First, accept that the vast majority of people you want to hire are already employed and normally couldn't be bothered with your startup. The leftovers are either really unlucky or not worth hiring.
Second, go after the top 98% and leave the others for the rest of the industry. Don't waste time trying to interview them beyond a quick phone screen on personality, because any time of theirs you ask for is extremely expensive to them and you need to acknowledge it from the start (or they'll not respond). Offer them _more_ than they're earning now. After you find one you like, and you're willing to pay them more than they're currently getting, and they're willing to jump ship for that, close the deal as quickly as possible.
This works because their current employer vouches for them (by employing them), and their current employer is presumably a better judge of technical skill than your team is. So leverage that skill instead of cobbling together some facsimile yourselves.
The downside for this approach is that if they're currently earning $200k and you have a budget of $120k for the position (or even $220k), you're not going to hire anybody. It's a shared delusion in the industry that everybody can lowball the senior talent and they won't wise up.
It's been said before, but it bears repeating. For senior talent, you're not buying the job, you're selling it. It's a buyer's market and you need to play motivated salesman and not choosy PITA customer.
Hopefully you mean the top 2%, or the 98th percentile. /snark
Generally though, I agree with this advice for small companies (i.e. your first ~5 hires). I would recommend making a list of experts on your stack who you would love to work with. Trawl GitHub, StackOverflow, HN, LinkedIn until you identify a list of candidates that are verifiably good at what they do. Then just start recruiting them, a.k.a. selling your company and vision.
For small companies, this aggressive approach seems like it would be both more reliable and efficient than the "pull based" approach of vacuuming up resumes.
"First, accept that the vast majority of people you want to hire are already employed and normally couldn't be bothered with your startup. The leftovers are either really unlucky or not worth hiring."
Hey, I'm not employed! Haven't had a full time job in almost a year. But it's mostly because working 10 hours a week on projects pays as well as a full time job.
If someone wants to hire me, I'll listen, but you probably have to offer double what I make working from home.
I mean I've been on the job market for a long time now. I'd actually prefer some kind of full time commitment over doing boring CRUD apps. But it's just not a good deal. Interview process is either too painful, compensation is too low, or the job is too meaningless.
First, accept that the vast majority of people you want to hire are already employed and normally couldn't be bothered with your startup. The leftovers are either really unlucky or not worth hiring.
Second, go after the top 98% and leave the others for the rest of the industry. Don't waste time trying to interview them beyond a quick phone screen on personality, because any time of theirs you ask for is extremely expensive to them and you need to acknowledge it from the start (or they'll not respond). Offer them _more_ than they're earning now. After you find one you like, and you're willing to pay them more than they're currently getting, and they're willing to jump ship for that, close the deal as quickly as possible.
This works because their current employer vouches for them (by employing them), and their current employer is presumably a better judge of technical skill than your team is. So leverage that skill instead of cobbling together some facsimile yourselves.
The downside for this approach is that if they're currently earning $200k and you have a budget of $120k for the position (or even $220k), you're not going to hire anybody. It's a shared delusion in the industry that everybody can lowball the senior talent and they won't wise up.
It's been said before, but it bears repeating. For senior talent, you're not buying the job, you're selling it. It's a buyer's market and you need to play motivated salesman and not choosy PITA customer.