Even though plans themselves are worthless, the exercise of planning is very valuable and totally missing in most startups today.

For early employees you want people that have somewhat of a risk-taking attitude.

You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.

Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.

Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.

The best source by far for hiring is people that you already know and people that other employees in the company already know.

Here's a good rule of thumb: don't worry about a competitor at all, until they're actually beating you with a real shipped product.