Introduction: Hiring and Leadership

Early on, you can build a product yourself. But to build a company, you need a team. Not just any team — a small group of people who believe as deeply as you do and stay when it gets hard.

At Unusual, we’ve seen again and again that hiring and leadership are where founders set themselves apart. The best founders treat hiring as a core craft. They obsess over it. They build systems around it. And they never delegate it too soon.

This section of The Unusual Field Guide was written to help you master that craft. It will teach you how to:

• Build a repeatable recruiting engine from day one. Treat hiring like a sales motion (because that’s what it is).
• Identify candidates who have authentic attachment, exponential upside, and cultural alignment.
• Design a transparent, fair equity culture that inspires ownership.
• And finally, grow into the kind of leader others will follow through chaos and change.
  

“Hiring the wrong person feels like a paper cut on the soul. Hiring the right one changes your odds forever.”

If you want to build something enduring, this is where you start.