The Real Secret to a Successful Startup: Get Your First 10 Hires Exactly Right

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What is the best advice you would give for first-time founders of tech startups? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Gene Berdichevsky, Co-founder and CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies, on Quora:

Be observant, be curious, be ambitious. Dream big, plan bigger. It's more fun and often easier to solve the biggest, most technically challenging problems - one that is on the edge or ideally just beyond the edge of what people believe is solvable. Those kinds of problems often appear unsolvable and too daunting to even try. When you do this though, make sure beforehand that IF you were to solve that most technically challenging problem, the market will be very easy to sell into - it's a real shame if you do the impossible and still end up out of business.

The other thing I realized from day one is that the company is the people, and that the people you hire will define the company you build. Your team will define the culture, the environment, and the values of the organization. Once the company has grown, it's much harder to embed values at that point - your company's values have already been defined by the values of the individuals that you've hired. Therefore it's important to be extremely diligent in setting a high bar for excellence, understanding what motivates your team, and making sure their personal values align with the vision you have for the company. If you get the first 10 hires right, it'll give you a great chance to get the first 100 right - since that first team of 10 will have direct influence on hiring decisions. And if you get the first 100 right, the first 1,000 will follow, and so on.

But most importantly, make sure to find some time to enjoy the ride. It's so easy to get caught up in all of the problems and your fear of failure, and those are real concerns in the moment, but you don't get to go back and do it again. You'll never be in this same moment with your same great team doing the same thing, and it's important to remember to enjoy the learning process amidst all of the late nights and challenges and growing pains.

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