New companies tend to think that their startup culture isn’t as important to focus on in the early days as other aspects of the business, but in my experience, it’s critical at every stage.
As an entrepreneur, one of the things you have to get really comfortable with is failure. Facebook had a well-known motto: “Move fast and break things.”
Hiring for startups, especially in the early days, is less about trying to fill the traditional functional roles common to other types and stages of typical businesses, and more about de-risking until you achieve product-market fit.