Recruit a CEO
Building a team at the start is really hard.
I'm not talking about a venture-backed startup with a funding round and an office. I mean starting an ordinary business, where there's an idea, a bit of money and you. No team, no revenue, and no relevant experience either. No attractive salary or stock options that will be worth something tomorrow, either.
When a company is already up and running, the person joining is confident that it won't shut down tomorrow and that everyone will get paid; there's a sense of stability — that if they do a good job, they'll have a steady salary, bonuses and career growth. I know from experience that this feeling is deceptive, but everyone has it. At the start, though, everyone is for some reason very scared, so they all try to go part-time, keep doing their own things on the side, hold on to a second income, and so on. Many also try to tilt the split towards a bigger fixed part, without understanding that what matters to an entrepreneur is the ratio between the value an employee brings and what they're paid, not what share of it is variable.
The first ones always have to sacrifice something ⚖️
To join a project like this, a person has to give something up: a stable job, their own business, their familiar life. And in return they get uncertainty. Nobody knows whether it will work out, me included.
That's why the first people aren't hired. They're persuaded to believe in the project and in you personally.
In Sri Lanka it's twice as hard 🏝
It seems easiest to look locally. But most people who already live on the island have their own projects, their own business, their own rhythm.
You can make a deal. But the person will be in your project on the side, not 100%.
So you need someone who's ready to move. And that's no longer about "quitting a job" but about "changing your whole life".
The blog helped ✍️
In one of my first posts, "The Birth of an Idea", I wrote about Max. We met at the IIDF accelerator in 2017, and then for years I went to his startup villas in Kaş. Max read the post and messaged me. We started writing to each other.
At the time he was working in Georgia: building a project at the Jewelberry glamping resort and, in parallel, working on a hot springs project. One thing led to another, and we agreed that he would take on Mirissa Y.
First time in Sri Lanka 🌴
We flew in together. For Max it was his first-ever trip to the island.
And we dived headfirst into everything right away: beaches and jungle, banks and paperwork, local people, the project itself.
Once again I realised:
1. Plenty of people have experience. Only a handful are willing to bet on an unknown project.
2. If someone has their own things going on in parallel, they can't run a project from scratch.
3. A blog is the best job ad. I never posted an ad saying "looking for a CEO". I just honestly talked about what I'm doing. And the right person found me on his own.
Have you ever had to persuade someone to drop everything and join your project? 👇
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I'm not talking about a venture-backed startup with a funding round and an office. I mean starting an ordinary business, where there's an idea, a bit of money and you. No team, no revenue, and no relevant experience either. No attractive salary or stock options that will be worth something tomorrow, either.
When a company is already up and running, the person joining is confident that it won't shut down tomorrow and that everyone will get paid; there's a sense of stability — that if they do a good job, they'll have a steady salary, bonuses and career growth. I know from experience that this feeling is deceptive, but everyone has it. At the start, though, everyone is for some reason very scared, so they all try to go part-time, keep doing their own things on the side, hold on to a second income, and so on. Many also try to tilt the split towards a bigger fixed part, without understanding that what matters to an entrepreneur is the ratio between the value an employee brings and what they're paid, not what share of it is variable.
The first ones always have to sacrifice something ⚖️
To join a project like this, a person has to give something up: a stable job, their own business, their familiar life. And in return they get uncertainty. Nobody knows whether it will work out, me included.
That's why the first people aren't hired. They're persuaded to believe in the project and in you personally.
In Sri Lanka it's twice as hard 🏝
It seems easiest to look locally. But most people who already live on the island have their own projects, their own business, their own rhythm.
You can make a deal. But the person will be in your project on the side, not 100%.
So you need someone who's ready to move. And that's no longer about "quitting a job" but about "changing your whole life".
The blog helped ✍️
In one of my first posts, "The Birth of an Idea", I wrote about Max. We met at the IIDF accelerator in 2017, and then for years I went to his startup villas in Kaş. Max read the post and messaged me. We started writing to each other.
At the time he was working in Georgia: building a project at the Jewelberry glamping resort and, in parallel, working on a hot springs project. One thing led to another, and we agreed that he would take on Mirissa Y.
First time in Sri Lanka 🌴
We flew in together. For Max it was his first-ever trip to the island.
And we dived headfirst into everything right away: beaches and jungle, banks and paperwork, local people, the project itself.
Once again I realised:
1. Plenty of people have experience. Only a handful are willing to bet on an unknown project.
2. If someone has their own things going on in parallel, they can't run a project from scratch.
3. A blog is the best job ad. I never posted an ad saying "looking for a CEO". I just honestly talked about what I'm doing. And the right person found me on his own.
Have you ever had to persuade someone to drop everything and join your project? 👇