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Going from one person to two is the largest proportional change a business ever makes. It converts you from someone doing work into someone responsible for someone else's livelihood, and the decision is usually made too late and too vaguely.
Short answer: Hire your first employee when documented repeatable work exists to hand over and committed forward revenue covers the salary through ramp-up plus a buffer. The change converts you from doing the work to responsibility for someone else's livelihood and requires budgeting months of training time during which output falls. Part-time or fractional hiring is often the practical first step when full-time revenue is uncertain.
The first hire should take over something specific, repeatable and already documented — not "help", which is the most common brief and the least successful. If you cannot describe the job precisely, you are not ready to fill it.
This usually means hiring for delivery you have systematised, or for administration consuming your time, rather than for something you have never done and cannot evaluate.
It is the salary plus employment costs plus the weeks of your time spent training, during which output falls rather than rises. Budget for a ramp-up of months, not days.
It also changes the business's risk: payroll must be met regardless of what customers do, which raises the amount of forward revenue you need before the hire is prudent.
This question routes to Startup Genius — one of 29 engagements the platform runs. It does not produce advice in general; it produces this analysis for your business:
✓ Sizes who could realistically buy this — not the size of the industry
✓ Estimates what a customer costs to acquire and what they are worth to you
✓ Tests whether the gap between those two survives contact with reality
✓ Models the cash you need and when break-even actually arrives
✓ Names the assumptions the whole idea rests on, ranked by damage if wrong
✓ Gives the cheapest test that would prove the riskiest one false
You watch the analysis get built before you pay anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.
When there is documented, repeatable work to hand over, and enough committed forward revenue to pay them through a ramp-up plus a buffer. Hiring to relieve overwhelm before either exists usually deepens it.
Contractors suit variable, specialised work and cost more per hour with far less commitment; employees suit continuous core work. The legal distinction is real and jurisdiction-specific — worth checking rather than assuming.
Part-time or fractional is a legitimate first step and often the right one. It is better than hiring full-time on optimistic revenue and having to reverse it, which is costly for everyone involved.
Describe the situation in your own words and we will tell you which analysis answers it — before you sign up for anything.
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