[swivelmaster]

I'm going to disagree with some of the sentiments here. There are a number of tasks that you are more or less wasting your time on every day because you could hire people to do them, thus allowing you to free up your time to focus on what your competitive advantage is. It's really important that you called these things "chores." That says a lot about those tasks.

What you don't want is to hire a bunch of people you don't trust with any responsibility - that's a recipe for micromanagement, which is even more of a waste of time than doing the "chores" to begin with!

Take a long time to hire someone, but hire someone who can take the largest percentage possible of tasks off your plate. If you're worried about data loss, have backups. If you're worried about credentials, make separate accounts with different access. But you need someone who you can trust, who you feel like is smarter than you at some useful set of skills. Someone who is as passionate as you are about what you do, and hungry to make a good impression.

I was an early employee at a startup that was acquired less than two years after I joined. We grew from seven to seventy employees in about twenty months. My contact info is in my HN profile if you want to know more.

[techcorner]

But you need someone who you can trust, who you feel like is smarter than you at some useful set of skills.

Tell me a recipe to hire such a guy. Please.

Someone who is as passionate as you are about what you do

hmmm this is probably easier said than done.

[swivelmaster]

The recipe? It's not easy. It's all easier said than done.

But you already built a two-million-dollar-a-year business. Did you expect this to get easier? :)

It's probably not too hard to find someone who is better than you at server administration, and it may not be too difficult finding someone who is passionate about what you do. Finding someone who fits both categories is what makes it difficult.

There's a lot you can do to start looking. Define the job, all the responsibilities, technical requirements, etc. Post ads or fish around in your network. Ask who knows smart people. Make sure you're clear about what you do and that you're looking for someone with an interest in it.

It is possible to find someone who is the kind of geek who likes to get paid to solve the technical problems and will do a great job without caring about your mission - it's up to you whether or not that's an acceptable hire at this stage. (IMO it's usually not a good idea with the first few employees, but once you have more, it's okay as long as they're still a culture fit in other ways.)

If you find someone who is passionate and hungry but doesn't have all the skills, this is potentially a very good hire. Hire and train them, and eventually they'll get better than you at their area of expertise.

Most technical people won't have the EXACT experience you're looking for, so you have to think about gauging them by their potential to learn - look at past projects, ask questions that test their curiosity and ability to explain things, try explaining a new idea to them and see how quickly they pick it up and run with it.

This is one of my favorite parts of building a startup. I just quit my job to start one and I'm not at the phase of hiring yet (still doing everything myself, nothing to release yet), but I'm REALLY looking forward to it, assuming things go well enough to get there.