有一种人叫做创业者——他们会创办新公司。还有一些人，会在事业发展壮大之前冒险加入这些新公司，成为创业者的第一批员工。

    初创公司的早期员工也许不像公司创始人那样直接承担着直接的财务风险。但他们无疑也都秉持着强烈的信念，充分信任一家稚嫩的、随时都可能垮台的新公司。这些员工对全世界的初创公司和小型企业都起着至关重要的作用。

    一家新公司招聘的第一批员工绝不仅仅是达到“职位描述”上写的那些条件就足够了。因为一家初创公司与一家已经有经营基础的成熟公司有着天壤之别。

文化契合度

    职业技能固然很重要，但如果团队规模很小，文化适应性则更加关键。在一个小型团队里，每个人都无处可藏，大家都共同面对着一个初创公司会面对的各种强大压力，良好的士气不可或缺。这些初始员工将构成企业文化的基石。

    布莱克•赫尔是华盛顿哥伦比亚特区一家初创公司TroopSwap的创始人，他讲述了自己的经验：“我认为对于一个创业团队，有五个方面的核心素养是非常关键的：完成任务的激情、职业伦理、敢于冒险、奉献客户以及从容面对失败。”

    一家新公司会随时面临起伏波动，所以员工也需要做好坐“过山车”的准备。有些时候，在笔试中成绩最好的应聘者未必最适合新公司。

创业的激情

    大部分的初创公司都不能为员工提供有竞争力的薪酬或福利，所以，它们必须能提供另一些东西——足够有吸引力的愿景和故事，让员工愿意投身其中。公司的初期员工必须相信公司的前途，充满激情地去追求把它变成现实。“初期员工必须将公司的核心愿景当成自己的信念，甚至有时候不惜为此挑战创始人的权威，”meshin.com的创始人克里斯滕•加利亚尼说。

    新员工就像潜在客户一样，如果公司无法清楚地将愿景和价值观传达给他们，就很难说服他们与公司站在一起，踏上新的冒险旅途。

    除了对某种愿景或者理念的激情和信仰，公司还需要员工能承受“创业生活”。“世界上有许多聪明勤奋的人。但你要寻找的那些人，需要能够战胜未知的艰险，与你一起度过跌宕起伏的创业历程，”Yapp的CEO、联合创始人玛利亚•赛德曼说。“录用一个人之前，我会将所有的风险都讲清楚，甚至说得比他们能想象的创业阶段更糟糕。然后，我会密切注意他们的面部表情。”

    但激情也同样关键。“如果没有对目标发自内心的激情，很难熬过创业初期的漫漫长夜。”

判断力和应变力

    在文化适应和激情之外，成长中的初创公司需要有执行力的员工。Mediaite的创始编辑、TheLi.st的创始人瑞秋•斯科拉认为，理想的创业员工需要有良好的判断力和应变能力。“你可能需要在各种领域执行任务，没有明确的工作描述能概括出你要面对的任务。你得靠自己弄明白何时何地、如何处理这些事情。有时候一些幽默感也会有帮助。”

    There are people who start businesses -- entrepreneurs -- then there are the ones who take the risk of working for those entrepreneurs, before the companies are established.

    Early startup employees may not have the same direct financial risk in the business as a company's founders, but they are certainly taking a leap of faith and putting their trust in a young entity that could crash and burn at any time. These people are critical to startups and small businesses around the globe.

    The first employees of a new business must be up for more than just what's written in a job description, because a startup is not the same as an established business that already has a foundation.

Cultural fit

    While skills are important, if the team is still very small, cultural fit is essential. Within a small team, there is nowhere to hide and good morale is an essential ingredient when you are dealing with all the many stresses a startup faces. These first employees will become part of the company's cultural foundation.

    Blake Hall, the founder of DC-based TroopSwap, can speak from experience. "It is vital that I feel comfortable about a core addition to the founding team with respect to five areas: passion for the mission, work ethic, risk preference, dedication to customers, and comfort level with failure."

    New businesses are filled with ups and downs, so employees need to be ready for the rollercoaster ride. In some cases, the best candidates on paper may not be the best fit at a new business.

Passion

    The majority of startups cannot offer competitive salaries or benefits, so they have to offer something else -- a strong vision and story that people can really get behind. Early employees must believe in that vision and have the passion to follow. "Early employees have to believe to their very core in the vision, even if that means sometimes challenging … the founders," says Kristen Galliani, founder of meshin.com.

    Just like with potential customers, if the company cannot articulate its vision and value to potential new hires, it will be very difficult to persuade them to come along on this new adventure.

    Aside from passion and belief in a vision or idea, it takes a certain kind of person to stomach the startup lifestyle. "There are plenty of smart, hardworking people out there but the people you need to take the long bumpy startup ride with you need to be survivors in the face of ambiguous obstacles," says Yapp CEO and cofounder Maria Seidman. "Before hiring someone, I explain to them all of the risk factors and make them sound even worse than they already are for an early stage start up. Then, I watch their facial expressions closely."

    But passion is critical as well. "It's hard to take the long slug of a startup without an authentic passion for the mission."

Judgment and flexibility

    Beyond cultural fit and passion, a growing startup needs people who can get things done. According to Rachel Sklar, founding editor at Mediaite, and now founder of TheLi.st, ideal early startup employees can exercise good judgment and keep things flexible. "You're going to be needed everywhere and no job description can capture all you're going to have to do. You'll need to know where and how to do it all. And a sense of humor couldn't hurt."

    芝加哥crowdSPRING公司的创始人罗斯•金巴罗夫斯基说：“那些喜欢问‘为什么’的人，往往比喜欢问‘是什么’的人有更好的好奇心和创造力。这样的人通常不会总是让别人听他们讲个不停。

保持透明

    一旦员工加入公司，创业者需要保持这些新人的工作动力、效率和愉快的心情。通常情况下，初期员工加入初创公司是因为他们想成为创业项目的一分子，见证一份事业从零起步的过程。

    “我是Mediaite的第一个员工，”斯科拉说道。“我喜欢在白纸上构思草图的感觉。指着一样东西告诉别人说：‘是我创造了它’，这种感觉非常有成就感。”

    就算初期员工充满激情，创业者仍然需要悉心呵护，保持员工们的热情之火不会因为挫折而熄灭。这往往是创业者面临的最大挑战。

    如何才能做到这一点？玛利亚•赛德曼介绍了她的理念：“像对待共同创始人一样对待每一个初期员工。向整个团队保持透明公开，与他们分享公司的起伏涨落。这样，公司里的每个人都能知道公司的具体状况。如果你在创业中面临很多事情，无法完全掌控，这时，你可以营造一个透明公开的企业文化，放心大胆地让公司团队自发运行。

    归根到底，许多杰出的人才都希望寻找更有意义的工作经历，所以才有人会选择加入初创公司，而不是规模更大、更成熟的公司。许多初创公司的初期员工都愿意为了更有意义的目标，放弃稳定和金钱。“生命匆匆，不容虚度，”曾在AddThis和HelloWallet两家初创公司中参与初期工作的贾斯汀•索普说。“我选择了能让我发光的工作。”

    法兰克•格鲁伯和简•康萨尔瓦是TechCocktail的共同创始人。这是一家媒体公司，为创业公司、创业者和技术狂热者提供活动组织服务。

    译者：周详

    When hiring, Ross Kimbarvosky of Chicago-based crowdSPRING often looks for communication cues to help find the best early employees, "People who ask 'why' questions (rather than 'what' questions) tend to show a greater degree of interest, a more creative potential, and typically reflect employees who don't need to hear themselves talk all the time."

Keeping things transparent

    Once an employee is on board, founders need to make sure those new hires remain motivated, happy, and productive. For the most part, early employees joined a startup because they wanted to be part of a business project where they get to see things grow from the ground up.

    "As the first person at Mediaite," Sklar explains, "I loved the idea of building something completely from scratch. It's enormously satisfying to point to something that exists and say, 'I made that happen.'"

    Even if an early employee has the passion, the employer still needs to manage them well enough to keep that flame going amid the rough patches, which can be one of the biggest challenges for founders.

    How do you pull this off? Maria Seidman explains her philosophy, "Treat every early employee as they were a founder. Be totally transparent with your team and share with them the ups and downs along the way. This way, everyone has context for what's happening, and while there are many things you can't control in a startup, you can foster a culture of transparency and trust which is in itself motivational."

    At the end of the day, many talented people are looking for a more meaningful work experience, which is why some people join startups over bigger, more established companies. Many early startup employees are willing to trade the perception of stability and more money for that added sense of purpose. "Life's too short to feel like you're doing nothing," says Justin Thorp, an early employee with both AddThis and HelloWallet. "I wanted to do something where I was thriving."

    Frank Gruber and Jen Consalvo are the co-founders of TechCocktail, a media company and events organization for startups, entrepreneurs, and technology enthusiasts.