Building a successful early stage company demands one critical component that often gets overlooked: the right team. Without exceptional talent, even groundbreaking ideas can falter. As funding environments grow tighter, founders face mounting pressure to attract top performers without burning through runway. Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie Technologies, has developed proven strategies for assembling the kind of team that transforms vision into reality.
Betting on People, Not Just Ideas
Leaving a cushy job takes guts. Convincing other talented people to join you takes something more. “My co-founders and I decided to go all in on Flowlie. We left our comfortable, high-paying jobs to bet on two things. Number one is our idea and number two is the team we had built until then,” Vlad explains. What’s remarkable isn’t that they took the leap – it’s who jumped with them. “One thing we absolutely nailed was our ability to attract top talent and get them excited about Flowlie’s vision and mission.” Even with minimal proof their concept would work, they somehow convinced brilliant people to join the ride. That talent magnetism became their edge when everything else was still on paper.
Hiring the Right Core Team
Early company building isn’t pretty. It’s messy, frustrating, and full of false starts. Your first handful of hires face the brunt of this chaos. “In the world of startups, you need to work both hard and smart. That’s why our core team, the first two to six hires must be absolutely exceptional in terms of both effort and intelligence,” Vlad says. These early teammates need rare qualities – comfort with ambiguity, building without blueprints, and staying calm when everything takes twice as long and breaks twice as often. Vlad doesn’t sugarcoat who shouldn’t make this cut: “Pro tip, stay away from former executives and consultants. You need builders, not managers early on.” It might sound harsh, but titles and corporate pedigrees often become liabilities when everyone needs to roll up their sleeves.
Avoiding Part-Time Pitfalls
Part-time talent seems like a budget-friendly option. Vlad disagrees completely. “Prioritizing full-time team members over part-time ones is also key. Startups are incredibly demanding. So, you need a team that’s able to do 110% and be committed to the cause.” He’s also skeptical of overhiring specialists too early. “Refrain from falling for the misconception that startups need to fill every single role early on. A few strong generalists will outperform a team of semi-dedicated specialists every single day.” Three versatile full-timers often accomplish more than six specialists spreading themselves thin.
Keeping Core Functions In-House
f there’s one mistake Vlad sees repeatedly, it’s founders trying to save money by outsourcing core functions. “Another deadly mistake that I see a lot of people do is outsourcing core functions like engineering, marketing, or sales to contractors,” he warns. What seems like smart resource allocation usually backfires spectacularly. The reality is brutal: “At the earliest stages, you need to talk to customers, you need to build, you need to get the feedback and iterate on it. Contractors simply don’t operate to the same speed of startups and they don’t have the same level of incentives.”
He’s adamant about what stays in-house: “Core functions like product engineering, marketing, and sales should never be outsourced. Maybe later on series A, but never before that.” By the time contractors finish planning, your company might need something completely different.
After building Flowlie through the funding winter, Vlad distilled his hard-won hiring wisdom into three principles: “To sum it up, follow these three golden rules for early stage hiring. Find intelligent and hardworking individuals, hire them full time, and make sure direct hires, not contractors, fill in your core roles.” Simple on paper, but game-changing in practice. As Vlad puts it, “With so many potential pitfalls in the startup world, don’t let your core team be one of them.” When everything else changes daily, the right founding team becomes your only constant.
Want to learn more from Vlad Cazacu? Connect with him on LinkedIn to follow his insights.
