This morning my inbox served me a dose of terrible-but-well-meaning advice via a Substack I follow. You know the type of advice, every day LinkedIn and Substack and the like are full of it. It’s neat, tweetable, and wildly oversimplified. This one went like this:
“There comes a moment in every startup where the company feels bigger than the team… Your ambition is Series B. Your budget is pre-seed. Most founders try to close that gap by competing on salary. The best ones don’t. Instead, they reshape the offer.”
Come here and build something that wouldn’t exist without you. Come here and your work will move the number every week. Come here and grow faster than anywhere else.
“This is how you hire 10x operators long before you can match 10x salaries.”
It sounds lovely doesn’t it, easy, inspiring, even. And if you’ve never actually had to hire, or compete for, true high-impact operators in the wild, it might even feels plausible.
But here’s the problem.
Every founder says this. Every founder believes it. And every 10x candidate has heard it 200 times.
After more than a decade hiring for VC-backed cleantech startups and scaleups, from Seed through Series D, I can say confidently:
Top talent is not swayed by inspirational slogans or founder pitches, not without more substance. They’ve heard them all before. From everyone. Many, many times.
Most founders often genuinely believe that their “Come here and build something special” pitch is unique. It never is.
If you think this messaging is your secret weapon, here’s a useful comparison:
Imagine if fundraising worked like this, how would this pitch work do you think?
Invest here and build something that wouldn’t exist without you. Invest here and your money will move the number every week. Invest here and grow faster than anywhere else.
Cool, here, have some money!!! Not likely! As advice goes… utterly useless.
VCs need diligence, evidence, a thesis, a team, traction, comparables, risk assessment, clarity of strategy, and a believable pathway to scale. Hiring great talent is no different.
The Hard Truth: Hiring 10x Operators Is Not Easy
In cleantech especially, the market is brutally competitive, even in a soft market like now. Good operators are rare. Great operators are unicorns. And everyone wants them.
A strong mission matters. The chance to build something meaningful matters. But these alone do not close the gap between “Series B ambition” and “pre-seed budget.”
What does?
- A compelling equity story grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.
- Evidence you can execute.
- A leadership team that communicates with clarity and humility.
- A culture that isn’t chaos disguised as speed.
- A role with real scope, not a job held together by hope.
- A hiring process that reflects the above, and yes, credible compensation.
The Real Opportunity for Founders
If you’re genuinely trying to recruit top-tier talent, here’s what works:
1. Be honest about your stage and challenges
A-players can smell spin a mile off. Authenticity builds trust.
2. Show the real “why now?”
Why this market, this moment, this model? What’s the wedge? What’s defensible?
3. Make equity meaningful
Not symbolic. Not a rounding error. Genuine shared upside.
4. Demonstrate your learning curve
Great talent joins great learners. Not infallible founders.
5. Move fast, but thoughtfully
The best candidates don’t wait. But they also expect professionalism, preparation, and respect. Momentum in a hiring process is critical, as is the process as a whole.
6. Bring in experts when needed
Just as early-stage fundraising needs experienced guidance, so does hiring. (And yes—an experienced search partner can make the difference between hiring a unicorn and hiring someone who sounds like one.)
Because if hiring 10x talent were as simple as saying “build something with us”…
We’d have a lot more unicorns.
If it were easy, the executive search industry wouldn’t be worth $58 Billion annually*
For useful advice, speak to people who recruit top talent on a daily basis, like Hyperion for example, as so many VCs and Founders already do.
David
* Mordor Intelligence