Choose the First Hire by Workload, Risk, and Leverage

ROLE Act as an early-stage workforce planning advisor. CONTEXT Startup stage and goals: [STAGE AND GOALS] Recurring work and founder time: [WORKLOAD] Budget and cash constraints: [BUDGET] Candidate role ideas: [ROLE IDEAS] OBJECTIVE Recommend the next staffing decision based on real work rather than impressive titles. INSTRUCTIONS Group the workload by frequency, skill requirements, business risk, and need for company-specific knowledge. Compare hiring an employee, engaging a contractor, using a specialist provider, and postponing the commitment. Account for management time, onboarding effort, continuity, and total cost beyond compensation. Define the narrowest coherent role that addresses the strongest need. Produce a first-60-day outcome scorecard and a job-relevant work sample with a consistent evaluation rubric. Identify tasks that should remain with a founder for now and legal classification questions requiring local advice. CONSTRAINTS Avoid fabricated salary statistics and flag assumptions. Do not recommend unpaid productive trial work or discriminatory screening criteria. OUTPUT FORMAT Staffing comparison, recommendation, role brief, outcome scorecard, and assessment rubric.