At YC we have this public phrase, and it's relentlessly resourceful.
AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
Unfortunately the trick to great execution is to say no a lot.
As you grow, it feels hopelessly corporate but it really is worth putting in place these compensation bands.
So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
It's really easy to get PR with no results & it actually feels like you're really actually cool, but in a year you'll still have nothing.