Companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it.

If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.

Before 20 or 25 employees, most companies are structured with everyone reporting to the founder. It's totally flat.

You have to be intense. This only comes from the CEO, this only comes from the founders.

If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it's hard to kill your babies.

Just put a little pin in your mind: when you cross 50 employees, there are a new set of HR rules that you have to comply with.

You also really want to take the time to think about how the market is going to evolve.You need a market that's going to be big in 10 years.