• The hire reaches their limit

• The founder stays too involved

• Decisions bottleneck

• A quiet re-org starts

• Or worse — a replacement search begins

By the time this is visible, the company has already lost:

• Speed

• Focus

• Confidence

The most expensive hires are rarely the wrong people. They’re the almost-right ones.

A pattern I see again and again

Here’s a simplified version of a situation I see often:

A growing company hires a mid-level leader because:

• They match the current team’s maturity

• They fit the current budget

• They’ve done something similar before

What the business actually needed was someone who could:

• Build structure from ambiguity

• Grow into a bigger scope

• Make decisions the founder wouldn’t need to revisit

Twelve months later, the founder is back in the weeds — not because the hire failed, but because the role was designed too narrowly.

What to do instead

This doesn’t mean every company should hire the most senior person they can find.

It means shifting how you think about the role.

1. Hire for long-term potential not only current skills

Don’t ask: “Who fits where we are today?”

Ask:

“Who will still be the right person if things go well?”

Look for learning speed, judgment, and adaptability — not just a perfect experience match.

2. Define success at 12 months

If the role works perfectly, what does the business look like in a year?

3. Optimise for leverage, not relief

Relief hires reduce pain. Leverage hires change the founder’s day-to-day.

The best hiring conversations I have with founders don’t start with a job spec.

They start with questions like:

• Where is the business actually going?

• What decisions do you want to stop making?

• What would “too small” look like in a year?

At Optimyze1, we work with founders before roles are defined — not just once a job spec exists.

If you’re considering a key hire in the next 6–12 months and want a second perspective on scope, seniority, or timing, Optimyze1 supports founders at that stage.

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