Top 5 'Co-Builder' Hiring Frameworks to master for Your First 10 Hires in 2025 - Goh Ling Yong
Hiring your first employee is terrifying. Hiring your first ten? That’s an act of company creation that will define your trajectory for the next decade. Get it right, and you build an unstoppable force. Get it wrong, and you're stuck in a cycle of micromanagement, missed deadlines, and cultural rot that can kill your startup before it ever truly lives.
The fundamental mistake most founders make is that they hire to delegate tasks. They’re looking for a "coder," a "marketer," or a "salesperson." But in the early days, you aren't hiring employees; you're recruiting co-builders. These individuals don't just execute a pre-defined role. They build the role, the team, and the company alongside you. They thrive in chaos, take ownership of outcomes, and care as much about the mission as you do.
To find these rare gems, you need to throw out the traditional playbook of resume-sifting and generic interview questions. Instead, you need a set of frameworks designed specifically to identify the co-builder mindset. These are systems that move beyond what a candidate says they can do and reveal what they’ve actually done and how they think. Here are the top five co-builder hiring frameworks you need to master for your first ten hires in 2025.
1. The MOC (Mission, Outcomes, and Competencies) Framework
Before you even think about writing a job description, you need to define the role with ruthless clarity. The MOC framework forces you to do just that by breaking it down into three critical components: Mission, Outcomes, and Competencies. This isn't about listing daily responsibilities; it's about defining success.
First, the Mission. This is the "why." Why does this role exist? What is its core purpose within the company? It should be a single, inspiring sentence that connects the role directly to the company's overarching goals. Second, the Outcomes. These are the "what." What must this person achieve in their first 3, 6, or 12 months to be considered a smashing success? These should be specific, measurable, and time-bound results, not vague duties like "manage social media." Finally, the Competencies. This is the "how." What skills, traits, and behaviors are absolutely essential for achieving those outcomes? This goes beyond technical skills to include things like "ambiguity tolerance" or "scrappy problem-solving."
Building a clear MOC is the foundation for your entire hiring process. It becomes the source of truth for your job description, your interview questions, and your final decision-making. It ensures everyone on the interview panel is looking for the same things and prevents you from being swayed by a candidate's charisma over their actual ability to deliver.
Actionable Tips:
- Example MOC for a "Founding Marketer":
- Mission: To build and validate our initial customer acquisition engine, proving we can attract and convert our ideal customer profile.
- Outcomes (First 90 Days):
- Generate the first 100 qualified leads through one primary marketing channel.
- Achieve a 5% lead-to-customer conversion rate.
- Create and publish 10 pieces of foundational content (blog posts, case studies).
- Competencies:
- Experimentation Mindset: Demonstrates a history of running small, fast tests to find what works.
- Resourcefulness: Can achieve significant results with a tiny budget.
- Compelling Copywriting: Able to write clear, persuasive copy that drives action.
- Customer Obsession: Deeply curious about the target audience and their pain points.
2. The Scorecard Method: Data-Driven Decision Making
If the MOC framework is your blueprint, the Scorecard Method is your measurement tool. Popularized by Geoff Smart and Randy Street in the book Who, a scorecard is a formal document that crystallizes your MOC and turns it into an objective evaluation system. It prevents the all-too-common hiring mistake of relying on "gut feel" or liking the person you’d most want to have a beer with.
The scorecard lists the role's mission and the top 3-5 measurable outcomes you defined. For each outcome, you specify the exact metric for success. Beneath that, you list the 5-8 core competencies required for the role. During the hiring process, every single interviewer rates the candidate on a simple scale (e.g., 1-5 or A/B/C) for each competency, providing specific evidence from the interview to back up their rating.
This structured approach forces a disciplined, data-driven conversation. Instead of a post-interview debrief that sounds like, "I really liked her energy," it becomes, "For the 'Grit' competency, I'd rate her a 5. She gave a clear example of how she single-handedly salvaged a failing project by working weekends for a month. For 'Strategic Thinking,' however, I'd rate her a 2. She struggled to articulate the high-level business impact of her previous work." This process surfaces misalignment among interviewers and focuses the discussion on what truly matters: the candidate's ability to do the job and succeed.
Actionable Tips:
- Create Your Scorecard Template: Use a simple spreadsheet with columns for Competency, Rating (1-5), and Evidence/Notes. Share this with every interviewer.
- Score Independently First: Instruct interviewers to complete their scorecards before the debrief meeting. This prevents groupthink, where the most senior or loudest person in the room sways the opinion of others.
- Focus on the "A-Players": The goal of the scorecard is to identify "A-Players," candidates who rank highly (4s and 5s) across most of your critical competencies. A candidate who is a "B" or "C" across the board might be good, but they are not the co-builder you need for your first ten hires.
3. The Abridged Topgrading Interview: Uncovering Patterns of Success
The full Topgrading methodology is a multi-hour marathon interview that can be overkill for a fast-moving startup. However, the core principle is pure gold for finding co-builders: a chronological deep-dive into a candidate's career to uncover patterns of behavior. A resume tells you what someone was responsible for; a Topgrading-style interview tells you what they actually achieved and how.
The process is simple. Start with their first relevant job and walk through their entire career, asking the same questions for each role:
- What were you hired to do?
- What were your proudest accomplishments?
- What were some of your low points or biggest mistakes?
- Who did you work with? What was it like working with your manager(s)?
- Why did you leave that role?
You're not just listening to the answers; you're looking for patterns. Does the candidate consistently take on more responsibility? Do they talk about "we" or "I" when describing accomplishments? Do they take ownership of their failures, or do they blame others? Is there a consistent pattern of running towards bigger challenges or away from difficult situations? This is where you separate the doers from the talkers. A true co-builder's story will be one of consistent impact, learning from failure, and proactive growth.
Actionable Tips:
- The Magic Question: For their most recent roles, ask: "When I call your former manager for a reference, how would they rate your performance on a scale of 1 to 10, and what reasons would they give for that score?" This forces a level of honesty and self-awareness you won't get from a standard question.
- Focus on the Transitions: Pay close attention to why they left each job. Are the reasons legitimate and reflect a desire for growth, or do they hint at an inability to handle conflict or a pattern of underperformance?
- Look for Consistency: A-Players are consistently A-Players. Their story should have a clear upward trajectory of impact and learning, even if it’s not a straight line up the corporate ladder.
4. The Work Sample Test: Audition, Don't Just Interview
Interviews are, at their core, a deeply flawed process. They test a candidate's ability to be good at interviews. The single best predictor of on-the-job performance is a small, relevant sample of their work. You wouldn’t hire a chef without tasting their food, so why would you hire a programmer without seeing their code, or a marketer without seeing how they think about a campaign?
A work sample test is a short, real-world project that mimics the kind of problems the candidate would solve in their first month. This isn't about getting free work; it's a paid, time-boxed "audition" to see how they think, communicate, and execute. As my friend and mentor Goh Ling Yong often emphasizes, the goal is to see a candidate's thought process in action, not just hear them talk about it. The output is important, but their process—the questions they ask, the assumptions they make, and how they present their solution—is even more revealing.
This approach is incredibly respectful of a candidate's time because it's directly relevant to the role. It cuts through the fluff and gives you a tangible signal of their capabilities. For the candidate, it provides a realistic preview of the job, which can be just as valuable for them in deciding if your company is the right fit.
Actionable Tips:
- Design a Relevant, Self-Contained Task:
- For a Sales Development Rep (SDR): "Here is our Ideal Customer Profile. Write three cold email variations you would use to book a meeting, and explain the thinking behind each."
- For a Product Manager: "Users are complaining about our onboarding flow. Spend 90 minutes analyzing the problem and write a 1-page brief outlining your proposed solution and how you would measure success."
- Set Clear Expectations and Pay Them: Clearly define the scope, the expected time commitment (ideally 2-4 hours), and the deliverable. And always, always offer to pay them for their time. It shows you value their work and sets a professional tone from day one.
- Evaluate the "How," Not Just the "What": Did they ask clarifying questions? Did they make reasonable assumptions? Was their work presented clearly and professionally? The meta-skills around the work are often as important as the work itself.
5. The Values & Culture Contribution Interview: Beyond the 'Beer Test'
Hiring for "culture fit" is a dangerous trap. It often becomes a lazy proxy for bias, leading founders to hire people who look, think, and act just like them. This creates a fragile monoculture. Instead, you should hire for culture contribution. The question isn't, "Will this person fit in?" but rather, "Does this person bring a perspective, skill, or background that will make our culture stronger, more resilient, and more innovative?"
To do this effectively, you must first codify your company's core values. These can't be generic words like "Integrity" or "Excellence" that hang on a poster. They must be specific, actionable, and non-negotiable principles that guide your decisions. For example, instead of "Teamwork," a more specific value might be "Disagree and Commit" or "Default to Transparency."
Once your values are defined, you design a specific interview focused solely on them. This interview uses behavioral questions to probe for past actions that demonstrate alignment with your values. You're not asking hypotheticals. You're digging for real-world stories that prove the candidate lives these values, not just agrees with them. This ensures your first ten hires don't just build your product; they build the cultural foundation of your entire company.
Actionable Tips:
- Translate Values into Behavioral Questions:
- Value: "Extreme Ownership"
- Question: "Tell me about a significant project you were on that failed. What was your specific role in that failure?" (Listen for blame vs. accountability).
- Value: "Bias for Action"
- Question: "Describe a time you saw an opportunity or problem and took initiative to address it without being asked. What did you do, and what was the result?"
- Assign a "Values Keeper": Have one person on the team who is a fantastic embodiment of your culture lead this interview for every candidate. They become the calibrated expert at spotting authenticity.
- Look for Diversity of Thought: A great culture contributor might challenge your assumptions and bring a different way of solving problems. Don't confuse disagreement with a poor values fit. Healthy debate, when rooted in shared principles, is a sign of a strong culture, not a weak one.
Your First Ten Hires Are Your Legacy
Building your founding team is the most critical project you will ever undertake as a founder. It's not a distraction from the "real work" of building a product; it is the real work. Each of your first ten hires represents a massive percentage of your company's total DNA. They will set the standards for performance, communication, and culture for everyone who follows.
By moving beyond traditional hiring and embracing structured frameworks like MOCs, Scorecards, Topgrading, Work Samples, and Values interviews, you transform hiring from a game of chance into a discipline. You replace guesswork with data, bias with objectivity, and hope with a repeatable system for finding true co-builders. These are the people who will run through walls with you and for you, turning your vision into a reality.
Now, I want to hear from you. What's the single best interview question you've ever used to separate a mere "employee" from a true "co-builder"? Share it in the comments below!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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